recurring dreams

i have two sets of recurring dreams. in one, i have a beard, and at first i freak out and cry in the mirror but everyone else seems pretty cool with it, so i just leave it alone. i'm not sure if the second really qualifies as recurring, because it's different every time, but it's always about the same thing: this one old boyfriend. i haven't talked to him in probably around six years, except for this one horrible time when i was working as a waitress and he sat at one of my tables with someone who was obviously a girlfriend. i was so wired after that that they let me go home early, which NEVER EVER happened even if you cried. i got a ride home that night and made a new friend who had two lop-eared bunnies and a copy of rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead on laser disc, but that story leads to an ashram and no one wants to go there. so starting around two years ago, about twice a month i have a really strange dream about this old boyfriend. this time, he had run away from a halfway house after being "rehabilitated" in some sort of institution, which he refused to tell me about. he found me staying at a hotel with my aunt in an unfamiliar city for a funeral. he came to our hotel room, i think handcuffed to someone and with a present he had made for me in a crafts class, an enormous pin with feathers tied onto it. the feathers were beautiful, but there was no way i could wear it without stabbing myself, it was so big. it was the most illogical present i had ever received, but how are you supposed to say that to someone who is insane? we hid from my aunt in the bathroom, and i got his handcuffs undone and told him i would meet him at a donut place around the corner from where the funeral was. when i got there, we decided to run away together, and it was the most satisfying thing in the world. all of the dreams end that way: i decide to dump jake for him and we are together forever. it's not like i wish we were still together, or getting back together. i don't even want to see him. we were in high school, so of course it ended badly, although i think it ended particularly badly even for high school. either way, it would be incredibly awkward and probably a little backhanded and evil if we ran into each other now. under no circumstances would we ever, ever decide to run away together, unless it was to some sort of duel or match of wits. so i have no idea what these dreams mean. i think freud was a crackpot with some interesting theories about society but little to nothing on the human psyche, but i can't shake the feeling that sometimes dreams mean something. i myself have had a few significant dreams that have told me some things about what i really think about people. usually, they're the sort of feverish dreams you have when you nap, so maybe they take on extra significance because of the fever; or, maybe all dreams are significant, but you only remember the ones during which you wake up, so you see those as significant. either way, these dreams keep coming back and really unsettling me, and i have no idea what to do about them. i tried looking him up on myspace just to make sure he's okay, but that's ridiculous. if he weren't, why would myspace tell me anything about it? maybe i'm just watching too much carnivale. i'm pretty sure my dreams aren't going to tell me about anything besides what's going on inside my own head.