8 spiritual meanings of a male stranger in your dreams

Do you remember having that dream?

You’re in an emotionally charged situation with a man– a long chase, an explosive confrontation, a first date– and then you wake up, heart pounding, and think, “Who was that guy?”

You might wonder if you’ve seen him before, and if so, where? Or if you haven’t, if you’re supposed to see him someday.

Well, if you want to know what seeing that stranger in your dream could mean, keep reading! Because in this article, we’ll look into the spiritual meanings of seeing a male stranger in your dreams.

1) Your past

If you feel as if you’ve met this man before, then you most probably did! But not in the way you might think.

Remember: we’re doing away with the continuity theory of dreams.

What I mean is, it is possible that you’ve met the stranger before…in another lifetime.

There’s a possibility that in this vast, unknowable universe, we’ve lived multiple lives already. Numerology suggests that your birthday can indicate just how many lives you’ve lived so far.

The calculation works like this: Add all the digits in your birthday until you get a single-digit number. That is how many lives you’ve lived already.

For example: Suppose you were born on November 22, 1996. If you add 1, 1, 2, 2, 1, 9, 9, and 6, you’ll get 31. Now add it again to get 4.

That means you’re now living your fourth life.

Which also means that, in one of those four lives, you might have met the man you’re seeing in your dream.

Now why is this important? Well, it’s because you now have a glimpse into the life (or lives) you’ve lived so far.

But before you go diving into the depths of your history, remember that the past is a place better viewed at a distance. Come too near and you just might drown. It is always good to have a connection to our past lives, but only so it can help us see how better to live the life we’re currently living.

Was the stranger in your past friendly or hostile? Then that means the universe might be sending you either a guide to what either to look for or walk away from.

2) Your future

If you’re sure you haven’t met the male stranger in person, then you might meet him soon!

But take note of his actions in your dreams, because he might be someone who would wish you harm.

Precognitive dreams are rare, but not completely impossible to have. If you have dreams about the future, then you belong to only 17% to 38% of people who have experienced them.

And you might not even know it’s about the future until it happens!

While dreaming it, the presence of the stranger could just give you a certain feeling. Now is it a feeling of great security or impending danger?

The important thing here is to keep in mind the feeling you got while being exposed to the strange man. Whatever it is, it will serve as an indicator of what to look out for the next time you’re in the presence of a stranger.

It means your dream is warning you of a great emotional experience coming ahead, which you should prepare for.

3) The third direction

So far, we’ve discussed two different directions we immediately think of when trying to figure out the spiritual meanings of a dream.

But there is a third direction, one which branches into different possibilities and requires more insight into who we are.

That third direction is the present.

It is so easy for us to immediately look far behind or far ahead when trying to make sense of things that sometimes, we tend to forget the pressing matters right in front of us.

But the presence of the male stranger in your dream can be something more pressing, happening in the now or in the near future.

And it could very well be that this stranger is not an actual person trying to communicate to us, but instead is something more abstract taking on a personified form in order to catch our attention.

Now, there are five different paths forking from this third direction, which is maybe why we tend to disregard it in the first place. It can be a little daunting to take a path, only to see it branch to five different directions.

But try taking a careful look into each one and you might find something that resonates with what your present, inner Self needs you to understand.

4) Your own aggressive impulses

Try to remember the event that transpired during your dream.

Was the strange man physically aggressive? Do you treat each other as enemies?

If his aggressive actions are directed towards you, this could be an indication of your own aggressive impulses.

Males tend to exhibit more aggressive behavior by archetypal standards. And if you’re facing this aggressive man in your dream head on, with him posing to you as an enemy or a threat, then maybe he’s actually your own aggression trying to manifest through the dream.

If this resonates with you, don’t be scared. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll start hurting people around you.

It can just mean that there are certain triggers in your waking life that you haven’t dealt with yet. These triggers, if kept unchecked, can become violent, though. So it’s best to nip it in the bud before it worsens.

Triggers can come in different forms. It can be an argument that you swept under the rug. A small gesture someone close to you does constantly, which annoys the hell out of you. Or maybe a single sound or object you didn’t know has been eating at your patience slowly, like a cancer cell.

Whichever the case, try to sit down with your aggression and create a list of triggers to watch out for to keep the aggression at bay.

5) Your suppressed emotions

If the male stranger in your dreams is exhibiting explosive behavior or deep emotions towards anything else aside from you, then he may represent emotions that you’re currently suppressing.

Are the two of you running away from something? Is he fighting with someone who has hurt you? Did he take you somewhere secluded and urge you to scream your lungs out?

These may be feelings and emotions that you’ve tried to escape from, and the man may be a representation of the part of you that’s bottled up and fighting to break free from the cage you’ve put it in.

If this is the case, then ask yourself these questions:

• Why am I suppressing these emotions?
• Who am I hiding these emotions from?
• What do I think will happen to me if I let these emotions out?
• How can I let out these emotions the safest way possible?

The answers to these can help you express yourself better, which is what the dream is trying to tell you.

You deserve your freedom, and the first and most powerful way to achieve that is by letting your emotions fly relentlessly.

6) Conflict avoidance

If you’re afraid of conflict, then this could be the meaning you’re looking for.

Do you tend to cower when accepting criticism? Do you get anxious at the idea of telling someone off? When things are starting to get heated between you and another person, is your first response to get as far away from it as possible to isolate?

These may indicate that you may have a deep fear of confrontation, which can lead to developing an avoidant personality disorder. According to PsychCentral, this happens to around 1.5% to 2.5% of the global population.

Conflict in itself isn’t negative. It is a way for two or more people to resolve issues the quickest and most efficient way possible.

But for some people, being faced with the possibility of confrontation or being judged can be an impossible task. You may want to say something, to fight for something, but your immediate instinct is to escape it.

In turn, this desire to step your foot down and speak up gets repressed. Consequently, this results in it manifesting into a potential presence in your dream, where your Self might be telling you what you should have done in that moment you just ran away from.

If this is the case for you, then it is best to seek a professional or a shaman about ways to release yourself from the barriers stopping you from speaking up.

Because the man in your dream might be telling you that you’re losing your own voice in this life.

7) An incoming drastic change

Does the stranger in your dream knock on your door forcefully? Maybe he grabs you by the hand and pulls you somewhere unfamiliar without asking?

Then this could mean you’re about to experience a drastic, inevitable change in your life.

Try to examine where you are at in life right now. Is there a part of you that has remained too comfortable and stagnant for so long? Are you having random feelings of excitement or anxiety about something you can’t quite figure out?

If so, then the change could be coming soon. And you need to prepare yourself for it.

8) A desire to meet someone new

For some people, the stranger in the dream doesn’t act aggressively in any way or manner. Instead, they feel strongly about the man romantically.

If you’ve ever dreamed of falling in love with a handsome man in your dream, then it might be your inner Self telling you that you’re ready to meet someone new in your waking life.

Now, it is important to not become too fixated on the guy in your dreams. Trying to match how he looks, talks, and walks with someone in your waking life is a fruitless task.

What your dream is simply telling you is how ready you are emotionally.

If you’re single, then this is a great opportunity to meet new people.

If you’re in a relationship, then dreaming about this Casanova can mean one of two things: 1) you need to change something in your current relationship, or 2) your current relationship is about to come to an end.

At this point, you may ask, “Which one is the right reason for me?”

The answer: You already know. There is a reason why you’re looking for this specific reason in the first place.

But whatever your decision is, make sure that it will lead to your overall happiness.

Who is that strange man?

When trying to make sense of the presence of a stranger in your dream, most people would try to deal with it as logically as possible. They would say “You’ve probably passed him by on the street before” or “Maybe you’ve met him a long time ago and just forgot.”

This is called the “continuity theory” of dreams.

Most people would automatically choose this path of logical thinking because they believe it’s more believable, which in turn would make it objective.

But objectivity is not the standard when it comes to dreams.

Truth be told, it’s not very reliable. In fact, studies have shown that the continuity theory has been refuted multiple times over!

Patrick McNamara of Psychology Today says that more than half of the time, the people in our dreams are not someone we know when we’re awake. In his study of dreams, he also says that most of the strange people in our dreams are, in fact, male.

The study reaches its limitation, though, in trying to understand why we see these strange men in our slumber. Some would claim they’re just random creations of our imagination. Others would say they’re personifications of certain abstract things we’re facing.

Spiritually, this could mean something strong has happened or will happen to you in an aspect of your life. The presence of a man in our dreams has been documented to always exhibit aggression and force.

But one thing’s for certain: when we see unfamiliar people in our dreams, our thoughts usually direct themselves to one of two directions– the past or the future.

Should I be worried about the strange man in my dreams?

Not at all!

Even though the stranger in your dreams exhibited aggressive behavior or made you feel strongly about something, the reason for him appearing is to communicate something to you.

As with most emotionally charged things, the man’s presence could be a little scary. But try getting to know him and what he’s trying to say.

Eventually, you’ll see that whatever message he has is the universe’s way of getting your attention about something pivotal in your past, present, and future lives.