Coline is anxious: she dreamed that she was coming out to her parents. The young woman is since divided between the desire to tell them that she is homosexual, and the anxiety of entrusting them with something so important to her. On Europe 1, the sexologist and psychoanalyst in Paris Catherine Blanc answers her in the program Sans Rendez-vous , Tuesday, on the importance of the dream she had .
Coline's question, 22 years old
"I dreamed that night that I was coming out to my parents. It seemed so real that when I woke up the next day, I didn't know if it was a nightmare or not. Do you think that Is that a sign that I should tell them about my homosexuality? "
Catherine Blanc's response
"Coline says she didn't know if it was a nightmare or reality, she didn't say a dream or reality. Anyway, there is real concern about talking about her homosexuality. Talking about her sexuality is not normal with our parents, we don't say 'come on, I have to tell you what I live, what I do'.
Obviously, when we say 'I have a boyfriend', it is one thing, but if we say 'I have a girlfriend', it gives a connotation of what is played in sexuality. This is why it is disturbing: it does not follow the parental path, since it is a heterosexual couple, and it gives an idea of what is happening there. When it is a heterosexual couple, no one asks the question because, roughly speaking, it is everyone's experience, in a way.
There is really a concern on the part of this young woman to speak of sexuality and to speak of a dissonant sexuality compared to that of her parents. Her dream is not necessarily the trigger and the trigger to do it, nor an indication that it should be done, but it disturbs her in any case, since night after night, at least that night, she starts to dream about it, so that’s why he’s living in it a lot. "
His brain develops several strategies, several scenarios. Is it a way of anticipating?
"Absolutely. Our dreams are there to try to assess the risks, in general, for everything we do. As soon as we dream of something, it is obviously an anxiety We are looking for a solution. There are dreams that we have repeatedly, that is to say that we have a fantasy or real anxiety.
>> Find all the sex questions in replay and podcast here
We seek to find the most stable solution possible and the least dangerous for us. Sometimes, moreover, the solution that we are looking for is in our dreams and not posed on the concrete of something that can be easily assumed. Sometimes it goes all over the place. It is a way of testing not the response of the other but his own relationship to the emotion linked to this subject, and the solutions that we invent in the link to the other. "
Some dreams seem more real than others ... Why is there a notion of reality in dream life?
"There are dreams that are made of odds and ends. We take small touches to the right and to the left, we jump from one room to another, from one time to another, from one setting to another. There are dreams which are really like in the concrete of a very linear story, with strongly lived emotions. It can really be lived in the depths of one's being, even in one's feelings, even in a culmination. bodily. "
Is this announcement preparing? Do we have to develop strategies or can it come during a meal, for example?
"I believe that three quarters of people prepare it a lot but what happens in reality is done more at the turn of an opportunity that is given in everyday life. A bit like when you are a child and that we ask the question "how do we make babies?". It is generally when the other is the least available to be able to answer it, so that the position of strength returns to the one who asks the question. a little bit in the same way [to speak of his homosexuality], it is not necessarily a great ceremonial.
In general, we tried a lot of strategies and at one point, we started. Often, we launch out in bulk, because when we have the idea that in any case our parents will not accept and judge us, in general we launch out badly to have exactly the result that we expected, it's ie negative.
Let us be vigilant, because we always tend to flog ourselves, as soon as we are unfaithful in relation to family functioning, as soon as we change our axis in relation to them, that we get out of the way a little, we has the idea that we will be rejected. The more we have the idea that we are going to be rejected, the more we put ourselves in a situation to be rejected, so let's be vigilant. "