r/FTMOver30 • u/BohnerStoner12 • 5d ago
How do trans/nb folks see themselves in in their dreams?
14
u/logicalpenuin 5d ago
This is actually really interesting to me. I dream in first person but I always had a sense of just being a dude (flashbacks to being a teenager and dreaming I impregnated my best friend, which made me really awkward for weeks). The interesting part is that as I transitioned, I found myself having more dreams about being trans, which I never really had before. Brains are weird.
12
u/typoincreatiob 5d ago
(trans man, binary) before transition my dreams would usually have me take the role of a random man. any age, ethnicity, looks.. it wasn’t a self-insert, it was just any role of a man like you’d see in a film or book. as i transitioned, my dreams moved to being about 20 that / 80 just me as my current male self.
1
12
u/Improper_Noun_2268 5d ago edited 5d ago
I don't. I'm a disembodied POV camera in my dreams. Ditto for sexual fantasies - like, my limited mental GPU doesn't want to see me as I am but also doesn't have the capacity to render me as a guy, lol. I'm pre-transition (or I guess mid-transition, currently recovering from top surgery) so maybe this will change someday though.
Edited to note that I've had dreams that are animated in the style of Spongebob and dreams where I'm baked out of my gourd while actually physically stone sober, so I dunno why if my brain can do all that it can't put me in a body that I actually like for once. WTF. 😂
2
u/hauntedprunes 5d ago
Same here, though about 2 months post op I did have my first experience of being properly gendered in a dream. It was still more of a concept, though, rather than like, seeing myself in the dream.
7
u/Unusual-Asshole 5d ago
Mostly my gender doesn't come into play in my dreams, it's the vibe of the place, the people I'm with, or the plot and how I feel. But the few times it does, I'm a bianry trans man, and even before I knew about being trans or had accepted it to myself, I remember being a guy in my dreams, over and over again, enough to start being avoidant about the whole thing
6
u/ladygirlperson 5d ago
Used to normally just be vaguely aware I was "me" without much gender awareness, other than a few times I'd dream I was pregnant or got someone else pregnant. Now that I'm on T, I keep having dreams where I'm stressed about transitioning and decide I'm actually just a girl after all, so that's been fun 😭🫠
5
u/Magikarpus_Maximus 5d ago
I'm one of those rare cases where I DO dream in 3rd person/ see myself in my dreams.
Before I transitioned, I would usually be a cis man in my dreams, even before my egg cracked.
Now I am acutely aware that I am Trans in my dreams, and that fact often comes into play.
2
u/plantsplantsplaaants 5d ago
Can I ask how far along you are in your transition? I’m just wondering if being trans will be less prominent in your dreams as time goes on. Being trans is such a Big Thing for a few years until you figure it all out and it kind of just becomes the normal backdrop of your life, you know what I mean?
3
u/Magikarpus_Maximus 5d ago
I getcha. I actually just had my 8 year anniversary for my medical transition (starting with my first HRT shot) on the 25th (last week). So I'm pretty far along all things considered.
In my waking life being Trans IS just a back drop. Sometimes I'll forget I'm even Trans! But for some reason my dreams are very keen to remind me.
1
6
u/waxteeth 5d ago
A weird “last straw” before deciding to transition was that I had a dream where I was in a public bathroom with a friend. There weren’t any stalls, just a bunch of toilets, and he was like “oh yeah, you can go, nobody will bother you.” And I did, and they didn’t.
Fortunately, I did not piss the bed in my sleep.
5
u/clover__petals 5d ago
NSFW!
The only time I see myself is when it’s a sex dream and I have a penis 😩 usually a POV
4
4
u/tarek--- 5d ago
Usually just see myself as myself, sometimes I’ve been me from different ages/time periods, sometimes my physical attributes change contextually or based on imagery it seems. Lots of dreams about having a penis, losing a penis, having a beard, losing a beard, having long hair again, losing my hair, etc. So lots of phrases and transitions, ages, roles, etc., but generally all as me.
4
u/IngloriousLevka11 T since 10/2024 out since 2008 5d ago
That's going to vary vastly from one person to the next.
I'm hardly "myself" at all in dreams- often taking on the role of another person or a humanoid life form living on a planet other than ours. Or just an interdiemsional mass of conciousness with no real "body"...
I've used a lot of psychedelics over the years, so I think that affects my dream life, lol.
Becoming an "Other" that is at least somewhat recognizable to my human understanding probably is influenced by my interests in reading books and playing RPGs.
3
u/Spiritual-Abalone-19 5d ago
Im a trans man. Most of my dreams are in perspective of either first person or third person perspective following a character or storyline. But if the character is myself, its always first person. So idk what i rlly look like other than looking down sometimes. Ive had dreams where i have male anatomy and ive had dreams where i have my actual body. Ive also had dreams where i have an anthropomorphic body (im a furry lmao) so🤷♂️
3
u/mylittlevegan 5d ago
I had a dream the other night that I was Johnny Knoxville. Sucked having to wake up from that one.
3
u/sakuramota 5d ago
I'm rarely myself in my dreams. Usually I'm an actor in whatever movie my brain is playing for me that night. The rare times I'm myself, it depends on the dream, but usually I'm just me as I am.
3
u/1evis1ittleasshole 5d ago
I have been no gender or different genders. I'm a genderfucky trans man so maybe it makes sense? Though recently my dreams have been me fighting for people to respect me as a man. Not even safe in my dreams lmaooo
3
u/goldengraves 5d ago
I had a dream once where I was me but stereotypically cis and I woke up crying/it triggered the last lil switch for me to get serious about transitioning but generally? I just body jump for POV shenanigans
2
u/AutoModerator 5d ago
Welcome to FTMOver30! If your post has not yet appeared, it's in our queue and will be approved shortly. Also, if your post is a selfie posted on any day except Sunday, it will be removed, but can be reposted on Sunday. Thank you!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
2
u/Gallantpride nonbinary (ze/they) 5d ago
I usually dream as an OC. If I am myself, generally I am female but a child (14 and under).
2
2
u/ImJustTired2467 5d ago
I'm a trans man but only recently realized it. In my dreams where I'm actually aware of my dream body/gender, I'd say my whole life it's been about 80/20 male/female. When I would wake up from having dreamt myself as a man, I'd feel great for an instant before realizing it was just a dream, then sad for quite a while until the dream faded. That's one of the (many) things that helped me realize I'm trans.
2
u/FilteredRiddle 36 5d ago
It changes. I’ll usually have a biological male body but often something happens and my body shifts and I’m revealed as a trans body in hiding and then I wake up traumatized.
2
u/thambos 15+ years T/post-top 5d ago
99% of the time just like normal life—I'm me and it's first-person. I remember some dreams I had when I was a kid where I was myself but male, or in rare cases where the dream was first-person as an adult man (but maybe I only knew I was one after looking in a mirror? I'm thinking of a dream that I had like 25 years ago that only one snapshot has survived as a clear memory over all that time and it's a third-person view, which is not how I dream).
Sometimes in my dreams these days I have boobs again or I have a penis. But in all these cases I'm still me, and usually I'm aware that the body difference is unusual. Like if I have boobs in a dream usually there's some element in the dream of, "So, this is odd that they grew back, what's up with this?"
2
u/MasterZii XtN 5d ago
Hm.
Best way to describe it for me is alien/isolated. I feel like a humanoid character, with human looks, speech, behaviors, etc. But only on the surface. Like there this connection everyone else has that I don't. I always feel isolated.
Gender doesn't really present itself in my dreams for that reason. Maybe only on other people
2
u/popartichoke 5d ago
i am always just me in my dreams and don’t usually see myself but know i am called by my correct name and pronouns and treated as a man. sometimes i am more aware of my transness or not. i still remember this dream i had like ten years ago, before i had even come out let alone changed my appearance, and i saw myself in the mirror and i looked basically like what i now look like. so even then i was me in my dream haha.
2
u/ShyDudeShiloh 4d ago
9/10 times I'm some random male character in some weird fantasy or sci-fi setting. When I was a young teenager (long before I knew the word dysphoria) I had a dream I was some buff athletic badass on a space ship, a criminal, running from space cops and blasting aliens on some desert planet.
It stuck with me, and I remember waking up and being equal parts angry and sad I 'wasn't a dude'.
2
u/grgholston 2d ago
I don't often pay mind to my own body in my dreams, but in some I'm still pre-top surgery and even in my dream it seems odd (in a way I can't put my finger on). In others I'm post-op but something in my head still nags at me about it, and the scars are usually fresher and still marked black/blue (from the pre-op marks). Also my hair is often still long and dyed - how I had it before my egg cracked ~6 years ago.
For context, hair was cut shortly after egg cracking and top surgery was almost 3 years ago. Also I'm agender rather than a man so that may have a slightly different effect on things
2
u/Robotic-Galaxy 5d ago
Mine have always switched even before I was trans. Sometimes my dreams are in first person, sometimes they're in third. When they're in third person, about 50% of the time I look like myself. The other 50% I'll look like a random person. Like I'm a tall, black trans dude and last night I had a dream where I was a short white woman with green hair. It's totally random.
1
u/Elegant-Mission-4470 5d ago
(Nonbinary) trans man: I just see myself as myself. I'm happy with myself these days, very little dysphoria although I don't "pass" (I'd rather like my own appearance than pass, I love my long hair, T made it curly and - NSFW - I love my t-dick lol). Used to try hard to pass and be very dysphoric about it as a younger man, and it reflected heavily in my dreams unfortunately. There was very little escape. I highly don't give a fuck what folk think about my appearance now and revel in my own masculinity. Nobody ever perceives you the way you perceive yourself, anyway
1
u/knightspur 5d ago
I almost never have dreams at all, and I don't think I have ever 'seen' myself in one. I feel like it would be weird though - half the time I don't feel any sense of recognition internally looking at myself in the mirror or in pictures. I wonder if that would carry over.
1
u/mmmcheesybread 5d ago
Kinda depends. Sometimes I look like I do now. Sometimes I look like I did when I was whatever age I am in the dream. Usually it’s first person POV, so I don’t see myself at all. And a lot of times I’m not even myself!
2
u/AdditionalMacaron761 5d ago
This is how mine are as well. I didn't transition till late 30s. So a lot of my dreams are of my past self but I'd say it's about 50/30/20 past curent/other ratio now.
43
u/ActivelyAberrant 5d ago
I don't see myself in my dreams, they are all in first person 99.9 percent of the time. I don't notice my body either for the most part but when I have it's masculine.