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?
A lot of my dreams seem to be stuck in that “man with female body parts trying to pass as a woman” feeling that I would maybe call feeling like a trans woman in my dreams - I think like you I either don’t think about my gender much, or when I do it is a reflection of the social realities I’m navigating as a trans woman.
Like you, I really hope that bottom surgery will help me recover from my persistent selfing as a man 🙁 It does straightforwardly feel hard for me to feel like an authentic woman with a penis - something I don’t seem to have trouble thinking about other people including friends, and even sometimes even with myself when I detach from myself and see myself as a third person, but to believe I am a woman seems unachievable to me - so much stands in the way.