Coffin

This is nearly always a reminder of one’s own mortality. So it often points to  your thoughts and feelings about death, as these are often in the background of our mind, and dreaming of a coffin suggests you may be exploring how you relate to death. (i.e. are you at ease with it, do you understand it as an integral part of life, or are you still feeling fear or a belief it is the final end of everything?) The coffin might also be showing you the death of a part of yourself – a hope, feelings about a relationship, things lost and buried in your earlier years. See Dreaming of Death.

Seeing your own coffin in a dream has several possible meaning. The first is obviously to do with feelings and thoughts about death as described above. The second is to do with a reminder that there is an end to your life, so live fully and daringly now. Do and be now with those you love what is in you to do. This sometimes means that you have buried your real self and need to really come alive. The third is that you have a presentiment of your own death and the dream is preparing you. Soemtimes people want to see what their funeral will be like.

If you are in the coffin, apart from what has been said above, it might also show you feeling trapped in a life situation, feeling you have no future and life is like a death. At such times you need to let old parts of you, old attitudes and fears really die, as such dreams suggest a great change and a resurrection into a new way of life – almost a return to the womb.

If the coffin is linked with someone you know, Sometimes it may show a hidden desire to get them out of your life, or perhaps worries about the health of the person, or fear of losing them. This includes the death of a relationship and the feelings of loss, or one’s feelings about the death of someone such as husband. If it is the coffin of someone dead, it can also be a link with their influence in your life now they are dead, or if it is a parent, it can stand for the influence of family traditions in your present life.

Example: My father died when I was 3 – 1973. I recently dreamt I was carrying my fathers coffin at his funeral. On the way to the church I dropped the coffin and the lid fell off exposing his face at the advanced stage of decomposition. I replaced the lid so as not to grieve my mother further. But I followed my father’s spirit into the gaps of the coffin.  Rosina.

What Rosina’s dream shows is that because we all need a relationship with a male figure f to fully mature from childhood, and Rosina missed this, she is  figuratively carrying his dead body around with her to deal with what she missed in life. The dream shows how she is ready to actually progress in the relationship and marks a turning point in the way you will relate to males. The lid  is coming off because those old feelings that are not healthy any more are being exposed. The dream says she is trying not to disturb her mother, so may be ‘putting the lid’ on those feelings again.

Example: I am sitting in a large comfortable room when my husband comes in and starts to take off his overcoat. The garden outside is full of flowers so it seems to be summer. As I turn to greet him I see his dead body lying in an open coffin between us. My husband starts talking of our plans for the following day. Pointing to the coffin, I say, “Yes, but we must do something about this first. We can’t leave it here much longer.” My husband goes close to the coffin, takes a long look at the body, his own, says, “Yes, we must. It is beginning to smell.” There the dream ends. I wake up feeling very sad and haunted. I can’t forget it. My husband died over eight years ago. Mrs P.M.

The dream is clearly pointing to the negative feelings of loss that Mrs PM is still carrying around inside her that she needs to deal with. The garden – her potential for growth – is full of colour and possibilities, so she can actually move on.

In some dreams, death, caves, underground, tombs or coffins often appear together. The living process in us – life itself – is fully acquainted with life and death, birth and resurrection. They are all fundamental processes of life in its fullness. We pass through them all while still living in the body at certain times. Such times are usually when great inner or outer change is occurring, perhaps when we have lost something or someone important to us, or have left behind a way of life or work, or a period of ones life such as parenthood. Thus the coffin can also depict these processes of death and rebirth.

Putting a coffin in the ground is in some ways like planting a seed. Within ourselves the fruit of that person’s life, or of our own past, can now emerge in a new way, shorn of its old forms. See: burial; funeral; tomb.

Example: When I was 17 I met a guy and quickly became involved. I met his grandfather only a couple of times during our relationship before he passed. He had raised my boyfriend, he had only sons and grandsons.. Never had there been born a girl in their bloodline. About six months after we started dating, his grandfather died. I went to the funeral with my boyfriend. Shortly after I had a very vivid dream of the funeral. As I walked to the casket to view the body, the grandfather raised up looked me right in the eyes and said, ” You take care of my baby girl.” The next week we found out we were pregnant. I did give the first girl born to that bloodline!

Useful Questions and Hints:

How am I feeling about the coffin, and what does this suggest about my relationship with death or the person in the coffin?

Is this connecting me with something of myself that died recently or in the past?

Is there a suggestion here of my connection with the long past, my ancestors – their bones – and how it influences my present life?

See Near Death Experiences – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams