Dead

Seeing something dead in your dream suggests you are realising that some part of yourself, or your feelings, are no longer expressing fully. In fact you may have killed that part of you by denying it, repressing, or freezing it from normal life. The ‘death’ may even have been caused by a painful experience. But even so, it still means you have made a decision – perhaps unconscious – to shut out that part of your life. This can also relate to a lost opportunity or potential.

Some aspect of your outer or inner life is fading, or being superseded by a changed approach, so may be shown as dying. Your drive to achieve something might die, and be shown as a death in your dreams. Changing from adolescence to puberty, maturity to old age, are also shown as oneself dying. Lost opportunities or unexpressed potentials in oneself are frequently shown as dead bodies. All of us unconsciously learn attitudes or survival skills from parents and others. If these are unrecognised they may be shown as dead. Sometimes we have killed the child or teenager in us because of difficulties or trauma at those ages, and these may be seen as a dead person in one’s dream.

Some death dreams may show the awakening of new life in the dreamer. For instance, Sue worked on a dream in which she was told her baby had died. She woke shaking with grief and tears. The dream and emotions appeared to show her becoming alive enough to feel the grief of her past pain as it connected with the death of her hopes, love, and ideals. She had suppressed her pain for so long. In now coming alive enough to feel her emotions, she was feeling at last that something had died in her.

If the death is someone we know: Frequently, as in second example, desire to be free of the person; or unexpressed aggression; perhaps one’s love for that person has ‘died’. We often ‘kill’ our parents in dreams as we move toward independence. Or we may want someone ‘out of the way’ so we do not have to compete for attention and love.

Death of oneself: Exploration of feelings about death; retreat from the challenge of life; split between mind and body. The experience of leaving the body is frequently an expression of this schism between the ego and life processes. Also: Death of old patterns of living – one’s ‘old self’, the loss of the boundaries that limit your awareness to an identity connected only to the body. This latter is usually a willing surrender of self to the process.

The walking dead or rigor mortis: Aspects of the dreamer that are denied, perhaps through fear.

Dancing with or meeting death or dark figure: Facing up to death.

Example: ‘My son comes in and I see he is unwashed and seems preoccupied and as if he has not cared for himself for some days. I ask him what is wrong. He tells me his mother is dead. I then seem to know she has been dead for days, and my two sons have not told anyone. In fact my other son has not even accepted the fact.’ Anthony.

Anthony is a divorcee. Processing the dream he realised the two sons are ways he is relating to the death of his marriage – the children’s mother.

Example: ‘During my teens I was engaged to be married when I found a more attractive partner and was in considerable conflict. Consistently I dreamt I was at my fiancé’s funeral until it dawned on me the dream was telling me I wanted to be free of him. When I gave him up the dreams ceased.’ Mrs D.

Example: ‘I dream I have a weak heart which will be fatal. It is the practice of doctors in such cases to administer a tablet causing one painlessly to go to sleep – die. I am completely calm and accepting of my fate. I suddenly realise I must leave notes for my parents and children. I must let them know how much I love them, must do this quickly before my time runs out.’ Mrs M.

This is a frequent type of ‘death’ dream. It is a way of reminding ourselves to do now what we want to – especially regarding love.

Although the unconscious has a very real sense of its eternal nature and continuance after physical death, the ego seldom shares this. Unconsciously we realise that collective humanity carries living experience from the life of those now dead. The farmer today unconsciously uses the collective experience of humanity in farming. What innovation he does today his children or others will learn and carry into the future. But apart from that there is life after death. See: Life after Death By Dr. Elisabeth Kubler Ross.

Idioms: Dead and buried; dead from the neck up / or neck down; dead to the world; play dead.

Dreams about a dead person: Dreaming of someone who is dead, a relative or loved one, is quite common. After all, the person may have played a big part in your life, as for instance a husband or wife. Therefore the influence of their existence is still very much a live in you.

As an example of this, you will probably be able to realise that some of your traits, some of the ways that you think or respond to things, have arisen because of the way you related to the person you dreamt about. So in many cases the dead person indicates the feelings you have about the, the traits you still have alive in you from them. When someone close to you dies you go through a period of change from relating to them as an external reality, to meeting and accepting them as alive in your memories and inner life.

Some dreams of dead people are expressive of attempts to deal with feelings, guilt or anger in connection with the person who died; or your own feelings about death.

Dreams about a Dead husband or wife: Many dreams of dead people come from women who have lost their husband. It is common to have disturbing dreams for some period afterwards; or not be able to dream about the husband or wife at all; or to see the partner in the distance but not get near. In accepting the death, meeting any feelings of loss, grief, anger and continuing love, the dream may become as in the third example. See: Death.

Comments

-karamel 2014-08-02 7:48:24

Hi a dream that has been bothering me for a while. My mother past away 6y ago, her death was sudden. In my dream she appeared and sat on my coach and stared at me. Didn’t say one word. I kept reaching for her saying mommy mommy your back can I get one last hug. And I reached for her but something held me back. I tried so hard and starte. To cry. I asked her why she don’t try to hold me but she wouldn’t say anything. She just sat there and stared. What do thi dream mean?

-karamel 2014-08-02 7:48:24

Hi a dream that has been bothering me for a while. My mother past away 6y ago, her death was sudden. In my dream she appeared and sat on my coach and stared at me. Didn’t say one word. I kept reaching for her saying mommy mommy your back can I get one last hug. And I reached for her but something held me back. I tried so hard and starte. To cry. I asked her why she don’t try to hold me but she wouldn’t say anything. She just sat there and stared. What do thi dream mean?

-roisni 2014-07-31 16:24:51

my mummy died 9 weeks ago she was suffering from alzheimer’s and had stopped wanting to eat she was down to 6 stone when admitted to he hospital it was a shock to all of us that she died we hadn’t realized just how ill that she was so we never discussed dying to her.. last night i had a dream that i opened a door into a box room and i saw my mum standing over a coffin immediately i went and put my arms around her so happy to see her she was like the way she looked three years before she died . she said who put me in there? why am i in there? Did dad put me in there? she kept looking into the coffin i cant stop thinking of this dream it was so vivid what does this mean ?

-lisa 2014-07-30 2:46:08

my father passed away two weeks ago. right after he passed i had a dream that he was with me, but where his eyes were there were no eyeballs just the lids with empty holes. what does that mean

-apurv vyas 2014-07-26 16:09:56

hello my name is apurv vyas,i saw more than one holi dead body in my dream the last one body was little stinking ,what does it indicate i am confused.

-Lea 2014-07-14 13:50:05

I had a dream of me in a class. I never seen the class before but it felt familiar. There was about 5dozen people in the class. We were all smiling and writing letter to this boy who was going to bury themselves alive. We were happy for him. I was happy for him. But felt wicked. So 10mins later he gets into his coffin in the corner of the classroom and everybody was around him. Smiling like they just got a Christmas present. I was scared but I couldn’t move. The coffin looked different it was all black but in the center it was plastic/glass.idk which material it was but u could see the person inside. They closed the coffin and he was looking at everyone smiling when the coffin closed he looked straight at me and he looked like he wanted to get out. His eyes looked scared ,sad,happy and looked like he wanted help. I wanted to help so bad but just stood in place and was smiling. After 1 min or so he just passed out and that’s when I knew he was dead. In my dream. I woke up crying because it felt like part of me braked. Please help me!!! I need to know what it means

-Tabitha 2014-07-12 18:33:50

I had a dream I had just moved into a new house that was full furnished and afterwards I was told that a mother and son had died in the home. It was to late for me to leave, so I got rid of all their things and made the house my own. I came home from work one day to find a strange man in my yard and ask him to leave. When I entered my home all my things were gone and the family of people who occupied the before were moved in. Even the girl who was supposed to be dead. They wouldn’t leave And neither would I so we lived ttogether for a few days until I couldn’t take it anymore and I woke up. What does this dream mean?

-maribel 2014-07-08 16:56:23

I have been dealing with a lot of stress about the death of my son’s father. before I went to sleep I looked at his picture and I told him I was going to take it down tomorrow. when I went to sleep I dreamed that he was trying to get me into water with him. I knew it wasn’t him but I couldn’t resist. He was always trying to persuade me to go with him. Telling me come here sweety it’s me. when he got out of the water he was very weak he went into this plant and the plant started crying like a baby. I got scared and told him to stop to leave him alone. I pushed him into the water it felt like it wasn’t him it was something els.

-margarita 2014-06-24 18:27:13

I dreamed of my deceased mothershe has been gone 14 yrs she called me by phone I t alk to her but I knew she was dead what do you think this is

    -Tony Crisp 2014-06-27 7:41:34

    Margarita – What you mean is that you thought she was dead because she left her body behind. Please see http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/questions-2/#TalkDead

    When you were young you knew a lot more than you do now. But the beliefs of other people – that when your body dies ‘you’ are dead – has taken away that basic knowledge.

    Of course your mother can talk with you. But we expect them to make noise with their mouth instead of mind to mind, heart to heart, as occurs in dreams.

    Tony

-Shelly 2014-06-02 2:28:41

Hi, I had a dream that I was in a room.. And unbeknownst to me there was a dead woman wrapped up on a bed and someone came to remove the body. I left the room and when I returned the room was spotless – like new! What does this mean… Can you help me interpret, please?

-peter 2014-02-08 6:50:25

me and my wife are living happily but i saw a dream in which my wife died…… and i kept her body in a box…. i could not understand the meaning of this dream…. what does it indicate plz help…..

-Charese 2013-09-30 14:14:59

I had a dream of my father who has been dead for over 26 years my dream of him was in the form of photos and he was dressed in a white suit and smiling as if he where happy he died of suicide this morning I went on break at work and their was a white feather on my windshield this morning I need to know what this means.

-tracy 2013-09-29 6:58:02

I was asked to identify my own body in my dream last night. in my dream i was aware that i was alive and that i couldnt be dead. i didnt want to see my body. someone else had to identify it. i cant remember if i was emotional , i think i was more confussed.

the obvious meaning to me is the death of a former self. can anyone give more details on its meaning.

-cherry 2013-09-13 0:20:49

I have finally spoken to my late boyfriend after he dead in the hospital with heart failure.Life has not been so easy for me since he left me.I talked to people if there ia a way i could speak to him for once beacuse i was dreaming of him since he was buried and him keep appearing to me probably wanting to speak with me.I was confused and i told a friend of mine my situation and he told me that he can help me to find a diviner that communicates with the dead.That was how i came to knoew Doctor Laco.He did everything within his power and i finally talked to my late boyfriend,ever since my mind as been on resThanks to Laco for making my dreams come through.Contact him if you fill like talking to you late ones.His email address is- (lacopowerfulspellcaster@yahoo.com)

-chris 2013-09-11 8:21:30

My dream is a little different. In this dream, my now girlfriend was recently past and I was overly distraught this one night. I heard her voice in my head, ‘Chris. Chris I am here.’ I stated, I can hear u, I can hear u baby.’ She said to pick up my phone. Weird it wasn’t a cell phone, but and ole timey black handle phone. I said, ‘hello baby. I’m here.’ she said, ‘I love u baby. I love u.’ Then I must have asked every stupid question, ‘Are we born again baby? Are we destined to meet in every life, star crossed lovers? Can we meet up again in our next life?’ she started to exclaim a soft yet dry ‘Yeah’ continuously. Almost like a, ‘I guess so’ type of yeah. This was repeated every second, even after I stopped asking questions for a time, repeated softly and softer until her voice dissipated in the distance of the phone as if she was getting farther and farther away to where her voice could no longer be heard… Not cool to have this happen when ur girlfriend is not dead yet! Can any try to explain this?

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