The First Thing You See In This Picture Reveals Your Most Deeply Hidden Nightmare
Love is terrifying, and there's something about it that scares everyone.
Oleg Shuplyak We all have our innermost secret dreams and nightmares about dating and romantic relationships.
Depending upon your personality, the psychology of your own favorite dream and most feared nightmare will look either remarkably similar to or hugely different than those of the person you love.
This is because, much like optical illusions, what we see and experience in any given dynamic depends greatly on our specific perspective.
There are so many wonderful things that make falling in love feel like the very best of dreams. In fact, if someone were to ask you to pick the one dreamiest thing about moving from dating into long-term, loving relationships, you might be hard-pressed to do it!
What about falling in love isn't like some dreamy fantasy?
Even rainy Monday mornings when you miss your train and pour coffee down your shirt can feel full of magic and light when you've found someone special — that's how bizarre and overwhelming the power of being in love can be! It comes when we least expect it, and when it strikes us it can feel like an absolute force of nature.
But let's be honest. Once that initial rush passes (and it passes pretty darn quickly) there are things about falling in love that aren't exactly ideal, no matter how rose-colored the glasses you happen to be wearing at the time might be. We might not want to admit it, but that's definitely the truth.
Dreams of love can morph quite quickly into the scariest of scary nightmares.
Love isn't a magical force that stops time, so life doesn't stop for you when you fall in love. And understanding this, as well as the fact that even the most loving relationships come with their fair share of nightmare experiences, can make the difference between a blossoming love that lasts forever and a devastating breakup.
If you aren't sure what your own nightmare is when it comes to falling in love and you want to know, you are in the right place. This personality test is designed to help you figure it out easily, and knowing is half the battle.
All you need to do is look at the picture below and make a mental note of what you see first.
Then scroll down to find out what the image you saw first reveals about your most deeply hidden nightmares about falling in love and being in long-term relationships.
The first thing you see in this picture reveals your most deeply hidden nightmares about love:
1. The woman
If you saw the woman first, your secret nightmare about falling in love is losing sleep.
You can't help yourself, you're a practical person and a person who has always taken sleep very seriously. You're beyond blissed out to be so all consumed with love, but you start to worry pretty darn quickly that you'll have to choose between love and sleep — and you're worried sleep might win!
Take a break and calm down. Sure, sleep is important, but don't let it ruin your relationship! Rest assured that you'll both have to sleep at some point. This sleeplessness comes with the territory in the best possible way.
2. The mounted soldiers
If you saw the mounted soldiers first, your secret nightmare about falling in love is having to keep up appearances.
You know as you fall in love that your partner isn't going to dump you for not shaving your legs or skipping a shower, but you do feel obligated to at least put on the front that you are a flawless woman at all times of the day.
It's okay to start to let down your guard. Trust yourself. If you're feeling this way, it might, in fact, be time for you to start letting him in on your grubbier ways.
3. The horse
If you saw the horse first, your secret nightmare about falling in love is worrying about rejection.
You want nothing more than to release yourself to the thralls of passion, but you can't help thinking of all the times you have fallen in love before, times when it didn't work out, and instead, you were left hurt and rejected.
We all carry with us a certain amount of emotional baggage. Try your best not to let thoughts of the past keep you from happiness. We all have these thoughts, the key is to let them flow through us, not believe them when they tell us to self-sabotage.
4. The soldiers in the background
If you saw the soldiers in the background first, your secret nightmare about falling in love is playing games.
The second you decide you are in love, you drop all of your pretenses. You have no issue making yourself fully vulnerable when you fall in love, you do it every time, and you expect the same in return. The moment you even get a whiff of someone playing games, you can't help but get turned off.
If you want your love to survive, you need to understand that everyone moves at their own pace. Just because someone doesn't bare themselves the way that you do, it doesn't mean they are any less invested. See what happens before writing them off.
Rebecca Jane Stokes is an editor, freelance writer, former Senior Staff Writer for YourTango, and the former Senior Editor of Pop Culture at Newsweek. Her bylines have appeared in Fatherly, Gizmodo, Yahoo Life, Jezebel, Apartment Therapy, Bustle, Cosmopolitan, SheKnows, and many others.