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Dreams of the Deceased
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We are somewhat more than ourselves in sleep and the Slumber of the Body seems to be but the Waking of the Soul.
~Sir Thomas Browne
What if you slept? And what if, in your sleep you dreamed? And what if, in your dream, you went to heaven and there plucked a strange and beautiful flower? And what if, when you awoke, you had the flower in your hand?
~Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Dreams are a mystery. Dreams are a source of wisdom and self knowledge. Dreams are a normal and healthy part of grieving.
These three observations are common in the literature on dreams. While accurate and descriptive, they cannot begin to mirror the manner in which dreams bring respite for survivors from the overwhelming feeling that life is suffocating, and meaningless after a loved one dies. Dreams carry one into realms fully accessible to those with childlike trust and openness, and convincingly demonstrate access to another reality; a reality leading to greater self understanding and a wealth of knowledge that has benefited all of humanity. Despite the fact that dreams are not a high priority in our culture, paying attention to our dreams often leads us to the realization that there is an enormous intelligence behind them.
There is no lack of theories on why we dream, but one thing is clear: no one has a universal answer for the question of why everyone dreams each evening some 150,000 dreams in a lifetime. And unless we make a concerted effort, we forget most of them. Arguably, not all dreams are important; nevertheless, they possess several features which can lead to happiness and peace of mind. Dreams, then, can do many things, as dream analysts and researchers have found.
One of the most significant contributions of dreams about the deceased is that they bring comfort and support in times of duress. As we shall show in this chapter, many dreams have brought life changing results by reassuring survivors that they are capable of dealing with whatever life has to offer following the death of a loved one. The bereaved's feelings toward their plight can change drastically after a single dream.
On the other hand, dreams can also bring sadness. I remember a recurring dream that my father shared with me in the months after the sudden death of my mother. He would dream of her wearing a favorite dress. She looked beautiful, alive, and well, in seemingly good health. It was very meaningful to him, but when he would wake up and realize that it was a dream and she was gone it would devastate him. "You don't understand how it feels, he would say. "To see her looking so alive and then realize she is dead is very hard for me." He could not interpret the dream as saying, "I know it's hard on you but I'm okay. I'm whole again. Someday we'll be together. Continue to help others." His persistent interpretation of the dream as a taunt instead of a positive message was a major source of emotional pain for many months. Someone was providing help that he could not accept.
Dreams have also provided advice and guidance for the dreamer. Dreamers may be "told" to reconsider their present behavior in light of what has happened to them and how they are presently responding. Some individuals are given a little nudge to change direction. This may come through a nightmare or a peaceful vision in accordance with personal needs. Nightmares are not enemies; they are another way your unconscious your inner wisdom is trying to get your attention, to get you to think about an imbalance in your life.
One of the most interesting guidance dreams in history concerns parts of the manuscript for Dante's The Divine Comedy. For months after his death his sons searched the house and his papers to no avail until Jacopo had a dream of his father dressed in white. He asked his father if he had completed the poem. Answering with a nod of his head, Dante proceeded to show his son a secret place in his room which contained the rest of the manuscript. The next day, with a lawyer friend of his father's in tow, he went to the room in the dream, and behind a small window, covered with mold, were the missing papers. His father's visit in a dream resulted in the eventual publication of The Divine Comedy.
Thirty eight year old Brenda's contact experience is another typical example of the guidance dream, one which occurred after the death of her husband. It brought her the message that she would be able deal with life again.
"I Should Continue My Life"
I remember asking my husband to come to me in a dream after he died. I really didn't expect him to remember, but he did. He came to me very affectionately and held me in his arms, making me feel comfortable, selfassured, and confident.
My husband or my mind was trying to help me realize that I would be OK and would be able to continue with my life. I received a message of peace, tranquility, and wholeness, It made me feel that my husband was all right and that I should continue with my life.
From the dawn of civilization, dreams have been the source of creative solutions to tens of millions of personal problems. Current theory has it that symbols in our dreams are guides to truths about ourselves and our inner conditions. Dreams and the unconscious mind work to expand our conscious world and make us whole. By heeding our dreams, we can make giant strides in uncovering and combating fears as well as in healing deep emotional hurts. Because many mourners are emotionally handcuffed to the past and unable to accommodate life without their loved ones, dreams often provide solutions to their resistance to inevitable change. Not infrequently, a dream can be a means of saying good bye when loved ones were unable to be at the death bed or attend the funeral of the deceased. The following example of the peaceful death of Adele's father-in-law fits perfectly.
"I Was Really Able to Say Good bye"
When my father-in-law bad his heart attack, family members were immediately called to the hospital, including my husband. I bad to stay at home with our children because it was in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, be died in the early morning hors.
My husband told me what time be bad died and, at that time, I bad been half-asleep waiting for a phone call. It was during that time that I dreamed that my father-in-law summoned me to the hospital, and it was there that I was able to say good bye. In my dream be waved good bye and nodded. In my perspective I was floating up over him, and, as be died, be floated up past me. I loved my father-in-law a great deal and I feel be communicated to me so be could say good bye too.
I remember how peaceful his death was and that his children and wife were there to say good bye. It's as if be deliberately waited until they were all present before be allowed himself to die.
My dream helped me because I believe he was really able to say good bye to me, just like he did to the rest of the family.
In all of the instances in which dreams help the dreamer, one must interpret the dream in reference to what is going on, or should be going on, in his or her life. Be wary of anyone who tells you what your dreams mean. Any counselor can suggest possible interpretations, but in the final analysis, it is the dreamer who must decide the meaning of any dream in relation to his or her current waking thoughts and behavior. Examine all possible interpretations, and then decide what feels right.
Accordingly, books that give blanket interpretations of all types of dreams should be regarded as suspect. What applies to one person who has a dream about life, death, or coping may not be at all applicable to someone else. Some dreams are confounding and mysterious, and we may need expert guidance in obtaining useful information from them, preferably from a counselor who is a dream analyst. The unconscious speaks in symbolic language through dreams, and some symbols possess universal meanings. Still, they do not fit the same way into everyone's dreams, and the individual context, what is going on in a person's own life, must be the guiding light of interpretation. What the dream means to you must take precedence over what it means to members of your dream sharing group, a friend, or an analyst. The eminently sane words of Dr. Ann Faraday, one of the leading dream therapists in the country, are appropriate here. When conducting dream, sharing groups, she encourages alternative viewpoints and interpretations. However, in the final analysis she makes it clear that "the dream is the property of the dreamer, a unique production arising out of his own vast network of memories and associations, and, in the end of the day, is meaningful in whatever way he himself finds most useful."'
Where Do Dreams Originate?
Brenda's explanation of her guidance dream has already given us clues to partially answer this question. She said that she wasn't sure if it was her husband or her mind that was trying to help her. Her observation is based on a very significant concept in dream interpretation: that dreams are trustworthy, honest representations of our inner life at any given time. This is rooted in the fundamental assumption that the layer of the unconscious from which dreams evolve is essentially interested in the welfare of the dreamer. Thus the prevailing wisdom says that dreams are a product of the inner self: the subconscious mind (Freud's term) or the unconscious mind (Jung's term). It was Freud whose early writings emphasized that dreams are important communications from the inner self, supplanting the belief that they are super, natural in origin. One of his most frequently quoted remarks states that dreams "are the royal road to the unconscious." This should not negate the alternative explanation that many dreams may well have a supernatural origin, as history attests.
Dr. Clyde H. Reid, author and psychotherapist at the Colorado Institute for Transpersonal Psychology, has his own answer to the question of dream origins when he states "it is my conviction that the inner world, the world of the unconscious, does not belong to psychologists alone. It is the realm of the spirit, the place of healing energy, the abode of God's spirit within us. When I work with people as a pastoral psychotherapist, I am helping them to be in touch with their soul."'
Recently I heard contemporary singer and songwriter Billy Joel say "All of the music I have composed has come from a dream. I even dream arrangements and solos." Because the land of dreams has been a fertile ground for all of humanity, especially poets, writers, inventors, scientists, and musicians, the Supreme Spirit Reid refers to may well be what psychologists call the unconscious.
There is no doubt that dreams have been a spiritual resource for millions of people. Here is example: This contact experience came to my attention through a mother who had attended one of my lectures. Her four year old daughter had what her mother could only believe was a dream of her own grandmother. She described it in the following way.
"I Spoke to 'Nagjv Mama'
One morning my four year old daughter came downstairs for breakfast and told me she bad spoken to "Nagy Mama " du ring the night. She said it so naturally but it caused me to stop in my tracks, I was speechless because "Nagy Mama "Hunganan for grandmother was what I called my grandmother But my daughter did not know this nor bad we ever talked about her using that name, More convincing than anything else was that she mentioned several things that "Nagy Mama" bad said to her (personal things which I would rather not discuss here) that only someone knowing my grandmother would know.
While I have no idea what caused this, in some part of myself I believe my grandmother actually did communicate with my daughter. I believe that love exists even beyond this world as we know it. My grandmother and I were very close and I can imagine that she would want to see my daughter
My grandmother died many years ago and it helps me to believe she is still close to us. Also, only after this happened, was I able to share my memories with my daughter. I was helped so much. "Nagy Mama " continues to be very speciaL
It is noteworthy that this dream, which occurred many years after the death of the grandmother, was the event which allowed the mother to share her inner feelings with her daughter and the family. She had held it all within for a very long time. This type of dream could also be considered as a indirect or third-party contact, since the four year old had no apparent knowledge of the grand, mother or her mother's grief. It was the mother's belief that Nagy Mama had indeed visited her granddaughter.
Interpreting Dreams About Death
Many people report dreams about their own deaths or deaths of loved ones before they have died. This is not at all unusual. I once had a young woman come to see me whose father had died unexpectedly in a tragic accident. Shortly after his death, she began to have dreams of her own death which were very upsetting to her. Most dream analysts suggest that dreams about your own death represent the death of a part of your old self or a part of your life that you are changing. It could also represent the death of a relationship with another person or an outmoded way of thinking. In short, a dream of our own death "indicates the death of some obsolete self-image, from which comes rebirth into a higher state of consciousness and authentic self-being."' The dream that Adele had about the death of her father-in-law could have possibly represented a deep, seated fear of her own death, as death was now something very real in her own life for the first time.
What may be happening when we dream of the death of someone who is currently alive, particularly if it is a family member? Again, there is more than one possible answer. Because the metaphorical language of dreams usually points to our needs, feelings, and potential changes to make in our conscious life, death dreams of others often indicate relationship needs which are dying and should be looked at more closely. Succinctly stated, it may mean that whatever the dying person or persons in the dream represents to you is also dying.
What about dreams that seem to hold a premonition of death? Most often, one dreams of the death of another, and such dreams usually turn out to have no predictive quality whatsoever. Such dreams, however, are considered to have more to do with the behavior of the person who dies in the dream than of the dreamer.
Psychological causes such as resentment toward the person who dies or withdrawal from an intimate relationship have been suggested. But in instances where one dreams of a person dying, and shortly afterward the dream comes true, most authorities believe that ",..it can almost always be traced to signs of sickness or imminent death which have been picked up by the dreamer's waking mind though he may not be fully conscious of it."'
All of the previous is based on belief in a model which suggests that dreams come exclusively from the inner self. What each of us have to decide is whether all dreams of loved ones dying are visual metaphors or telepathic communications to a part of the brain capable of receiving such information from an outside source. As we all know, some dreamers have received predictive dreams of the death of a loved one. This happened to my wife the night before our infant daughter Karen died. She saw that Karen had stopped breathing and I was giving her mouth to mouth resuscitation which is exactly what took place the following afternoon. There may well be a whole side of us that operates outside of space and time.
Science would argue that since millions of people throughout the world occasionally dream about the death of a loved one, the laws of probability alone would predict that some few would actually die. Physician and researcher Melvin Morse believes there is something else other than probability at work, and from his studies of precognitive dreams he is convinced that each of us possesses an area of the brain which both creates visionary (dream) experiences and detects them. In his words: "Just as we have a region of our brain that helps us regain our balance when we trip and almost fall, we have an area which is devoted to communication with the mystical. It functions as a sort of sixth sense. In short it is the 'God sensor."" Again, the agnostic would counter with the thesis that we are by nature image making creatures.
How does one tell the difference between a death dream that is a metaphor and one which may carry significance beyond the usual? Most often predictive dreams, as well as dreams of visitation from deceased loved ones, are what some therapists call "big dreams." They stand out by themselves as possessing qualities unlike any dream you normally recall. Such "big dreams" stay with you, are easily remembered in great detail, often providing clear messages or directions; they often reduce and/or replace fear with beautiful memories. In any event, if you are unsure of the precognitive death dream by all means say something to the person involved if you sense deep within that it is the thing to do. Other, wise, let it go.
The secret of understanding dreams is to recognize that there is something within us which is connected to a greater store Of wisdom and perception than we normally think of ourselves as having. If we are able, through whatever means, to access this "something" we will be able to move deeply into areas of understanding which otherwise might seem impossible.
Alexander Lukeman, What Your Dreams can Teach You.
St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1990
Let us turn now to looking at other "big dreams" which bring healing, comfort, and a sense of completion when the dreamer feels that the relationship with the deceased was incomplete. These dreams not only bring wholeness to the new relationship between the survivor and the deceased, but provide a healthy sense of closure. In this context, closure does not mean the past is locked out or forgotten. Rather, one is now free to recall the deceased with joyful memories whenever necessary. This first dream occurred several weeks after twenty eight year old Lori's father died.
"I Felt Tremendous Joy and Relief"
MY Dad's death was very painful because be was very alive and vital and a 'fighter " He died of leukemia when be was fifty seven, He always gave us (my sisters and I) big bear bugs. Due to his condition he was unable to do this. Many times when I spoke of my grief Id state that what I missed were Dad's bugs. I spent the last few days with him and was the last to see him alive. Before I left the hospital the last night I washed his bands and feet in preparation for his passing. It was a was for me to give him unspoken permission to go. After his death I bad the following dream.
It was morning in the house I grew up in. I was in the living room. My Dad came in the room. I'm surprised and I wonder if I'm clothed enough I notice that I'm wearing a nightgown and a yellow terry cloth robe I bad when I was seventeen, I figure I'm seventeen but does my Dad know he's dead? I decide not to tell him because I want to see him.
We go into the kitchen for breakfast. He wants to go get the mail. I don't want him to leave, because once be goes out the door be won't come back, because he's dead. He bugs me (I felt this it was very real) and asks, "Do you want to come with me?" I say no because I am afraid. I don't want to die too. He says, "Okay, the next time I go you can come with me, " The dream ends,
I felt tremendous joy and relief that the one thing I missed was given. I feel that once again my father felt good and strong and wanted to comfort me in a loving way. Later, sharing my dream with friends, I made the connection of my Dad being able to assist me through a life crisis or my own death helping being me bridge the change. This dream helped me so much because I could feel that the time with my Dad was complete. I saw him strong and happy and vital again, the way be enjoyed life. I could let go of the pain and fear he felt that made such an impact on me. I could once again cry and yet have a powerful, joyous memory/gift to really boost my healing
The hug Lori received was not only an act of love, but a critical symbol of completion for her. What had been left undone had suddenly become whole since it reflected her acceptance of his death, his release from pain, the return of her father's health, and new found joy that her wish had been granted. Who granted that hug? Was it her unconscious mind! A Supreme Being? Her father? Or were all parts of the dream merely symbols to be interpreted in an altogether different way? Only Lori knows.
Jana is likewise convinced that her two dream experiences were unlike any other dreams she had ever had in her life. They were about her daughter who died of SIDS at the age of five months. The suddenness of baby Angie's death left Jana racked with guilt and despair. Furthermore, she was obsessed with two critical thoughts: never seeing her daughter as a grown woman, and believing that her daughter did not know how much she loved her. Both of these issues were resolved in two dreams, the first occurring a few months after her death.
"She Showed Me the Power, the Infinity of Love"
This dream occurred in the early months following my daughter's death. I was feeling like she bad "left" me. I felt rejected and abandoned and I was convinced she never knew bow much I loved her, and I thought she did not love me. This was exacerbated by several shows I bad seen on television regarding near death experiences, These individuals who bad bad an NDE spoke of not wanting to leave their new world and return here after a kind of confrontation with a Godforce, a light. I was convinced my daughter never even missed me, I was in agony.
I dreamed of her She was an infant, a beautiful infant as she was when alive, not the horror of her body in rigor mortis when we found her dead, her face in a horrible frozen grimace. Now she was smiling at me. She was bathed in a kind of light that was more than the light we know of. This light was a presence of a universal kind of knowledge. It was a light of peace of wisdom, and of love. These words do not, even in the tiniest way, describe what that light was in its entirety. But I felt it in my soul. It calmed me and uplifted me and reassured me.
She started to laugh, sort of. It was a noise I will never be able to describe; it was like the notes of a harp, the gurgling of a brook, the cooing of an infant, all together somehow. She was speaking to me in this language and I understood her. She said, "Mommy, I love you. " She was bathed in this light, kind of floating in a soft blue sky. I awoke peacefully and quietly.
I call these dreams "visitation dreams. " They feel to me that they come not from within me, not from my psychology or my trauma or memory or anything else from my life. They have the feeling of being 'Put" there. They are an externally placed experience, conscious and generated by something outside, instilling in me a kind of joy and peace that is infinite.
Explicitly, my daughter answered a question and soothed my suffering immensely. Symbolically, she showed me the power, the infinity of love. It is never broken by death; death is only a gateway. She helped me to get "unstuck" "from that negativity and self (destruction) to move on towards acceptance and peace
Although Jana was well on her way to healing, she
was still deeply distressed by the loss of the future, which for her meant
never seeing her daughter grow up to become a woman. One and a half years
after her daughter's death, she had another powerful dream which was the
solution to this obstacle to healing.
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