Ghost

Memories, feelings, guilt, which haunt us; parts of the wider awareness of the unconscious which attempt to communicate; the husks or influences from past traumas or events, which have been emptied of hurt and real influence, but still affect us as habit patterns; fantasies, hopes, longings we have given time to, and so filled with our life and sexual energy, and which now influence us.

Ghost of a living person: A sense of their thoughts or presence influencing us; haunted by desire for them, or a resentment or feeling about them.

A ghost which feels solid: The dreamer is ‘touching’ aspects of their own mind or awareness existing beyond preconceived ideas and beliefs.

Some people believe that in dreams the living haunt a place. This is possible because a living person may experience an OBE and be seen as a ghost by someone in the area of the experience. Seeing a ghost while awake can still be considered as connected with the dream process.

Robert Van de Castle points out that in his work with people, whenever he has helped them investigate a ghost dream, it has always led back to the childhood experience of a parent coming to the bedroom and lifting them or moving them to prevent bed wetting. He says the ghost is invariably the mother, and the robber figure is the father.

Example: While I was engaged to be married I had a dream in which I was looking at thick velvet curtains, very rich in texture. The curtains parted and my dead mother walked through. She came to me with such a look of love and said, ‘My darling I am so sorry, but this marriage is not to be’. The dream then ended.

I was due to meet my fiancé at a hotel, as he was working, travelling around the country, and this would be our last meeting before our wedding. I travelled to the hotel, and when I got there the manager took me to one side and told me my fiancé had been killed in a car accident. My mother’s warning had saved me from a terrible shock.

Example: J. A. Hadfield in his book Dreams And Nightmares tells the story of a young woman who was happily engaged but who suddenly became depressed. It was discovered that her depression started when her fiancé had greatly aroused her sexually. That night she had a nightmare in which she saw the ghost of a man to whom she had been previously engaged but had been killed in a war. He was looking at her reprovingly. She felt terribly ashamed and disloyal because of her passionate love for her present fiancé. The reason for such depth of feeling was that when her previous fiancé had died she swore to herself she would not marry again, although he had not asked this of her. So the ghost here represents not only the past relationship, but the woman’s deeply implanted decision not to marry again, raised from the dead as it were by her passionate love for her present man.

Example: I was in an ancient room. It had the feeling of being an old church. Then my wife and I were in bed in the room. A middle aged woman was in the room. She was a ghost. I felt afraid of her, but to meet the fear needed to confront her. I reached out my hand to her. I was crying out in my sleep from fear. As she took my hand I was amazed and shocked to feel it as physically real. I cried out ‘I can feel you – I can feel you!’ She also was surprised and said, ‘He is from the other level,’ or some named level or dimension. I had the impression the level or dimension was recognised by ‘them’. I then said I wanted to understand.