One of my newest and most wonderful friends has been sharing some of his thoughts, feelings, and perceptions with me on this very topic…Touch! Something as simple as a hug can have a profound affect on us in so many ways. I totally knew this, but after reading his post, things were illuminated for me a bit more powerfully. I have been so incredibly touched by what Rob wrote and shared with me. I’ve read it many times over and shared it with a number of people. And I’ve cried with each and every read. So, in being true to myself, I knew that I just HAD to share it with all of you! Below are his words with some necessary edits. 🙂
As many of your know, one of my passions is the psychology of our relationships. What makes us tick is fascinating. I studied human relations in college and as a lifelong learner continue to study how we connect with others to this day.
Over the last two years I have been especially interested in how we can better connect with our friends. I haven’t quite found the right words but basically “intimacy in the friend zone.” Many understand we can be intimate with our friends without it being sexual or romantically invasive. We can meet our friends where they are at and nourish and feed each other’s souls.
My love language is touch and there is science on how touch helps connect us with others. Hugs and touch are not everyone’s thing and I get that. But for those of us where it is their thing, there is so much we can do to celebrate what it means to move through this world with our friends. Shared reality at it’s best.
Anyway, making the year of the hug stretch into yet another year was one way of expressing my desire for us to celebrate being human with our friends in ways that expanded closeness through touch without crossing any boundaries and staying with hell yes enthusiastic consent. So far these years of the hug have been successful beyond my dreams. I feel like my friends are feeling the positive energy, never too late to learn to be the best person I can be.
Which finally brings me to the meat of this post. Now and then, a dream touches something so deep that when we wake, we do not feel as thought we have merely imagined an experience. We feel as though we have actually been nourished by it.
That happened to me twice in the last two nights and it offered me insight into this whole subject. In the first dream, a car pulled in at a neighbor’s house across the street from where I was staying. I did not recognize it, so I walked over to see who had arrived. A young woman got out and walked toward me with her arms outstretched for a hug. The moment had an almost comic sweetness to it, because that is not the sort of thing that usually happens so spontaneously between two people who have never met. We began talking, and she explained that she was my neighbor’s good friend and had heard from her her that I was a good hugger, thank you neighbor. Then I woke up.
Last night brought another dream, this time on Cape Cod, a place that carries more than 65 years of memories for me. In that dream, a woman ran up to me and said, “I haven’t seen you in forever”, then immediately wrapped me in a big hug that lasted way longer than my usual hugs. I knew, somehow, that she had suffered some kind of loss, it seemed way in the past but one that I did not remember the details of. Soon we were sitting intertwined, holding each other closely. At one point I asked if that was alright, and she said yes, that she appreciate it. Then I woke up again.
What struck me most was not simply the content of the dream, but the feeling that remained. I woke with a sense of comfort and satisfaction so strong that it felt almost as if I had actually lived through an extended moment of intimate human connection. Even after waking, I carried the emotional residue of being wanted, welcomed, and deeply appreciated. The presence of that energy exchange lingered.
These dreams were not about conquest or pursuit. In both, the hug came to me. I was not searching, or trying to create closeness. Instead, someone approached me openly, already ready for connection. In one dream, I was known for my reputation: “I’ve heard you are a good hugger.” In the other, I was told “I haven’t see you in forever.” In both cases, I was received as someone safe, warm, and welcome. There is something deeply and wonderfully affirming in that.
I think many of us move through life carrying longings that are far simpler and more profound than we often admit. We want to be known. We want to be trusted. We want to be sought out not merely for what we do, but for how we make others feel. We want our presence to be a comfort. And perhaps, if we are honest, we want to know that the tenderness we offer the world is also something the world might genuinely want from us. These dreams seemed to speak to that longing.
What also stands out to me is that even in dream space, consent mattered. In the second dream, I asked whether the closeness was alright, and she said yes. That detail matters to me because it reflects something essential in how I understand intimacy. The most meaningful touch is not presumptive. It is not taken for granted. It is invited, welcomes, and mutually appreciated. Even in a dream, tat value of mine remained intact. That gives the dream a particular kind of beauty. It was not simply about being held. It was about being held in a way that honored both people.
While I felt like I should know her, I do not know who the woman in the second dream was. Perhaps she was simply a creation of my dreaming mind. But the emotional truth of the moment did not depend on her identity. What mattered was what she represented: recognition, trust, loss, gratitude, and most importantly the healing and comforting power of close human holding.
Dreams can sometimes reveal what the waking mind is only beginning to admit They can give us, for a few moments, the experience of being met in exactly the way our hearts have been yearning for. That may be what happened here.
I have long believed that touch, when offered with care and received with joy, can be profoundly nourishing. A good hug is not a trivial thing. Holding someone, or being held, can regulate the nervous system, soften loneliness, and restore a sense of belonging. We often treat such things as secondary, sentimental, or optional. Yet my dreams seemed to remind me that they may be closer to the center of life than we sometimes realize. The deepest part of these dreams was not novelty or mystery. It was comfort. It was the feeling of mutuality. It was the quiet miracle of being wanted for something as simple and human as the ability to hold and be held well. And perhaps that is why I woke up feeling full.
Sometimes a dream does not merely show us a wish. Sometimes it lets us inhabit, however briefly, a truth we are still growing into. A truth like this: that the love, warmth, and embodied kindness we long to offer may also be something we are meant to receive.
*Please reach out to me directly (or in a comment) if something…anything in this post moves you to do so! I would love to hear YOUR thoughts, feelings, sentiments!!!*
Joy & Love,
Goddess Mandy 🙂 XO
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