Last night I had a dream where I was socially interacting as male, had male anatomy, etc. - it usually disturbs me when I wake up and realize my unconscious is operating this way, it feels like I don’t see myself as a woman, which is true on a conscious level but it’s painful when I don’t even see myself as a woman in my dreams.
Sometimes even before transition trans women see themselves as women in their dreams, and I marvel at that. I think part of my denial was integrating every internal part of me that felt female as being actually authentically male, that all men are actually feminine in this way or that. So the authentically feminine parts of me still feel “male”.
Anyway, I just wanted to do a quick poll and see:
(if any transmasc folks or enbies are reading this, I would love your input too, even though I’m using gendered language, I don’t mean to be excluding)
- did you have dreams where you were a woman before you transitioned?
- what was the process like of your internal concept changing as you transitioned?
- when did you start appearing as a woman in your dreams post-transition? (did the frequency increase post-transition, what was that change like?)
- how do you relate to your self-conception, does it disturb you to be a man in your dreams, is it a relief to be a woman in your dreams?
My dreams never were gendered on the self perspective. I suppose in my dream state, gender is not a thing I describe myself or others with. I don’t use pronouns at all in my dreams either, my language processing is completely asleep when dreaming.
I don’t have distinct memories of using gendered pronouns in my dreams, but I think that’s because such things are somewhat in the background. However, I have the impression that language is used, speaking happens, and even reading and writing words happens (though often distorted by the dreamy qualities, such as difficulty seeing and making out words, or the words morphing and changing or disappearing altogether as I try to read them).
That said, it’s clear to me what my gender was in my dream from the way I think about myself, the way I present myself, and so on. Since transitioning, increasingly in my dreams I become aware of my breasts and suddenly shift how I present in the world, and this shifting from male to female social roles based on body awareness is something that did not happen in my dreams pre-transition (no doubt because I didn’t really experience my body causing me to be gendered a different way in real life, I was always just “male” in body and social role).
What is interesting to me is that you don’t see the gender of others either - I feel as though my brain does a gendering and most people quickly are put in one box or another, and this is just as true in my dreams as in real life - in my dreams I certainly interact with men and women, even when I’m not particularly aware that the gendering is happening. If I think back on a dream I can think, oh, that was my mother in the dream (who I see as a woman, and who was just as much a woman to my awareness and mind in my dream as in real life, even if I was never particularly aware of that gendering happening).
Perhaps if I never pay attention to it, I could mistake myself for not gendering people, that I simply dream of my mother as the person they are without actually bringing gender into it at all - but I think this would be mistaking how I am actually thinking about such things, mistaking not paying particular attention for not having any awareness at all, even unconscious or subconscious awareness. Clearly in my dream I do not treat my mother like a man, I do not feel the pressure to masculinize for my safity in the way men in particular made me feel pre-transition, including the way my father and other men make me feel in my dreams. This is all true in the background even if I’m unaware or not particularly thinking about this.
Not that I’m saying this is what’s happening in your case - just that it’s hard for me to imagine not having some part of my awareness putting people in gendered boxes without my conscious awareness or effort, it just happens.