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
Comments
My sister died nearly 2 years ago. She passed away due to organ failure and pneumonia. Me &y family held her hand as she passed away. Once she left us I left the room I couldn’t stand & look at her anymore, I couldn’t deal with it. That was the last time I saw her. I didn’t go to see her in the coffin before the funeral & she couldn’t be buried in her own clothes because how bloated she was from the organ failure & liquids were still coming out her body but I never seen or was told exactly was she was buried in. But these last couple of weeks I keep seeing her in an open coffin, with a floating pale pink gown on, that starts just under her chin with a white embroided collar piece & matching cuffs. I just see her lay there, it can happen a few times in one night. What does this mean?
Hope that’s enough information for an answer.
Thanks x
Sam – It seems it is a way that your dreams are healing your feelings that arose from the last image you had of your sister. Unfortunately most people feel that the image we have of our body is who we are. So your sisters body left and awful impression of who she was. So your dream was gently showing you another image, but again it is one that is limited by your experience of life. If you keep on watching your dreams a much more wonderful view may emerge. See http://dreamhawk.com/interesting-people/edgar-cayce-and-the-cosmic-mind-superminds/ – http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/inner-world/
Tony
Hi Tony! I dreamt that me and my elder sister was in a cemetery we were looking for a knife (an old rusty looking one that’s used in the garden) and a broomstick to cut of the some weeds in that cemetery. While we were cutting and uprooting weeds i saw a white coffin nearby with a boldy written name on it. I cant seem to read the name in it because it was long and mainly composed of vowel letters. My sister asked me what am i looking at then i pointed the coffin to her and she also seem to be having a hard time reading the name on it. Then we started laughing saying “what a weird name! I havent seen that kind of name before” and it ended there. Im quite bothered by it. Pls reply. Thanks.
Kaye – I feel the dream is looking into your past – because a cemetery is about what we think of as dead and gone. But dreams have a wider view. You were clearing weeds which suggested you were doing some work such as meditation which clarifies your inner being. Therefore you saw a past aspect of yourself – everything in ones dreams is about you. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/questions-2/#Summing
So I suggest you sit and become quiet and imagine getting near to coffin and touching it. It will help in this if you read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson
Tony
Kaye – I feel the dream is looking into your past – because a cemetery is about what we think of as dead and gone. But dreams have a wider view. You were clearing weeds which suggested you were doing some work such as meditation which clarifies your inner being. Therefore you saw a past aspect of yourself – everything in ones dreams is about you. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/questions-2/#Summing
So I suggest you sit and become quiet and imagine getting near to coffin and touching it. It will help in this if you read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson
Tony
i am often recently thinking about death that i am ready to die even though i am not sick , so i dreamed last night of coffin and was so white i think that was very signifcant .So yes i do agrre we often dream dreams of thought we been thinking during the day .
Yola – It is a good thing to be ready to die. So many people are frightened or even terrified of death.
Sleeping is like a little death – see http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/what-we-need-to-remember-about-us-3/#DualBeing
Tony
My dad dream about President Obama and his wife were walking on a parade. And out of the sudden, they both enter the coffins. What does this means? :(( Please tell me ASAP, thanks 😀 Sorry if my english is poor.
My dad died 2 years ago. In my dream his coffin was in my room in the door way, leaning against the wall from one side of the wall to the other. In the dream I also have a photo of him next to my bed, at first I don’t really think much about it, later on in the night when all the lights are off and it’s far I realise that it’s not normal and I freak out.. I started running to get out of my room and try jump over the coffin. I trip over it and hit my head on the ground. After a few seconds I get back up and start screaming and running but no one can hear me and I don’t know where I am running too. What would be the meaning behind this dream? Thanks 🙂
I dreamed I was in my living room and my dad came in with a very small coffin, and he said he bought it for himself for the future because who knows how much they will cost years down the road. I lay down beside it to see if I would fit in it while laying straight and I wouldn’t have, so we were joking about the size of it, and then when I sat up the room was full of coffins but they were full of loved ones who have already died, who were now skeletons and in various forms of decomposition. I began to cry. I also saw my grandpa who is still alive, and he was alive in the dream but he was very small and looked very sick and I understood that he would die soon.
Anyways, thank you. 🙂
Also, i dreamt of my dead friend.
He came to me and spoke away to me as if he was still here! I said to him, why are you here, your dead? I looked confused. He said to me dont worry! He showed me 3 photos,1 if his gorlfriend.1 of his brother & 1 of his niece & said these are still the only 3 people that matter! Tell them im always here! Im always with them! I love them! Then he told me about my marriage & being the right choice! Then he had to go? Was he visiting me?
Last night i dreamt of my nana & granda. (Granda died about 6 years ago, nana nearly 3) anyway in my dream they were in their coffins mside by side lid closed. But tgeir hands were out. They were in a bedroom & in the room was a hige bed. My whole family slept in that room for a week untill funeral and i remember being scared to go into the room to sleep. Also the smell was getting so bad in my dream i was gagging! Mum said its ok its just their bodies decomposing! I said why can we smell it the coffin is closed and the smell got stronger! I can remember what the smell was loke & it was awful, what does this mean?
I dreamt my brother was inside the coffin and I’m crying that um going to miss him. I was si scary that something bad might happen to him and i woke up crying.. Please help
Mon – I do not think this is about your brother dying, but it is about you meeting feelings about death. Maybe because you see death around you and you are feeling what it is like to lose your brother.
See http://dreamhawk.com/poems/death-is-the-loss/
Tony
i dont have a comment. i have a question? can i tell you what dream of.
I just awoke from a nap where there were people getting me ready for my coffin. I was lying in it. But I spoke up about laying on my back bc in life my lower back hurts in this position. I was worried no one was going to take care of me and even though I would be dead I would somehow be conscious of the pain. The general feeling was of anxiety and reluctance. I sat up out of the coffin and got out. A lady wrote down an address on a piece of paper and started pointing us in the direction of where we would deliver the coffin once I was in it. Us being me, my husband, and 3 yr old son. I dont know where it was going.
Amanda – It is only having a body that is or causes pain. So if you actually died it would be a pain free experience. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/near-death-experiences/
The anxiety, reluctance and fear of pain is the result all of your present beliefs about what death is like. For your dream is a way of confronting you and giving you a – harmless – meeting with dying and death. This is perhaps the most common of dreams because we will obviously meet death full on at sometime, and dreams try to slowly show is what it is really like if we can meet our fears about it. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/dreaming-of-death/
Tony
I dreamt myself with someone, with my grandma I think, walking in a place where there are lots of coffins. And these coffins are surrounded by ice. Also, there are dead bodies lying in ice as well. And just so you know, my grandma is still alive. I was just scared that this dream has something to do with her.
Thesa – I believe your dream is about your feelings about death, and probably about you worrying that your grandmother is getting old.
We often see in films about a dead person that they are pulled out of a freezer, and that plus your thoughts about death created this stark picture. Please see the entry http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/dreaming-of-death/ and http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/questions-2/#TalkDead
It might also help to read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/near-death-experiences/
Tony
I dreamed about actors. what does it mean ? Please reply as soon as possible.
Abby – You have not sent enough information about your dream for me to make any sense of it. Please read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/context-theme/ also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/questions-2/#Summing
Tony
I dreamt that I was in a coffin, but was not dead. In my real life, I do fear death a lot. In this dream though, I felt very much Alive. In my dream, I was with a group of my closest friends and we willingly climbed into our own coffins to just sleep. We all awoke the next morning with spider webs all over us and looking like we were dead but we all didn’t
Feel dead, it was as if it was normal. Everyone was excited and ready to take in the day. The weirdest part is my best friend who died in a car crash last year was also there… She was not in a coffin but just stood in front of our coffins while we slept, she did not look happy nor sad.. Just solemn and was frozen.
I have very vivid and weird dreams, I need help figuring out what they mean. I always remember them and they always feel real. I can taste, touch, and feel deep emotion in them. They are getting more intense as I get older and I’m only 25. I often wake up and feel exhausted because my dream was intense.
Amanda – I sense that because of your fear of death you sometime wonder whether you will die in your sleep. That may be why you dreamt this particular dream.
Maybe you know that for hundreds of years people believed that sleep is a little experience of death. Edgar Alan Poe said, “Sleep, those little slices of death — how I loathe them.” That from a man who from his photographs appeared to have had a tortured view of life. Other writers who grew up in the darkness of materialistic thought also so sleep much the same way. George R. Martin says if sleep, “Sleep is a little death, dreams the whisperings of the Other, who would drag us all into his eternal night.” But some of us have explored the apparent hidden world of sleep and have found it is far from death. It is LIFE in its vastness; so vast in fact that most of us are afraid to meet it. See http://dreamhawk.com/body-and-mind/the-next-step-criticisms/ and http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/inner-world/
Your dream in fact your dream is a great play upon the fact that each time we sleep we enter the experience of death – the coffins and the cobwebs are a nice dramatic touch. But the fact is that we are all resurrected the next morning none the worse. But our present intellectual view of life and death, which has never actually explored the further reaches of consciousness, see physical death as the sleep from which one does not return. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/archetype-of-the-paradigm/
Your own view of death creates the image of your best friend as frozen, but an interesting twist, not in a coffin. I am sorry for all the links, but most people have no idea of how our dream/sleep life works, so forgive me for shortening the reply by suggesting them. So please see http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/questions-2/#Summing and http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/dreaming-of-death/
Tony
Sorry, I didn’t perceived at the first moment that my comment would be exposed. Could you please withdraw the part I narrate my dream? Let the compliments to the page if you want. Thanks at lot.
First of all thanks for your beautiful and helpfull site. I think it is the best one I came across so far. I dreamt this evening I was digging a coffin. In a certain moment I’m sure that the coffin is of Jesus Christ. Although it was ancient it was wrapped in plastic (like the ones around a new product we by like a tv or a refrigerator). I also found next the coffin the nails used in the crucification. Although old they seamed still able to be used. I said to someone next to me: “wow, see how these nails are old. They are about two thousand years and they are still integers”.
William Soares (from Brazil)
I dreamed About, My 4 year old daughter is inside the coffin.. in short shes dead.. what is the meaning of that? and i woke up super crying!!!