When you dream, what gender are you? And did it change as you transitioned?
Since I came out I've actually been waking myself up with disphoria at finding my gender is male in my dreams! Every once in a while throughout my life I've had dreams where I was delighted to find I was a girl, but mostly up until know I hadn't noticed my own gender in dreams.
Now I'm feeling all "WFT subconscious! Get with the program!"
Has anyone else had a similar experience?
Did you gender while dreaming change to match as you transitioned?
Very rarely remember mine, but yes last few I've been male much to my dismay.
Changing lately, I regularly dream as a woman nowadays - often a kind of less-brutal Lara Croft adventuress :).
Thanks for your replies everyone.
I'm really quite curious now to see how common it is for peoples gener identity in dreams to change as they transition as that would seem to say something about the way dreams themselves work.
I would say about half the time I have no clear sense of my gender in a dream. Most of those are more like watching a movie, being detached from the action, not really a part of it. For the other half I'd give it an even split; male and female. It varies with my emotional state. More self loathing = more dreams as a male. Then along comes a dream as a female and life is suddenly looking up again. Conversly (and perversly) when life is going great, especially my part time one as female, more of my dreams are as a female. That is untill I get too scared, or upset, or some other monkey wrench gets tossed into the works to kick the balance the other way
I have pretty much always dreamed as male i have had maybe a handful of dreams as a female in my life. Growing up i was always a power ranger or a young indiana jones or something along those lines. Though the other day I had one where I was a girl part of the time it weirded me out and made me self conscious for a few days.
Gender rarely comes into my dreams. When I dream, I'm just me for the most part. The only times I can say for sure that gender even really made itself known I was male. In my most recent dream that had anything that I remember of my gender, I was a male detective trying to find a evil raccoon that was killing people. I was interviewing someone at their house and a topless woman walked out of the bedroom, and I looked away and quickly said "Sorry, Ma'am!" I remember seeing my reflection on something and thinking I really needed to shave. :laugh:
I do have ones where I think I am female, or where I am wearing clothes that I wore when I was presenting female, but mostly its just dreams about me being back in college.
Most of my dreams that I remember I start as my birth gender and then change to my preferred female gender. And then the rest of the dream carries on. Hopefully my life gets to mirror that :)
In most of my dreams I'm just me but with no gender identified. The other times when I see my gender in the dreams seems to go in cycles. For a while I mostly dreamed that I was female. Now it seems that I'm male in many of my dreams. I have no clue what causes the cycles - I wish I could get switched back to dreaming as a female!
Julie
Probably 60% female 40% male for me anyways. Dreams are weird that way.
Thanks everyone, this is really interesting to hear everyone's experiences.
I Tend to remember my dreams pretty vividly and a lot of them are from quite strange perspectives.
I've had some where I dreamt from the perspective of almost every character in a dream in sequence and lots from the "camera's" perspective (interest in film I guess).
While I'd always noticed when my body was different in the dream from in real life, I've only just started noticing when it's the same.
I find it reassuring to hear that there don't seem to be any real commonalities of experience here!
Quote from: Twyla on October 10, 2012, 11:08:03 AM
When you dream, what gender are you? And did it change as you transitioned?
Since I came out I've actually been waking myself up with disphoria at finding my gender is male in my dreams! Every once in a while throughout my life I've had dreams where I was delighted to find I was a girl, but mostly up until know I hadn't noticed my own gender in dreams.
Now I'm feeling all "WFT subconscious! Get with the program!"
Has anyone else had a similar experience?
Did you gender while dreaming change to match as you transitioned?
I now dream as I am living today. I know in my dreams I am "a transgendered women". I don't dream that I am a man but I don't dream I am female either..
Sometimes female, sometimes fox girl. Works out. The latter dreams are always more fun :3
Don't really remember my dreams so I couldn't tell you, but I don't think the gender in dreams is very important. I know some cis friends who dream as a different gender or a different person, heck I know one guy who has dreams as inanimate objects.
i usually don't assign myself any gender in my dreams. tonight i dreamed that i had long hair again, just in the color it is right now. it was nice, and genderless
but there have been dreams that weirded me out a little, like when i was a true hermaphrodite. or when i was in bed with a woman and suddenly noticed that my penis was gone. freaked me out enough that i woke up, and after staring at the ceiling for a minute or two, i finally remembered that i never had one to begin with. dreams are funny, and the scariest ones aren't when my body is weird, but when i attempt to prey on little kids. luckily those are rare, or i'd have to consider locking myself up
Most of the time, my gender is not obvious in my dreams. If the dream takes place in my past, I'll appear female in the sense that I'll have a bathing suit and use female locker rooms (I tend to go swimming a lot in my dreams..) or similar gender cues. In dreams that are more "current", I'll sometimes be conscious about being trans, as in being all conscious about having forgotten my binder etc. (You know those typical "going to work naked" dreams? My version of that is going outside topless, and when I realise I pretend like nothing while walking around with my arms crossed. Awkward. XD )
Gender has rarily played a part in my dreams. Most of the time I'm in my male form but at times I'm in my female form. It usually depend on what I've ben thinking about the past day. It's wierd.
Since I've been a kid, a lot of the times I've dreamed where I've been a woman and at times I've had dreams where I am both and some where I am genderless.
There are a few where I forced myself to imagine I was a guy and a few where I was a guy without forcing myself. In both cases, it was felt just plain weird and awkward, and made me wonder what the hell.
All depends on the dream honestly. Sometimes I am a female, but mostly I am a male.
Both. But I prefer to be a male in my dreams, it makes me feel happy and accepting of myself.
I used to dream very specifically an absence of physical sex, however a clearly female person. These days I seem to dream as being female with physical female body, especially in regards to those fun intimate scenarios that tend to pop up. What's frustrating however is that I experience a very real feeling of having specific anatomy (of which I do not have) being stimulated only to wake up to a "phantom" sensation like something is there that I cannot get to. Extremely irritating.
In my dreams, I rarely notice my gender. Whenever I do, it's because the fact I'm male is significant in making the dream a bad one, or I'm feeling gender dysphoria in the dream. But mostly, I don't even know who I am in my dreams.
Mostly I am dreaming as me, so can't really see, but if I do see myself it is as a woman exclusively now.
Mine almost always starts out being male,but during the dreams there is something that I have to complete as a male before I "change" into a female. They always end as me being female.
Just like in "reality"
I just see what's happening around me, I'm genderless spectator
So since posting this thread, I have found this last week I have either been female or myself a a child (male) in all dreams. I'm finding it interesting and hopeful that this change has occurred, like I 'm more "me" because of it :)
A few days ago I had a very frustrating dream of being female, I was getting intimate with a man & all was good, I felt every sensation, every kiss, every caress but then he tried to enter me & couldn't.
I woke up very frustrated
I am still really early in my quest to find my true indentiy.
However, most of my dreams are as male, but I notis that when I am in a periode of deap questionning, it also reflects in my dreams.
This week I had two dreams where I was in the transitionning process.
But I remember a dream that '' chocked'' me, as I was a child.
I was about 5 or 7 ( don't remember exactly) and I dreamed that I was in a special playground with a magic Slide. ;)
All the kids where climbing the slide genderless and sliding down eiter boy or girl.
When my turn came, I slided and became a boy, but I was then frustrated in the dream and trying to climb back to become a girl...
Well That is maybe my earlier recall of gender questionning.
I never spoke about it to my mother at that time and since, but I still remember this dream very vividly.
An other one was when I was older, maybe 12 or so, I dreamed of being with my brother but I had female genitalia, the fealling I had was really great, I felt amaizing.
;)
I haven't dreamed in months.. I don't remember ever having a gender in dreams, except for once where I dreamed I physically transitioned in about 10 seconds..
I realized that in dreams I have feminine voice I want and can squeak like a girl ;D that is only difference I have in dreams from this
It doesn't matter at all. We normally dream about friends and family, but what the dream message is trying to tell us is to look out for how you would label that friend and put yourself in their shoes. For example, if you have a friend who is usually a bit of a clown, always playing jokes, then usually the dream is pointing to the funny side to us (the dreamer) If you want to remember your dreams every morning, simply place a notebook and pencil by your bed and maybe write a question, after about 4 or 5 days you will be dreaming every morning always. You have to write down the dream within seconds of waking up. The hardest part is to understand the dream, because the message is coded. The dream books don't help much, because we are all different. You may dream of a snake, but the message won't be the same for someone who loves snakes, to someone who is petrified by them. As a quick guide if you dream of walking, driving, and transport, this usually refers to how your going in life. A train is fixed, so is more of a destiny. A bus is more sociable, while if someone is driving you in your car, then it means that they are controlling you. etc etc.
I am either my female self, or in the form of a female spirit watching my female self...
Prior to HRT in most of my dreasm i was not aware of being of any gender; however there would be this recurrent dream in which I was in a room with alarge mirror, naked, and when I look in the mirror I saw myself as a very voluptous woman, and I was like in extatic with joy.
After HRT I have not had that dream anymore, but I had dreams in wich I am a woman, myself
a bit of both normally depending on what was going on prior to sleeping. I've also been a bicycle a few times haha
Few hours ago I had some kind of a "dream" - like between dreaming and awake. It was blurry in a way. The only thing I remember was having turned into a girl (no visual or anything). I just knew it and there was this happy - tingling feeling all over my body. It was obviously wonderful but when I woke up I tried not to look at any mirrors lol
most of the time I have been just a vague and generic "me" in my dreams, but a few months after starting transition I did start having more dreams where gender mattered, where I started wearing the proper clothes, and sometimes even having dreams where being trans was important to the dream's plot(such as for some reason having a dream where I am bitching out some transphobe).
but I remember a dream when I had just realized I was trans, a silly teenager who had become convinced that transition was not a thing that was happening, in which I had obtained a magical ice cream that granted wishes. I wished to be a girl, and when I was transformed, started crying in joy. my tears woke me up and continued under a more melancholic emotion, realizing it was not real.
Hi all
When I was little as in 5or6 I had a reoccuring dream that I was a female and I was one of the models on a fashion show but I had a plaster cast on my leg up to my knee . I am now 41 and I remember it as if it was yesterday . Today I dreamt that I was in the area that I have been for most of my life around everyone I knew but I was transitioning and going out full time and I was at a wake following a funeral but every one knew I wasn't a woman but they didn't know who I was but everyone was nice to me . That one had obvious meanings but was weird all at the same time . I never see myself in dreams unless I'm female
I didn't normally pay much attention before realizing that I'm trans, but lately I've been noticing that I'm either myself currently with male anatomy, or how I want to look when I'm older after HRT, except naturally like that :P
I am mostly an impartial observer in my dreams, or just me, I often can't see my body the action just happens in front of me. When I was deeper in the closet and full of self loathing I had regular nightmarish dreams of being male. I would often be confined in some prison/military type situation and would often be forced to hurt others and myself. As I have worked on myself though those dreams turned to escape dreams where a guy, me kinda, is sacrificing himself to free a woman, definitely me. Those were pretty good. Over this past year or so of moving to total self acceptance I have had more dreams where I am only one person and that person is a woman. I love those dreams. Although I still have stress dreams where I am endeavoring to fullfill my expected biological role, especially related to the current overcompensating fallacies that I want to shed so badly. I much prefer my work stress dreams. Those have no real gender issues, they're just about me accidentally damaging art (I work in a museum as an art handler) through incompetence or chaos!
I've been having dreams lately where I'm further along in my transition than I am in real life! But I think I've never really been male in my dreams.. just me. :)
Wait, strike that.. I distinctly remember a dream, when I was small, where I pulled my male parts off. lol! I think it actually distressed me just because the imagery was so graphic and weird. But I wonder if this was an early dream manifestation of my Gender Dysphoria..
Hi Everyone.
I don't usually remember if I have a gender in my dreams, or it doesn't become apparent. When it does though, it has always been female. This was most apparent between age 19 to 27. During this time, which I joking call my broody years, I always felt like I should be having children, in the female sense, as you can imagine this was somewhat confusing. The dreams I remember the most are my birth dreams, these were just so vivid, I can remember everything, the pattern on the tiles, the colours, smells, the people who were there, the words said, everything, especially the face of my beautiful baby girl.
I was intersex at birth and made a boy, this is a long time ago, maybe its different than being dysphoric.
Heather.
Luv & Hugs for Everyone. :icon_bunch: :icon_bunch: :icon_bunch:
I've always been male in my dreams, but I just hadn't realised it until recently.
My gender has always been female. But the weird thing is that I'm obviously a guy till someone clearly states my gender to me. Like the other day I dreamed I was at a friends home and I had the voice, chest, lower parts, everything. In my dream my friends mom called me by my name and when I answered her, I was female again. I was confused for a while and when I woke up I checked myself to see if it was a dream. Another time I dreamed I was a guy all day until I went to the bathroom and saw my reflection in the mirror. I was a man in my dreams, you average 18 y/o guy, mustache and all, until I saw my reflection. I woke up crying that morning.
I had an awesome dream last night that I'd had my top surgery. I was really happy until I woke up.
when I was younger, it was just me. A real life replica of myself. Now it is 100% as female though. And very vivid dreams which my doctor said has to do with my HRT regimen.