The main theme of Xander's dream is his sense of failure and of being left behind as his friends move ahead in life. His fear that he is stuck is reiterated throughout his dream by his inability to escape his basement bedroom in his parents' home. No matter where his dream takes him, he ends up back in the basement. He also struggles to understand and feel comfortable with his sexuality, heavily idealising and sexualising Joyce, Willow and Tara and seeing Anya, his girlfriend, as distant and impenetrable and Buffy, who he still has a lingering crush on, as a little girl playing in a sandpit who calls him her ‘big brother’. As the only one of the Scoobies not in college, he feels anxiety about his ability to understand and keep up with ideas and conversations, a fear which is realized when he goes to the university, a place he already feels excluded from, and finds that he cannot understand what people say to him. Aware that he is being chased and is in danger, he asks Giles what is happening but cannot understand his answer, nor what Anya says to him, as they are both inexplicably speaking French. He exclaims, "I don't understand!" During his dream both Buffy and Willow tell him, "I'm way ahead of you," and Giles tells him "the others have gone on ahead," underscoring his fear that this is really the case. His dream ends with a culmination to his encounters with various male authority figures throughout - his father storms into the basement and displays all of the traits Xander hates about himself, transforming into the First Slayer and ripping his heart out, metaphorically turning Xander into his dad and removing his compassion.