I had attended some kind of elaborate world political event at Buckingham Palace with my family. I was standing in a room on an upper floor with large floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over an ornate garden where various world political figures were observing the Queen of England giving an important speech. After the speech was over, the world leaders who had been in the garden were coming inside Buckingham Palace and they were walking through the room where we had been watching the speech. At first, my mom chased down the Queen, who was wearing a purple dress, and was able to have a picture taken with her. I was so excited by her having done this, thinking how cool it would be to have a picture with the Queen. After everyone was gone, I found myself alone in the large room. I saw Obama, dressed in a white shirt and tie with black pants and shoes, come through a side door with his entourage and I yelled out “Mr. Obama, can I have my picture taken with you?” I was really nervous at first because I was not sure if I would be allowed to take the picture with Obama due to the secret service personnel. He told them to go away and come back later and he said he would be more than happy to take a photo with me. At that point, I felt thrilled to be able to do this. I was having trouble with the digital camera, so Obama took a look at it and he was able to get it working! We took several photos and eventually Obama began making silly faces at the camera as we took photos! He began to act goofy, just like we were best friends hanging out. At one point, Obama began to break dance and he allowed me to take pictures of him while he was dancing. We talked for a long time and I felt so excited to be hanging out with the President of the United States. Eventually, Obama said he was really disappointed that he had to go, but he said if he didn’t, the Secret Service would be angry with him, and then I woke up.

From a 26-year old U.S. History teacher in Tennessee, July 18, 2010

The dreamer enjoyed the dream and said, “I felt really happy to have had such a cool experience, even though it wasn’t real.”  A liberal Democrat male, he thought the dream had somewhat changed his view of the President:  “It made me see Obama more as a human being or ‘average guy.’”

The Queen of England’s recent visit to the US, where she spoke to the United Nations General Assembly on July 6, very likely influenced the setting of this dream.  The symbolic grandeur of a true Queen speaking to the United Nations, the embodiment of an ideal global community, certainly provides potent raw material for the dreaming imagination.  We might expect a teacher of U.S. History to be especially sensitive to the impact of such momentous events.

Obama’s friendly presence in the dream suggests that he may, at one level, represent for the dreamer a personal sense of connection to that collective realm of political idealism.  The playful, surprisingly competent figure of Obama mediates between the dreamer’s individual reality and an idealized collective reality.  Obama is the President of the US and the most powerful man in the world, but he is also a goofy dancer who’s an average guy just like the dreamer.

I dreamed that I was in some kind of hotel in some kind of social event and that Obama and I knew each other. He made arrangements to meet me in a hotel room where we spend a nice romantic night and he gave this beautiful Orange/Red $700 dress for me to wear the next day. He treated me like a gentleman and was sure that i was taken care of all along. He asker me several times not to be upset at him and to please understand him. The next day we showered together and used different doors to leave the suite. It felt as If we both knew this was an affair. I remember thinking to myself how bad it was for me to be doing this and i was also preparing to the karma that being with a married man will bring to my life. The dream ended when we bumped each other in the middle of the crowd and he gave me instructions on where to meet him next.

From a 30-year old woman in Florida, June 5, 2010

The dreamer, a liberal Democrat who works in accounting, said her feelings about the Gulf oil spill may be a factor in this dream:

“Despite the fact that I was a huge fan and voted for Barack Obama for president, I have been VERY VERY dissapointed by the President’s response to the oil leak catastrophe in the Gulf.  I have cried in silence and I feel a personal dissapointment so I have no clue if this has something to do with my dream last night.”

She said the dream has “not really” influenced her view of Obama: “I am still mad at him.”

Interesting, then, that the dream presents a secret relationship of shared intimacy with Obama, quite the opposite of her waking-life feelings.

It’s tempting to see this as a conscious/unconscious split.  The woman may say she’s mad at Obama, but really, in the secret recesses of her unconscious, she remains attached to him, even though she has a sense within the dream that it’s a morally questionable relationship.  This would be a Freudian kind of interpretation.

Alternatively, she may consciously recognize the complexity of her feelings about Obama, and the dream presents a positive portrait of the President to compensate emotionally for the anger that currently dominates her waking views of him.   This would be a more Jungian kind of interpretation.

Both perspectives probably carry some truth, though only the dreamer could say for sure. 

I would be curious to know more about the dreamer’s associations to the line about the karma of being with a married man.  There may be a metaphorical dimension to this notion that has more to do with the dreamer’s personal life than with her political views.

I lived above this classy bar with my mother and a few friends. One day we were all relaxing outside when I wandered off. I happened to run into Obama. We spent the day together and the lust was obvious. I later invited him up for dinner where my mother had made a veggie lasagne. Barack was acting a little weird…kind of like a princess. Expecting us to get him drinks and such. Finally we saw his car pull up outside. He and I walked out into the foyer where we talked for a few minutes and I told him how honored I was to have met him and spent the day with him. We hugged. Then all of a sudden we were making out like maniacs on a little round table. We didn’t actually have sex but things got pretty intense. Eventually my friend Katie walked in. She left right away but we stopped what we were doing. We kissed, and he left. I waited in the bar for him every night for him to come back. He never did, but he sent me a gift every night.

From a 20-year old woman, a writer in Canada, on April 20, 2010.

A very liberal person politically, she said the dream made a strong impact on her: “I can’t stop thinking about it.”

It’s not hard to imagine why.  When the dreaming imagination wants to create a scene of “making out like a maniac” or any other kind of sexual/romantic activity, it can do so with amazing power and physical realism.

As with previous dreams with a sexual theme, the most likely meaning here is not that the young woman wants to have sex with Obama.  Rather, it probably suggests that she has very strong feelings about Obama and what he represents, feelings that are metaphorically as vivid and exciting as feelings of lust. 

In the 1990’s, when many women reported sexual/romantic dreams of Bill Clinton, it appeared a response to his flirtatious, charismatic personality.  But now similar dreams are being reported about Obama, a man whose personality on this point seems to be the exact opposite of Clinton’s.   Hmmm….

The “acting like a princess” remark  could be a reflection of a common critique of Obama, that he’s too fastidious and effete.  The disappointment the dreamer expresses at the end echoes a general feeling among Obama’s supporters, who worked like maniacs for his campaign but feel abandoned now that he’s consumed by the job of governing. 

It would be interesting to know Katie’s relationship to the dreamer, since she’s the one who’s arrival interrupted the moment of passion with Obama. 

If I were the dreamer, I might try going back into the dream via active imagination and finding out more about the gift that Obama brings every night.

“I had sex with Obama. I don’t remember if he was good, because my friend C. was crying her eyes out!”

From a 35-year old Texas woman, an alcohol counselor, on Feb. 16, 2010.

The dreamer said she wondered why her friend was so upset.  A very liberal person politically who is registered as an Independent, the dreamer acknowledged the dream has influenced her view of President Obama (“of course”) but without specifying how. 

Sexual dreams with a politician or any other celebrity figure can have the obvious literal meaning of actually wanting to have sex with that person.  But it’s more likely such dreams are metaphors that express the individual’s feelings toward the person (for example, feeling a special sense of intimacy with them, or wanting to share in a creative process with them, or, more negatively, feeling abused or mistreated by that person).

Many women in the early 1990’s had sexual and romantically-charged dreams about newly-elected President Bill Clinton.  Initially it seemed the dreams were metaphors of the kind just described, expressing the dreamer’s strong feeling that “I’m really attracted to his political views.”  Later in his Presidency, as the Monica Lewinsky scandal revealed far more than we ever wanted to know about Clinton’s sexual behavior, it became hard not to wonder if there was also a literal dimension to people’s sexual dreams about him.

We don’t know anything more about the present dreamer’s friend, whose behavior seems like a strong clue about the dream’s personal meaning.  Was she crying out of jealousy? or disapproval? or shock?

Back in the second century C.E. the Roman writer Artemidorus included a lengthy section on sexual dreams in his Oneirocritica (The Interpretation of Dreams).  In remarkably modern-sounding language, he argued that the exact details of a sexual dream are key to understanding its meaning.

Here is what Artemidorus says about the traditional Greek and Roman theme of a son dreaming of sex with his mother:

“The case of one’s mother is both complex and manifold and admits of many different interpretations—a thing not all dream interpreters have realized. The fact is that the mere act of intercourse by itself is not enough to show what is portended. Rather, the manner of the embraces and the various positions of the bodies indicate different outcomes.”

I was outside and all of us were waiting for Barack Obama to come out and make a speech. It seemed like it was sometime during the Spring. There was a stage in front with a plastic backdrop behind the stage. I can’t remember if there was a podium. The chairs were all white fold up chairs (the kind you might see at a wedding). A lot of people were dressed really nice in tuxedo. There was a band playing. I was talking to someone next to me. Then finally Obama came out and he was greeted by a moderate amount of clapping. It seemed like a really long speech. I was on the left about 5 or 6 rows back. I don’t think I was focusing well on the speech, my mind was adrift in total attention deficit. I think i was eating some hors’dourves. All of a sudden I hear some commotion up ahead. It was coming from the first row. Everyone was crowding around. It seemed like someone was sick or something. I saw Michael Jordan standing up and lifting someone. It was Mike Tyson! He was crouched over and his eyes were sort of closed. Someone shouts out that he was shot. It was weird to me because I never heard any gun shot. Someone said he shot himself—then the rumor is that he had been shot. Must’ve been one of those silent guns. He is dead and MJ let’s him go and he drops to the floor. Everyone starts to run including me. I’m sobbing and sort of hysterical. I see Obama sitting somewhere. He looks upset and he is crying into a white napkin. Later, a woman comes up to me and tell me that the police would like to see me. I’m kinda freaked out at this point. The police tell me they just need a statement from me telling them what I saw from the crowd. I tell them. They tell me that it appears that the President had been the original target of an attempted assassination and that Mike Tyson, in the front row, had taken the bullet. They think that someone was beyond the plastic backdrop. They ask me if i saw anyone. I somehow get this image in my head of a window with a blurry figure. I leave and go to the car. I am getting ready to go home. Then later I see my father and i realize that he had come to the speech with crutches or a wheelchair. I didn’t understand why because in real life my father is fine. Then I saw Drew Peterson (a man who has been in the news lately, former local police officer charged with murdering his wives) he is somehow there and he is also in a wheelchair. He starts talking to my dad about something..!

From a 24-year old woman in Illinois, on February 17, 2010. 

She says when she woke up she felt “freaked out, but relieved that the President missed the shot.  I did feel bad for Mike Tyson, though.”

I can’t help but associate the image of Mike Tyson with his guest appearance in the 2009 film The Hangover, as a tiger-owning, quick-punching, but quirkily sentimental thug you would really not want to piss off. 

The dreamer went on to say, “When I woke up I told my mom the whole dream and she said, “well, maybe it was Drew Peterson that attempted to kill the President.” I guess if my dream had been an Agatha Christie mystery, my mother would’ve solved it before the last chapter.”

A very liberal Democrat in waking life, the dreamer thoughtfully responded to the question of whether the dream influenced her view of Obama:

“A little. It made me feel a bit nervous for him. It also made me realize how vulnerable the position of the presidency can be. How nerve-wracking it must be waking up everyday and having to trust that your life is being protected. I had just watched the day before a bunch of documentaries on Black History because it had been black history month. It made me realize how much hatred there was towards black americans. I thought to myself, “how is it possible that only about 60 years later after all that boiling hatred and prejudice, can we be totally cured as a society?” the answer is we aren’t. There still is hatred and prejudice. Even though we got a black man elected doesn’t mean that there isn’t discrimination and racism. It takes hundreds of years for most societies to heal. Not only is racism still alive, but black people in our society don’t feel completely equal yet. They haven’t completely forgiven our society for hundreds of years of cruelty and oppression and it will be a long time before we are completely healed, maybe it will never be completely healed.”

I had a strange dream a few nights ago with Obama in it… It was very realistic and it went like this ~ I was actually having a conversation with Obama face to face. In the dream I was telling Obama that I didn’t like how he was doing things and that I was very concerned about our nation. I explained to him that I had not taken the Swine flu vaccine and was “refusing” the human tracking device that they were trying to implement on people.  I explained in a very calm and confident manner that he and his team of doctors could do what they wanted with me but I was standing my ground and would fight them off. I remember feeling NO fear because I knew that what they were doing was against God’s plan and that the Lord would protect me from harm… I was telling Obama in a straight-forward manner that I believed that the human tracking device was “morally and ethically wrong” and to make it mandatory was against God’s will. Amazingly, Obama listened to all that I had to say and we seemed to come to an understanding. His face suddenly looked sad and he preceded to look down and spoke the words “Okay, then” … I watched him turn around and exit the same same way he had entered the room. After that, I woke up.

From a 30-year old man of undefined political views, on January 29, 2010

Asked to describe how he felt when he woke up, the dreamer said,  ”bizarre.. I can still visualize the dream very well. Very strange to have a dream like this and haven’t had one since then. It seemed very real.”

Such strong concerns about vaccines and tracking devices suggest a strain of conservative extremism and populist paranioa, perhaps in relation to current cultural/political conversations about the Tea Party movement and the anti-Obama bias of Fox news. 

More generally, the dream reflects a kind of political-psychological integration; to use a biblical image, the lion laying down with the lamb.  Because most people who take an interest in dreams tend to be politically liberal, I’ve heard more examples of liberals having dreams in which they find a surprising degree of kinship and agreement with conservative politician they dislike in waking life.  Here, it seems a person who is politically conservative and anti-Obama in waking life has a dream of unexpected connection with the President. 

There could be an additional level here of personal symbolism.  Perhaps the dreamer needs to speak up more directly to people in authority: to his parents, boss, minister, or anyone who wields a kind of “presidential power” over him.

The dreamer says the dream had no impact on his waking views of Obama, but I wonder.  Having had counter-political dreams like this myself (one in which I had an extended debate with Newt Gingrich), I know that afterwards I looked at those conservative politicians differently.  I didn’t suddenly agree with them, but I saw them as more complicated people and realized my previous views were somewhat narrow and self-righteous and I needed to give them more critical thought.

I would especially wonder about this since the dream was so memorable and realistic.  I don’t believe the sleeping mind creates such dreams without a reason.

I was away from home on a trip down in the states – NY I think? And I had no loved ones with me but in the dream, I knew this and it was alright. I had a sense of urgency to get to a baseball game (I don’t even watch baseball) and when I arrived at the stadium, Barack Obama was waiting for me and we entered the stadium together. We chatted freely as if we were old friends while we were trying to get to our seats. As we were going up to our seats, I realized that we were on a window-washing pulley which Barack Obama was pulling to get us to our seats. Just as we arrived to our seats and I took my jacket off, Barack puts his hand on my shoulder and stops me to say “I think we’re under terrorist attack” and we get back into the pulley thing. Just as we were descending, he said that it was going too slow and to get ready to jump because he was going to rock the pulley thing. Before I could get a grip on anything, he rocks it and tells me to jump and so I did. We both landed with a roll on the 4th floor balcony. He helps me up and tells me to stay where I am because he was going to do something and took off like an action hero out of an action film. I didn’t stay put because I felt like I needed to get to a payphone and call my girlfriend (I had a cell phone but I had left my jacket on our seats – this I recall) so I found my way out of the stadium, meanwhile thinking why isn’t the stadium full of people? And where is Barack Obama’s security detail? I managed to find my out to a nearby neighborhood where I found a row of payphones which were quite dirty, and found one that was somewhat clean. I picked up the receiver and looked at the instructions for a collect call. What I found instead was a list of instructions on how to make a call in Cantonese, Spanish, French, and German. I recall thinking “What the hell?” in the dream. And before I made my call, I woke up.

From a 32-year old Canadian woman, a dancer, on January 16, 2010

The dreamer says she woke up feeling confused by the dream.  A very liberal person politically, she says it made no impact on her view of Obama.

This is a relatively long and action-packed dream.  Though I don’t know for sure, it sounds like a typical REM dream, very kinesthetic, detailed, and lively.  At the same time, dreams like this may be more frequent for dancers than for less physically active and talented people.

The Christmas Day bomb attempt on a Detroit-bound airplane put President Obama back in the spotlight as America’s leader in the fight against terrorism.  The event also reminded everyone of 9/11 and their own vulnerability to such an attack.  The heightened public attention to terrorism in mid-January of 2010 may be echoing in this dream.

The strange window-washing pulley system is a marvelous dream fabrication, with no clear-cut meaning but many metaphorical possibilities.  Perhaps it refers to cleaning people’s views on the world?  Or standing on the outside looking in?  Or being in a precarious position, in danger of falling? 

The setting inside an empty baseball stadium is even more incongruous.  As the dreamer suggests, it’s the kind of thing one might find as a set-up for a superhero movie sequence. 

As in many dreams of Obama, the dreamer imagines having a special relationship with him.  Here, it’s friendly chatting and a kindly hand on the shoulder, plus the superhero protection.

When Obama leaves, the dreamer seems lost.  Her attempts to communicate with her friend fail, and the dream ends on a note of cognitive disarray.

I was at a fraternity party. Barack was the president of the fraternity and it was very apparent to me and him that he would soon be president of the USA. He and I were best friends around that time and I wanted to call, write, and email everybody I knew from past decades of my life to tell them that I was best friends of the future President of the USA. Also, as a way of helping him win the election, I worked with his dog and small children to explain that the camera was always on them so they needed to watch what they say and do (even though he didn’t have a dog and small children). As I was leaving the fraternity for a few weeks and I knew I wouldn’t see Barack for a while, I went up to give him a hug… but we decided to do a regular handshake instead. And, to show a bit of distance between us, we didn’t even use the secret fraternity handshake… we just did a normal one. This was my fourth dream of Barack Obama. In each one, he and I are best friends.

From a 62-year old software developer in Arizona, January 10, 2010

The dreamer said when he awoke “I was surprised that I was not, in fact, Barack’s best friend.” 

Many dreams of Obama have a vivid, highly realistic quality that can make it temporarily difficult to distinguish waking and dreaming.  The carry-over effects of such dreams add to their memorability and impact on people’s thoughts and behavior.

The dreamer here, a liberal Democrat, says the experience corresponds to his waking views of Obama: “I always liked him (once I heard his comments on the Beatitudes).”

The reference may be to Obama’s comments on March 2, 2008,  an Ohio church in which he said, regarding religious concerns about same-sex marriage, that his religious faith puts more emphasis on the moral inclusiveness of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (best expressed in the Beatitudes, Matthew 5:3-10) than on some “obscure” anti-homosexuality verses in Romans (1:26-32). 

Although the dream came nearly a year into Obama’s administration, it portrays an earlier time in political and perhaps personal life, when the dreamer was of an age to attend fraternity parties.  Yet he is apparently aware of his current age, too, as he thinks about people to call “from past decades of my life.”

Twice in the dream he shows a sensitivity to appearances and self-disclosure, first in teaching media relations 101 to the small children and dog (!), second in refraining from saying goodbye to Obama in a way that expresses the depths of their intimacy.

The move toward some degree of distance and psychological separation from Obama may be a healthy thing for his supporters and his political movement, even if it translates into temporarily softening poll numbers.   Extreme idealization of a politician too often leads to angry disillusionment.  Better in the long term to dial back the reverence, abstain from frat bro hugs, and take comfort in the human touch of a regular handshake.

This was not a pleasant dream; it was tense.  I was somehow conscripted as a sort of temporary nanny help for Obama’s girls.  Malia had a serious dental problem that needed fixing  (I myself am in need of a bridge).  I was not able (allowed?) to take her to dentist, as it turned out,  I made myself at home and fell asleep on the sofa.  Late at night BO asked me if I knew it was nearly midnight.  I didn’t realize I had overstayed!  A former acquaintance bumped into me and pretended she needed a place to stay, which she didn’t, and I knew it was only a ruse to try to get close to Obama.  That’s all I remember.

From an older woman, January 2009

About herself the dreamer says: “I am a 64-yr-old yellow-dog-liberal Bush-hating grandmother of 3, perfectly soggy with relief and happiness about our new president. I worry that I worship him. I taped a photo of him with his family on my work computer.”

A similar theme appeared in the dream posted a few days ago (“Putting His Daughters to Bed”), in which the dreamer imagines herself as part of the Obama family’s “inner circle.” 

In this case the dreamer acknowledges her tendency to “worship” Obama and idolize his family.  This dream seems to raise questions about that waking attitude, or at least consider its less pleasant consequences in terms of hidden problems and boundary anxieties.