A Dream Within A Dream

For the scam victim, the discovery of the betrayal is not just a painful revelation; it is a metaphysical crisis.

It is the horrifying collapse of a reality so carefully constructed and deeply felt that it existed as a world within their own world. This is the essence of the “dream within a dream,” a concept that Edgar Allan Poe famously explored as the unsettling fragility of perception. For the victim, the fake relationship was not just a lie; it was a vibrant, seductive dream that they were invited to inhabit, and its shattering reveals that the life they thought they were living was, in fact, an illusion nested inside their real one.

The outer dream is the victim’s own life, the one they navigate with their existing hopes, fears, and unhealed wounds. For many, this life is already tinged with disillusionment. They carry the quiet ache of loneliness or the unresolved pain of attachment trauma, making their reality feel incomplete. Into this landscape steps the scammer, offering not just love, but the key to a new, inner dream. This inner dream is meticulously crafted to be everything the outer dream is not. It is a realm of perfect understanding, constant validation, and passionate, unconditional love. It is a world where the victim is finally seen, cherished, and made whole. The scammer does not just sell a relationship; they sell an alternate reality, a bespoke paradise built from the victim’s deepest longings. The victim willingly steps through the looking glass, entering this dream within a dream, because it feels more real, more vibrant, and more alive than the life they left behind.

Living inside this nested dream is an all-consuming experience. The victim’s emotional energy, their focus, and their hope become entirely invested in this inner world. The mundane problems of the outer dream, bills at home, a stressful job, a distant family, fade in comparison to the intense, high-stakes drama of the inner one. The scammer’s manufactured crises become the most important events in the victim’s life. This is why they will go to such extraordinary lengths,  sacrificing their finances and real-world relationships, to protect the inner dream. To save the dream is to save themselves, for the two have become inextricably linked. The dream within a dream becomes their primary reality, and the outer world begins to feel like the vague, unreal place they have to endure until they can return to the “real” life of their dream.

The collapse is therefore not a simple awakening from a single dream, but a violent implosion of their entire reality structure. When the evidence becomes undeniable, it is as if the floor of the inner dream gives way, sending them crashing back into the outer reality, which is now itself shattered. They are left standing in the ruins of both worlds. The inner dream was a lie, but the feelings it generated, love, hope, joy, were achingly real. This creates an impossible paradox: how can something so real have been a complete illusion? This is the torment of Poe’s dream within a dream. The victim is left questioning everything, not just the scammer’s words, but their own perceptions, their own judgment, and their own capacity to feel. They are left grappling with the terrifying question: “If I could be so completely fooled once, can any part of my reality be trusted?”

The journey of recovery, then, becomes a painful and disorienting process of learning to live again in a single, uncomplicated reality. It requires mourning the loss of the beautiful dream as if it were a real person who died, while simultaneously confronting the ugly truth of the crime. Each victim must slowly learn to trust their own senses again, to ground themselves in the tangible world, and to accept that while the dream was a lie, their capacity to love and hope is real and can one day be directed toward a reality that does not require a fantasy to sustain it. They must learn to find peace not in a dream within a dream, but in the flawed, fragile, and ultimately more authentic world of what simply is.

Prof. Tim McGuinness, Ph.D.
December 2025