There’s no question that dreaming about someone you haven’t seen in a long time can feel like déjà vu.
But what if it’s a sign that they’re coming back into your life or want some form of contact?
Still, it can be a little disturbing to see people from your past pop up in your dreams without any real explanation.
In fact, if it does happen over and over again, then there are deeper meanings and interpretations of what this means for you.
Here are the top 9 reasons you’re dreaming of someone you haven’t seen in years.
1) You want closure and haven’t accepted their absence yet
It’s hard to accept the fact that someone isn’t physically in your life anymore and it doesn’t always get any easier with time, so your brain sometimes gives you weird dreams to help you accept that they’re not coming back.
When they’re not coming back, it’s as if you’re saying goodbye so that you can move on in life and make your own decisions.
It’s a sign that you’re ready to end the relationship and that it’s time for them to go.
These dreams help you either work through your feelings or accept the fact that they won’t be in your life anymore.
As the saying goes, “The mind is a powerful thing,” and it’s used to make sense of anything that isn’t right or normal.
2) You’re worried about their well-being.
You might be worried about the well-being of a person that you haven’t seen in a long time, either because you’ve heard they’re sick or in trouble.
This could be because the two of you were close in your past, so it’s natural to feel worried if things have changed for the worse and they haven’t reached out to you.
Or if someone died, your brain may try to imagine what happened to them and whether or not you should feel bad about their death.
Dreams of people who are sick or dying can be unnerving, so it’s best to try and remember what they look like in your dreams and let go of the dream as opposed to dwelling on the outcome.
3) You miss them but you’re too scared to reach out
Missing someone and having dreams about them are two very different things, but they both mean that you’re not ready to lose them just yet.
It’s safer to stay where you’re at, or even better in most cases – avoid going back to where you used to be.
This is especially true if the person in your dreams isn’t necessarily someone you want to see again or doesn’t want to be found.
This way, you don’t have to deal with your feelings about them and can just move into your new life.
Sometimes, when you’re missing someone and, dreaming about a spot where memories were made, it’s fated for your brain to dream about these old places and people that keep the two of you close.
4) You feel guilty for not calling them back or visiting them sooner
Guilt is another emotion that doesn’t just stop when your relationship with someone is over.
Sometimes, you think you’ve done something wrong or didn’t give someone enough attention and this can lead to guilt-filled dreams.
In this case, the dream may be reminding you that it’s important for you to keep in touch with them as much as possible, so you don’t feel bad about not being there for them when they need it most.
Dreams can be a very powerful way to share feelings by seeing someone or something in your dream and acting as a medium for your mind to deliver the message it’s trying to get across.
5) You’re worried about that person’s legacy and how they’ll be remembered
You might also dream of someone long gone because you want to make sure they get the credit they deserve.
You’re trying to preserve the memory of their life and what they’ve done for you and how it affected you.
Just as you want to protect your loved ones and be there for them in their time of need, this is another reason why your mind will bring them back into your dreams.
In this case, you may want to actually write down your dreams or take mental pictures of objects in your dream, so you have a record of them for later.
Maybe you’ll find they hold more hidden messages than you can fathom at the moment.
6) You feel a sense of urgency for the two of you to connect again
You’re dreaming about hanging out, or even going on a date with someone from your past, but you don’t know how to do it and it seems impossible at the moment.
There’s some level of hesitation where you’re worried about hurting their feelings, because they’re not as taken with you anymore.
If you know that it’s going to be almost impossible to get this person back into your life, then it’s best to just let them go and move on.
Think about your new life and make it the best it can be, so you don’t have to worry about what’s happening with the person you need to leave behind.
You can’t force this person into something they don’t want or make them fall in love with you if they don’t want to.
7) You’re finally over them and want to move on
If you’ve been dreaming about the same person for months on end, then it could be that you’re finally ready to move on from that relationship, friendship, or business deal.
As you start moving forward with your life and creating new memories, your brain will begin to put the old ones to rest. You need to let go of them as part of your new life.
This is also a sign that you’re finally ready for the old relationship to end and that you’re moving on from it with a happy new life.
It’s hard to let go of someone when you’re still hanging on to their memory, but if you see them in your dreams sometimes, then give yourself the nod and know that it’s time to finally move forward.
You can do this!
8) You’re trying to come to terms with their death
You might dream about someone before they died, but you’re still trying to sort out their death and how it all went down.
This can be a way for you to emotionally process what happened and grieve if you feel like something bad has taken place.
Remember that you’re grieving or still figuring out the details of what happened.
If you’re dreaming of someone who died, then there are probably some unresolved feelings you have about them or things they’ve said or done that still bother you.
You may want to work through these thoughts and find a way to come to terms with their death before you can truly move on.
The reason your brain gives you these dreams is that it’s trying to help you understand and deal with whatever pain you’re struggling with right now.
Let’s try and analyze these reasons a little further
We forget people all the time, especially if they haven’t been a part of our lives for long periods of time.
Everyone forgets someone every day and it’s nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed over.
It might also be that you’ve been very busy with other things and haven’t had the time to see them, yet your mind still has something to say about it.
Sometimes dreams are a way for us to sort through our troubles and find new ways of looking at things.
In these cases, the dream might be an important reminder that you need to get together again soon, or even take a break away from your daily schedule so you can get some much-needed time with your loved ones.
- Some dreams are just trying to work out a kink in your relationship and make you realize how important it is for you to spend more time with this person (and perhaps see them more often).
- If you’re dreaming about someone from your past, it might also be tied to them wanting to apologize for something or maybe they want you to fill them in on what’s been happening in your life.
- Another reason why you might do this is that you feel like you need closure with that person and you’re tired of being left hanging over what’s happened in the past.
If you feel like something has gone wrong in your relationship, then your brain will give you these dreams as a way to resolve what’s happened and move forward.
Dreaming of an old lover you haven’t seen in years
It’s normal to dream about people you haven’t seen in years, even if you used to be close. It’s usually because your brain is trying to work things out and fix your feelings for a certain person in your life.
This can be a way for you to learn more about the person, see what they’ve been doing, or figure out how things went sour between the two of you.
Sometimes dreaming about people you used to love deeply can be a way for your brain to let you know that it’s time for you to put things in perspective and learn from your past.
Don’t be afraid of your dreams no matter how silly they might seem. They’re trying to give you positive feedback about the direction of your life, so you can live it better than before.
We all have dreams about people we haven’t seen in years, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to reach out to them or try and get them back into your life.
Sometimes it’s just easier to let go of the past and look forward to creating a better future for yourself.
- Dreams about lovers from the past can also be a way for you to work out some of the old feelings you might have.
- You may have unresolved feelings about something or feel like they’ve done something wrong to you and it’s time to move on.
If this is the case, then it’s important that you remember who they are and what they’ve done to you so that you don’t repeat their mistakes in the future.
Dreaming of a colleague you haven’t seen in years
Dreaming about a colleague you haven’t seen in years can be a way for your brain to help you deal with the changes happening in your life and how they’re affecting you in the workplace.
For example, if this person has moved up the ranks at their job and you feel like they’ve left you behind, then it might be hard to cope with that because it’s something that makes them different from everyone else.
On the other hand, if you haven’t seen this person because they moved away, then your brain will bring them back into your dreams so you can work this out and come to terms with it before you see them again.
For example, if they were in love with you before they left but weren’t able to tell you before they moved far away, then the dream might be a way for them to apologize for being too shy to say something in real life.
Dreaming of a family member you haven’t seen in years
In most cases, if you haven’t seen someone in a while, then it’s because they’ve moved away and you’re too busy to visit.
However, there are times when dreams of people we’re close to can be a way for our brain to let us know that our life is in need of some serious changes.
In many cases, the reason why your dreams of family members are so repetitive is that your brain is trying to tell you something about yourself.
In most instances, if you dream of your family members a lot, then it might be a way for your subconscious to help you work through some of life’s big issues.
The reason why these dreams are so important is that they’re helping you to get in touch with your emotions and resolve what’s going on internally.
Dreaming of a friend who has passed away
Sometimes our dreams can seem so real that we might have a hard time distinguishing between what’s real and what isn’t.
If someone has recently passed away and you’re still in the grieving process, then it’s normal for you to keep seeing them in your dreams.
This can be a way for you to resolve some of your unresolved feelings and work through these things before starting the healing process.
It’s also a way for your brain to help you feel like they’re still around, even if they’re not.
But I get it, dreaming of somebody who has passed away can be hard, especially if you’ve been in a tense emotional state already.
If that’s the case, I highly recommend watching this free breathwork video, created by the shaman, Rudá Iandê.
Rudá isn’t another self-professed life coach. Through shamanism and his own life journey, he’s created a modern-day twist to ancient healing techniques.
After many years of suppressing my emotions, Rudá’s dynamic breathwork flow quite literally revived that connection.
And that’s what you need:
A spark to reconnect you with your feelings so that you can begin focusing on the most important relationship of all – the one you have with yourself.
So, if you’re ready to take back control over your mind, body, and soul, if you’re ready to say goodbye to anxiety and stress, check out his genuine advice below.
Here’s a link to the free video again.
Dreaming of an old high school classmate
If you used to be close in high school, or maybe you had some emotional connection to them, then it’s normal for your dreams to feel a lot like the real world.
This is why you dream about some things that might seem silly to others, but only you know what it was like to be at school with them.
Dreaming of a high school classmate can often be a way for your brain to help you get over your feelings for him or her. This is especially true if the two of you were close and perhaps even in love with each other before high school ended.
Dreams about graduation normally symbolize how you feel about not being able to celebrate this milestone with this person.
This is because your brain patterns and thoughts are stuck in the past and your subconscious is still trying to make sense of things that happened.
In most cases, dreams about people from the past provide us with a way for our subconscious to help us deal with these issues and move on from our way of life.
Final thoughts
Sometimes dreams are only trying to work things out in your mind because we forget things or get distracted by other people’s issues, which leaves us feeling confused as we move forward with our life.
Dreams aren’t always something bad and they want to help us sort through the troubles of our daily lives so that we can understand what’s really going on inside our minds.
If you’re having trouble understanding your dreams or you’re still unsure about anything in your life, then don’t hesitate to reach out for some professional help so that you can start working through the issues that are causing this in the first place.
This can help you get all of your thoughts out of your head and in a space where you can finally work through them and decide what to do about them.
