Unrequited Love-or-Alternate Worlds of Video Game Fantasies

Jason, 28

Hello, sorry if this is such a long message, but I feel that without adequate information, that you "reader" might find it quite easier to understand these dreams if I go into small backstories. I would love for someone to try and help me out with this one.
To start off with, let me just say that I am a terribly light sleeper, suffer from anxiety/panic attacks, and have mild insomnia. That being said, when I sleep...I really SLEEP. I don't know if that has anything to do with the "lucidity" of my dreams, but we'll just put that out there for now.
 
The backstory to the dream is fairly simple. I have been employed at my current job at a retail store for nearly a year now. Here comes the pathetic part, I'm one of those moronic guys that still form "crushes" well into my 20's. A female co-worker has been the center of my adulation for a very long time now, and of course I have never had the guts to let her know. We have had a very awkward and rocky work relationship for as long as I remember, up until just a few days ago, when she seemed to actually want to try and be friendly with me. Which of course makes me very happy, and yet I still can't think of anything spectacular to say to her.

Here's the dream: I recall that over the course of some time, I became fairly well aquainted friends with this girl. The only thing is though, is that it was not in reality. The relationship seemed to take place in an alternate world, sort of like a massive realistic online video game. Nerdy, I know. Anyways, one day comes around and I am in this other world, and I find out that she is leaving. I don't know where to, or why but I get the feeling that it will be forever. My desperation compiles as I only know her in this other realm, and have know idea what sort of "real" life she has, or where she lives, or is leaving to go. I constantly see her far in the distance, as though she is stopping to say goodbye to many people as she makes her exit. I can never catch up to her, and even if I did what would I say? Would I try to stop her? Would she even care? Does she know how I feel about her, and is tired of waitng for me? I end up on a ridiculous goose chase, scaling a tall bridge that connects Detroit and NYC for some odd reason. Getting caught up in the midst of a David Bowie concert and yet I still cannot catch up to her.
 
Finally, as I have forgotten about the chase, and I am exhausted from my perilous mission, I find her. Looking very coy leaning against her car. I approach her anxiously, and without words I am able to somewhat express the affection I have for her. she seems to think for a moment, then looks up at me with a mona lisa smile and says something to the effect that she will stay, and we will develop some sort of relationship. I feel very excited at this, and the dream takes some crazy twists and turns, but basically ends after that.

So I awake, sweating and panicked, as though she is still leaving, and I don't know how to find her, but realizing that it was a dream puts me into a great depression for the extent of my three day weekend. I realize that if she was to leave, I would have know way of knowing it, or where she would go. Which scares me. Then, the eerie part happened today.
As I was looking over my work schedule for the weeks ahead, I glanced at this girls' also to see when the next time we work together again would be. To my astonishment, she is only only the schedule for two more days, then nothing!

I'm hoping that my dream did not predict her departure! I pray that it is just a vacation. I don't know. But I will have to act fast if I should try to speak with her before she leaves, I will also need to find some guts to do so, and soon.
Dream premonition?! What!? Help!

Mr Hagen's Response; Cherish -or- Alternate Worlds of Cyberpunk 

As the hermeneutic point of departure for understanding your dream, let's start with in your own words the "backstory" of the dream of unrequited love. The fact that in the dream you "constantly" see your love interest from a distance underscores the unrequited love story. You are in good company, people such as Dantes's Beatrice in Divine Comedy and Goethe's Charlotte in The Sorrows of Young Werther fit the description and speaks of such yearning and unrequited love. From a popular music perspective The Association's durable classic Cherish live version/album version, fits the sentiment of your dream. From another music perspective the song by the Everly Brothers All I You Have to Do is Dream (listen to music video) also provides the feel of your dream. 

The next train of thought in the landscape of your dream, is the idea of an alternate world which has been frequently used as a literary device in literature, film as well as music (think of the Beatles psychedelic rock song Strawberry Fields). The fact that this world is like some sort of video game has similarities to dytopian cyberpunk Sci-Fi films like Virtuosity and Videodrome.

Ironically the answer to the problem of your dream is found in your dream itself. The David Bowie concert found in your dream, provides a clue and the solution which can be found in Bowie's song If I'm Dreaming My Life. The dream then reads that you are living in a fiction (in your fantasy world) and not living in reality.

Hope that provides some insight.

Mark H

Further Reading;

John Clute and John Grant (eds) Encyclopedia of Fantasy
 

All material Copyright 2006 International Institute for Dream Research. All rights reserved.