It is sometimes a disturbing dream: to be a spectator and protagonist at the same time of a dream. You can perceive what is happening, but you do not experience it in the first person, but as a third party watching a movie.
When you dream of yourself, it is indicative of a personal part that needs to get out. It is a form of expression used by dreams to show the part of you that wants to come out.
In many of the dreams in which you see yourself, the performance of your other self is very different from the usual behavior that you maintain; This is a very clear sign of a personality, or facet of you that needs to be explored and seeks its own space within your daily life.
Dreaming of yourself is undoubtedly a very special experience; really one of the most curious and bizarre things that can happen in dreams.
Seeing another yourself in front of you, your clone or lookalike, will make you feel strange and disoriented.
The amazement that is felt is very great, so much so as to cause in most cases a sudden awakening due to the alienating sensation that such a vision arouses.
Seeing yourself in a dream can happen in various ways, from the most ‘ordinary’ ones (e.g., seeing yourself in the mirror) to the most ‘extraordinary’ and unusual ones (seeing yourself from an external point of view, from above while you sleep, or at a certain point in the dream to meet another yourself, a double equal and identical to you).
In any case, a dream in which you have the opportunity to observe yourself is certainly noteworthy, indeed, very important; in fact it concerns the relationship with your ego, your identity, your conscience.
Leaving aside for the moment the dreams in which you look in the mirror, here I want to consider precisely those most unusual and upsetting dreams, those in which you find yourself face to face with another yourself.
Dreaming of meeting your double, another yourself means that at some point in the dream you find yourself unexpectedly in front of another person equal and identical to you, as if it were a clone, a double or a ‘twin’ which in reality does not exist.
This ‘double’ of yours has a real and concrete appearance, and moves independently of you; it has its own will and freedom of thought and action.
Probably at first his figure appears to you in the shade, hidden, from behind, or in any case indefinite; it looks familiar, but you don’t pay much attention to it; slowly, however, observing her better, you realize that that person is really you!
Incredulous, you look better, you scrutinize all the details, because it seems impossible to you; but you have to surrender to the evidence: that person is just like you. This usually comes as a big surprise, if not a real shock.
Sometimes your double acts as if it hasn’t even seen you, other times it watches you motionless; but it can also talk to you and interact with you.
According to popular tradition, dreaming of oneself is a bad omen, it announces misfortunes and death.
So it is also said of those who see their double in real life, therefore not in a dream, but when awake; it’s like having a vision, an apparition of a ghost or spirit with an appearance identical to yourself.
He can appear next to you, by your side; or he can also manifest himself in a place very far from you: there will be people who will claim to have seen you in a place at a time when you were somewhere else (bilocation).
In the German language this particular apparition is called “Doppelgänger” (or ‘the double walking side by side’), a word that has now come into use precisely to refer to the ghostly double of oneself.
doppelganger, the “double walking side by side” Folklore and literature have handed down many stories and legends according to which the Doppelgänger appears to people to announce their imminent death, or at least in conjunction with a great danger that concerns them personally.
Or again, it is said that the Doppelgänger of the deceased was seen attending the funeral, carrying the coffin, eating with the diners, etc.
Many famous people had a vision of their Doppelgänger before he died: among them, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who one day saw him close to him, on the beach: he pointed his finger towards the waves of the sea without saying anything; in that sea Shelley drowned about a month later.
The ‘double’ can also appear to a person’s family members in conjunction with his or her death, or with a misfortune that hits him hard; for example, the poet John Donne saw his wife’s Doppelgänger when she had an abortion; he, who was in Paris at the time, saw her wife (or rather, his ‘double’) crossing the room with a dead baby in her arms.
The theme of the double, from Romanticism to the present day, has been developed several times; the double is often an antagonist, an impostor, the embodiment of the protagonist’s conscience, something that haunts him and that in the end can lead him to madness and death (“William Wilson”, “The Impersonator”, “The Portrait of Dorian Gray “,” The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide “,” The late Mattie Pascal “, etc.).
Cinema and comics have also revived the theme of the double with ordinary people who turn into superheroes (Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Hulk, etc.).
The theme of the double is much explored because it reflects the psychic condition of modern man, often in an identity crisis, torn by opposing tendencies, torn between being and appearing.
As an example of the ‘uncanny’ (Heimlich), that is, that feeling of restlessness and discomfort that occurs when you observe something that seems both alien and familiar at the same time. The ‘uncanny’ is what “was previously hidden but now comes out into the open”; it is the complex that we had overcome but that returns, and that is why it disturbs us, disgusts us and annoys us. It is the unconscious, or, in Jungian terms, the Shadow that manifests itself.
The ‘double walking side by side’ is connected to the concept of Shadow, evil twin (‘bad twin’), antagonist, but also to the Soul and the Guardian Angel.
Sometimes the Doppelgänger can present himself as a comforting and reassuring figure, but more often he is perceived as ‘bad’; because if on the one hand the idea of having a ‘double’ that survives us can reassure us, on the other it reminds us that we are destined to die, and this bothers us.
Narcissism is also linked to the theme of the double: excessive and exclusive self-love is possible because the defects and negative sides of the personality are discharged onto the ‘evil double’, which remains relegated to the unconscious; Narcissus thus sees only the beautiful image of himself, the one he loves blindly.
I really like the theme of the double, and I could still say many things, but the post would become too long, so I’ll stop here.
However, returning to your dream, you will see that all this information can help you better understand its meaning.
In a dream I met myself. As such. At least as far as I can recognize myself in appearance and behavior. It is not so common to find yourself in front of yourself. Often we psychologists gradually push the patient to put himself in the other’s shoes.
A not insignificant mental operation. It is a process of metacognition to observe oneself from the outside and try to understand the other’s point of view as well.
But meeting yourself is something different because you discover for example what effect you have in those first seconds that many researches indicate as essential if not definitive on the judgment we make of a new person at the first meeting (examples of research here, here or here) .
Inside the dream the “you” number 2 or number 1 (who knows?) Does not stimulate me a reflection, an explanation.
All the trivial hypotheses – a double, a clone, and a neurological illusion – that you can make from the outside, that is, when you are awake, do not come to mind.
The whole impression is alive and altered as that of a dream can be, when you experience emotions that you have never experienced and probably will never feel again.
Here, I think this is a difficult exercise to do while awake. In fact, I advise you not to try. It is already difficult to try to put yourself in the other’s shoes, let alone invent a double of yourself.
Maybe guess that you are an affable or unbearable person, having grasped that sensation that those who meet you (for the first time or for a long time does not matter) inexorably experience. It would be a shock. Your mind is made to handle other minds not itself. At the most, when it turns its attention to itself it dissociates itself.
And it is also true that the sense of self-possession, the fact of feeling the owner of oneself and one’s dreams, are psychological processes too powerful to leave room for dreams. The dream I had often ends in a sense of control. You cannot meet yourself.
You cannot know yourself. Socrates with his famous phrase “know yourself” was not very good with mankind, indeed it had the effect of a Western nightmare. It is complicated enough to stay in reality – which you have borrowed from your consciousness and memory – rather than in someone else’s diabolical dream.
Not always if you have dreamed of dying, the meaning coincides with a fall into “deep” nothing. This dream, in fact, can be associated with the conclusion of a phase of life and the beginning of a new one, becoming the metaphor for a change.
Therefore, its meaning could indicate a distortion from your normality. Maybe with a new job, a happy family event or many other possibilities.
Warning: it is true that death is not always a bad omen, but dreaming of dying can become a warning. Think back to how you have been carrying out your life lately, if you are engaging in risky behaviors or behaviors that can compromise your health. Your dream could represent a warning from your unconscious.
Fear of dying: For most people, their greatest fear is dying. This fear is absolutely normal, but it can come to condition to the point of erroneously predicting one’s death in sleep.
Overwhelming situation: there are some contexts in which dreaming of dying becomes a metaphor for what you are experiencing while awake, or an extreme condition of anxiety and stress, in which you feel oppressed and you have the impression of not breathing.
Being overwhelmed by a wave or finding yourself with water in your throat is a dream that certainly cannot fail to put a certain amount of anxiety in those who do it.
Probably, those who have dreamed of drowning are struggling with a particularly difficult period of their life.
The dreamer feels oppressed by a situation that he cannot manage and that takes his breath away.
In the dream world, fire is a symbol of the most ardent passions and feelings, such as passionate love or anger.
However, if you dream of dying burned, the meaning of death must be taken into account in order to give the right interpretation of the dream.
It represents a condition that has occurred in the last period, such as, for example, a quarrel or a heated discussion, which literally made your blood boil.
An interesting characteristic of this kind of dreams is that you understand that you are not in a real situation and you are going to look for ways to wake up from the fantasy of the dream.
In both men and women, seeing oneself in dreams denotes the desire to achieve something that completes them, that leads them to success and happiness, that is, part of these dreams is rooted in unconscious frustration.
Now, there is a variable of the dream with oneself, and that is to see yourself reflected in a mirror.
When this is the vision you have of yourself in dreams, it means that you see yourself idealized, in the best of future scenarios, with an image and an integral being coupled with what you want your life to be.
If the image you see in the mirror is one of illness or aging, it means that you fear for your physical integrity or your health; it would be interesting if you clarify your doubts about it with a doctor, as it is a warning sign of your unconscious against the strength of your body.
When you dream of yourself, it is indicative of a personal part that needs to get out. It is a form of expression used by dreams to show the part of you that wants to come out.
In many of the dreams in which you see yourself, the performance of your other self is very different from the usual behavior that you maintain; This is a very clear sign of a personality, or facet of you that needs to be explored and seeks its own space within your daily life.
Dream of Seeing Yourself – Meaning
Dreaming of yourself is undoubtedly a very special experience; really one of the most curious and bizarre things that can happen in dreams.
Seeing another yourself in front of you, your clone or lookalike, will make you feel strange and disoriented.
The amazement that is felt is very great, so much so as to cause in most cases a sudden awakening due to the alienating sensation that such a vision arouses.
Seeing yourself in a dream can happen in various ways, from the most ‘ordinary’ ones (e.g., seeing yourself in the mirror) to the most ‘extraordinary’ and unusual ones (seeing yourself from an external point of view, from above while you sleep, or at a certain point in the dream to meet another yourself, a double equal and identical to you).
In any case, a dream in which you have the opportunity to observe yourself is certainly noteworthy, indeed, very important; in fact it concerns the relationship with your ego, your identity, your conscience.
Leaving aside for the moment the dreams in which you look in the mirror, here I want to consider precisely those most unusual and upsetting dreams, those in which you find yourself face to face with another yourself.
Dreaming of meeting your double, another yourself means that at some point in the dream you find yourself unexpectedly in front of another person equal and identical to you, as if it were a clone, a double or a ‘twin’ which in reality does not exist.
This ‘double’ of yours has a real and concrete appearance, and moves independently of you; it has its own will and freedom of thought and action.
Probably at first his figure appears to you in the shade, hidden, from behind, or in any case indefinite; it looks familiar, but you don’t pay much attention to it; slowly, however, observing her better, you realize that that person is really you!
Incredulous, you look better, you scrutinize all the details, because it seems impossible to you; but you have to surrender to the evidence: that person is just like you. This usually comes as a big surprise, if not a real shock.
Sometimes your double acts as if it hasn’t even seen you, other times it watches you motionless; but it can also talk to you and interact with you.
According to popular tradition, dreaming of oneself is a bad omen, it announces misfortunes and death.
So it is also said of those who see their double in real life, therefore not in a dream, but when awake; it’s like having a vision, an apparition of a ghost or spirit with an appearance identical to yourself.
He can appear next to you, by your side; or he can also manifest himself in a place very far from you: there will be people who will claim to have seen you in a place at a time when you were somewhere else (bilocation).
In the German language this particular apparition is called “Doppelgänger” (or ‘the double walking side by side’), a word that has now come into use precisely to refer to the ghostly double of oneself.
doppelganger, the “double walking side by side” Folklore and literature have handed down many stories and legends according to which the Doppelgänger appears to people to announce their imminent death, or at least in conjunction with a great danger that concerns them personally.
Or again, it is said that the Doppelgänger of the deceased was seen attending the funeral, carrying the coffin, eating with the diners, etc.
Many famous people had a vision of their Doppelgänger before he died: among them, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who one day saw him close to him, on the beach: he pointed his finger towards the waves of the sea without saying anything; in that sea Shelley drowned about a month later.
The ‘double’ can also appear to a person’s family members in conjunction with his or her death, or with a misfortune that hits him hard; for example, the poet John Donne saw his wife’s Doppelgänger when she had an abortion; he, who was in Paris at the time, saw her wife (or rather, his ‘double’) crossing the room with a dead baby in her arms.
The theme of the double, from Romanticism to the present day, has been developed several times; the double is often an antagonist, an impostor, the embodiment of the protagonist’s conscience, something that haunts him and that in the end can lead him to madness and death (“William Wilson”, “The Impersonator”, “The Portrait of Dorian Gray “,” The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide “,” The late Mattie Pascal “, etc.).
Cinema and comics have also revived the theme of the double with ordinary people who turn into superheroes (Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Hulk, etc.).
The theme of the double is much explored because it reflects the psychic condition of modern man, often in an identity crisis, torn by opposing tendencies, torn between being and appearing.
As an example of the ‘uncanny’ (Heimlich), that is, that feeling of restlessness and discomfort that occurs when you observe something that seems both alien and familiar at the same time. The ‘uncanny’ is what “was previously hidden but now comes out into the open”; it is the complex that we had overcome but that returns, and that is why it disturbs us, disgusts us and annoys us. It is the unconscious, or, in Jungian terms, the Shadow that manifests itself.
The ‘double walking side by side’ is connected to the concept of Shadow, evil twin (‘bad twin’), antagonist, but also to the Soul and the Guardian Angel.
Sometimes the Doppelgänger can present himself as a comforting and reassuring figure, but more often he is perceived as ‘bad’; because if on the one hand the idea of having a ‘double’ that survives us can reassure us, on the other it reminds us that we are destined to die, and this bothers us.
Narcissism is also linked to the theme of the double: excessive and exclusive self-love is possible because the defects and negative sides of the personality are discharged onto the ‘evil double’, which remains relegated to the unconscious; Narcissus thus sees only the beautiful image of himself, the one he loves blindly.
I really like the theme of the double, and I could still say many things, but the post would become too long, so I’ll stop here.
However, returning to your dream, you will see that all this information can help you better understand its meaning.
Dream of Seeing Yourself – Symbolism
In a dream I met myself. As such. At least as far as I can recognize myself in appearance and behavior. It is not so common to find yourself in front of yourself. Often we psychologists gradually push the patient to put himself in the other’s shoes.
A not insignificant mental operation. It is a process of metacognition to observe oneself from the outside and try to understand the other’s point of view as well.
But meeting yourself is something different because you discover for example what effect you have in those first seconds that many researches indicate as essential if not definitive on the judgment we make of a new person at the first meeting (examples of research here, here or here) .
Inside the dream the “you” number 2 or number 1 (who knows?) Does not stimulate me a reflection, an explanation.
All the trivial hypotheses – a double, a clone, and a neurological illusion – that you can make from the outside, that is, when you are awake, do not come to mind.
The whole impression is alive and altered as that of a dream can be, when you experience emotions that you have never experienced and probably will never feel again.
Here, I think this is a difficult exercise to do while awake. In fact, I advise you not to try. It is already difficult to try to put yourself in the other’s shoes, let alone invent a double of yourself.
Maybe guess that you are an affable or unbearable person, having grasped that sensation that those who meet you (for the first time or for a long time does not matter) inexorably experience. It would be a shock. Your mind is made to handle other minds not itself. At the most, when it turns its attention to itself it dissociates itself.
And it is also true that the sense of self-possession, the fact of feeling the owner of oneself and one’s dreams, are psychological processes too powerful to leave room for dreams. The dream I had often ends in a sense of control. You cannot meet yourself.
You cannot know yourself. Socrates with his famous phrase “know yourself” was not very good with mankind, indeed it had the effect of a Western nightmare. It is complicated enough to stay in reality – which you have borrowed from your consciousness and memory – rather than in someone else’s diabolical dream.
Not always if you have dreamed of dying, the meaning coincides with a fall into “deep” nothing. This dream, in fact, can be associated with the conclusion of a phase of life and the beginning of a new one, becoming the metaphor for a change.
Therefore, its meaning could indicate a distortion from your normality. Maybe with a new job, a happy family event or many other possibilities.
Warning: it is true that death is not always a bad omen, but dreaming of dying can become a warning. Think back to how you have been carrying out your life lately, if you are engaging in risky behaviors or behaviors that can compromise your health. Your dream could represent a warning from your unconscious.
Fear of dying: For most people, their greatest fear is dying. This fear is absolutely normal, but it can come to condition to the point of erroneously predicting one’s death in sleep.
Overwhelming situation: there are some contexts in which dreaming of dying becomes a metaphor for what you are experiencing while awake, or an extreme condition of anxiety and stress, in which you feel oppressed and you have the impression of not breathing.
Being overwhelmed by a wave or finding yourself with water in your throat is a dream that certainly cannot fail to put a certain amount of anxiety in those who do it.
Probably, those who have dreamed of drowning are struggling with a particularly difficult period of their life.
The dreamer feels oppressed by a situation that he cannot manage and that takes his breath away.
In the dream world, fire is a symbol of the most ardent passions and feelings, such as passionate love or anger.
However, if you dream of dying burned, the meaning of death must be taken into account in order to give the right interpretation of the dream.
It represents a condition that has occurred in the last period, such as, for example, a quarrel or a heated discussion, which literally made your blood boil.
Conclusion
An interesting characteristic of this kind of dreams is that you understand that you are not in a real situation and you are going to look for ways to wake up from the fantasy of the dream.
In both men and women, seeing oneself in dreams denotes the desire to achieve something that completes them, that leads them to success and happiness, that is, part of these dreams is rooted in unconscious frustration.
Now, there is a variable of the dream with oneself, and that is to see yourself reflected in a mirror.
When this is the vision you have of yourself in dreams, it means that you see yourself idealized, in the best of future scenarios, with an image and an integral being coupled with what you want your life to be.
If the image you see in the mirror is one of illness or aging, it means that you fear for your physical integrity or your health; it would be interesting if you clarify your doubts about it with a doctor, as it is a warning sign of your unconscious against the strength of your body.