Reminiscences of love: Former romantic partners in dreams

Abstract

The present study analyzed the frequency of romantic partners in a long dream series (N = 10,952 dreams) during the relationship periods and long after the break-ups. During the relationship periods with different partners, about 6% to 23% of the dreams included the partner. During 2013 when the dreamer was single, 3.37% of the dreams included a former partner. The most important factor related to the frequency of the former partner in dreams was the percentage of partner dreams during the relationship, possibly reflecting relationship closeness. Future research can expand these findings and investigating factors affecting the frequency of former partners in dreams like relationship quality, quality of the break-up, keeping contact, etc.