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
I had a close relationship with my father who we lost 16months ago unexpectedly. I have now twice dreamed that he was in his coffin trying to get out.the first time at the grave where they were trying to nail him in, his arms (very distinctive to me) were out trying to pull himself out. I started to hurry away, feeling frightened and he was following me…then when I stop to rest outside the gates, I turn around and he is standing there sort of glowing almost waxy smiling and turning into what he looked like as a very young man, this makes me feel more calm.
The second he is still fighting to get out of the coffin but this time they trying to nail him in but he is starting to leak cream fluid from his skin…I was so upset I woke up
Thank you so much
Carrie – I do not know if you are familiar with the readings of the I Ching, however that is what the first part of your dream reminds me of.
Please see http://dreamhawk.com/i-ching/hexagram-fifty-one/
The shock you experienced in your dream when you saw your father trying to get out of his coffin, produced a greater awareness in you and you were able to see that you did not loose your father, for he is alive inside you.
I wonder if it will be helpful for you at this stage to explore a bit more about life and death?
I will give you the link and please feel for yourself:
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/life-after-death-2/
The last part of the dream is a way to help you see that we start as “fluid” – the beginning of every life is sexual fluid – and that we end with becoming fluid again – the formless state of Life.
http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/death-is-life-without-form/
The dream is a wonderful way to help you in the process of seeing the loss of your father in a different light and to become aware that his life without form cannot be “nailed in a coffin”.
Anna 🙂
I have been having a very hard time sleeping lately. My dreams have been incredibly real feeling to the point I wake up full of anxiety and my body drenched in sweat. The feeling stays with me all day.
In the 1st few dreams I was having my grandmother who passed a bit over a year ago keeps showing me something in her old house. When she died none of the grandchildren were told. We weren’t even informed of any services either. She just kept coming to me in my dreams nagging that I go to the house. I finally did go to her house and found old newspaper articles about her very secret life as a child. After I went to the house she stopped coming to me in dreams. Until recently. She keeps showing me a location in her old house in my dream. I wake up in a panic and have a hard time getting back to sleep. It is around the same time every night. The other night before I went to bed I spoke out loud to her. I told her I can’t go to the house because we don’t own it. I told her that she has got to let me rest. She has left me but comes back with the same request. I’m at a loss for what to do and I know I’m not crazy!
The next dream that keeps repeating is off me inside a coffin. I never see anyone around. I don’t know the color of the coffin just that I’m in it. Then I wake up. I wake up I’m in a complete panic again. The sheets, my clothes, everything is soaked like I just took a shower but in sweat. These 2 dreams keep repeating over and over. I am tired and I am having so much anxiety over them. It takes most of the day for my body to stop shaking and physically calm down. Please help me figure out what the meaning of this could be so I can get some peace at night. Thank you so much.
Dear Jt 🙂
I understand your fear and yet I know there is no need to be afraid.
To get a better understanding of dreams I like to ask you to first read this entry
http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/questions-2/#Summing
Your grandmother – either your dead grandmother or the Source of Life within you – advices you to start to deal with your own undealt childhood issues.
I think it might be helpful if you google “family secrets” to understand what impact those secrets can have.
There is a healing purpose to bring back to life those parts of you that were lost and buried in your early years, for that way you will get rid of your fear.
I have often experienced that the fear for the buried pain is worse than experiencing the pain again in order to let it go.
Please also read
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/fear-dealing-with/
I wish you all the best with your inner journey 🙂
Anna 🙂
I dreamt of seeing three coffins in a room and that I was visualising my own coffin being open at the at intervals at the sides exposing my feet. Later I was pushing one of the coffins on a descending highway/ road with fast moving cars.
Hi Tony, pls. help me as i am troubled lately because of my dream. I dreamed i attended a wedding reception and people were taking pictures during the event. In a room beside it rests an open white coffin where a man lying on his side who looks like he was just asleep. I curious to look on the msn but i didn’t recognize him. During that moment i wasn’t even scared. But when i woke up, i was worried as i know that coffin is not a good dream symbol.
Ethel 🙂
Since the dream starts with a wedding reception, I reckon there is nothing to be worried about, yet it is something to become aware of.
I reckon you have been going through a stage of growth, which Jung called individuation and you are aware of it, reason why pictures were token at the wedding reception.
Please read
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/individuation/
and
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/marriage/
In the room next to the reception, there is a man sleeping. What arises in me is that it is “a sleeping beauty”, still unknown to you.
The coffin is like a “wake up symbol” which is in this context a good dream symbol.
Perhaps you thought that this unknown part of you might as well die?
The dream reminds you that you can still decide otherwise:
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/archetype-of-the-animus-jungs-view-of-the-male-in-the-female/#Integrate
I suggest you continue to look at your dreams to understand what this process is about.
Good Luck !
Anna 🙂
I have a head adream six months ago of two coffins one was opened and I was lying in the the other one a couple of weeks later my grandfather passed away … now I had a dream of two girls that I have never seen before trying to sit in it .. it freakes me out .. do you think it might be a coincidence or is it a sign that I will lose someone again
Vivian – Nothing is an unmeaning coincidence in our dreams. But it is sometimes difficult to understand the language of dreams because they use our often unconscious associations.
Your dream specifically showed your grandfather in the first dream, so it has no hesitation about showing you the connection. But in this dream it shows two unknown girls, so it is using a very different language.
Obviously it still is dealing with death – the coffin – but the girls are sitting and not lying. Again different associations. My best guess is that the dream came about because of your grandfather’s recent death. Also that you were lying in one, suggesting your own death. But the girls were young, which indicates a younger parts of you were facing fears of death. And your dream is reminding you of these past fears – sitting is like trying out the situation – just trying it, not lying in it.
So take time to remember when you were meeting feelings about death. And remember that everyone dreams about death, over and over until we pierce through the scary images shown by our modern view of death and reach our own inner truth. Try imagining yourself as you girls sitting in the coffin and note what you feel. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson
Tony
Hello. My dad 11 years ago when I was 9 from a construction accident. He was practically buried alive under 6ft of dirt. When he was in the hospital for 2 days, he was on breathing machine that was breathing for him. He was already brain dead when he arrived.. but my mother decided to let him go and be out of pain. He stopped breathing in the first 10 minutes we were in there while the pulled the plug. The weird thing is… 10 years later, my sister, brother, mom, mamaw, and two aunts have had the sane exact dream around the same time frame.. Like in a month period. We all had dreamed that he had a cell phone, and had called us to tell us that the hospital had messed up. That he hadn’t stopped breathing. That in fact he was brain dead, but still breathing.. I know it’s physically impossible for him to be buried alive in the coffin because I know how they are prepared for the coffin.. can you please explain why we’ve all had the same dream?
For got to mention, I have also had that dream.
I WAS IN MY OLD FAMILY HOUSE WHERE I OBSERVED 7 COFFINS BUT I TAKE AS A SIGN FOR ME OF LIFE MOVING ON AS I HAVE BEEN ILL A LOT IN THE PAST 6 YEARS
Mo – The feeling I get is that with so many inner deaths behind you the future cannot get worse. For birth follows after death.
Tony
Dreamt I was carrying a coffin n it fell n fresh bones fell out of it
Hi Tony, had a very disturbing dream last night. It was about a young friend of my sons who was tragically killed last year when he was knocked down and killed whilst on a night out. In my dream he’s laid down in what looks like a large Moses basket in the the Church and we’re at his funeral, he suddenly wakes up, looks around him and I’m thinking he doesn’t know he’s dead, he then climbs out of the basket comes over to me says hi as if nothin has happened and then goes and orders a pint of alcohol and goes into a corner with all his friends drinking, theres a pub restaurant attached to church, the food was for his funeral, all i’m feeling is panic and fear in this dream, he comes over to me again but I can clearly smell decomposition off him and am terrified when I pat his back because he’s cold and smells so bad, then my late husband comes up beside me and asks me if I want a drink, i say no because i want to get food for our Son, I end up feeling stranded in this dream and I still feel very disturbed by it, please help me, thankyou.
I dreamed it was all black, and I said I wonder how it would feel to die, the I was staring out the window of a moving vehicle, but the reflection wasn’t me. It didn’t frighten me tho, then we stopped at a lake house and they started pulling a coffin out the back, and started a wake behind the house in front of this large lake and as I went up to see the coffin I noticed it was myself, then I was back In my body climbing out the coffin, next thing I know we are celebrating that I’m alive so I’m swimming and I remember saying how finials this water looked above me against the sun. Then hangs wrapped around my ankles and I could see them dragging me down finally my body was stuck against the bottom and I was drowning fighting against the pressure. I awoke back on the shore with people around me trying to save me. The water of the lake started swirling like a whirl pool and a women rose from the water in the surface hair so long it floated. On top the water. I started walking to her for no reaso as everyone screamed for me my to go, but I wanted to go, wanted to know. I got within a foot of her and stared at her for about a mintue before I was back at the bottom of the lake not drowning but not able to move.
Raven – This is an important dream and I will try to explain its importance.
The blackness is often associated with death, but many people feel such death is the end of their existence. But in our inner world and dreams it the ability to let go of your past so its essence can be used to give birth to a new you, an upgrade so to speak.
The blackness is also a sign of entering your core self, your inner world. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/core/ and http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/inner-world/
The first stage of what is actually a massive growth and change is often the experience of death. But this is frequently accompanied by fear, struggle or resistance because the old self hangs on because it cannot accept or is scared of what is coming. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/what-we-need-to-remember-about-us-3/#Reaction
The feeling of drowning is often a sign of a great force that is pulling you under. In life and sleep we have two powerful actions working in us. The first is our waking experience based on having a body, its limitations, vulnerabilities and a particular gender. Our second is the power that gave us life and continues to express as dreams, in our breathing and heartbeat – our life. This I have given the description as the Life Will.
While we sleep our conscious self is largely or totally unconscious, and while we sleep our voluntary muscles are paralysed – therefore another will or motivating force moves our body. So we have a Conscious Will, and what I will call a Life Will. The first one we have experience of as we can move our arm or speak in everyday activities; but the second will takes over when we sleep. This Life will can move us to speak, to move our body, and in fact do things that we cannot do with our Conscious Will. As Freud pointed out this inner will has full access to our memories. It can do so many other things that are described elsewhere.
It is this Life Will that is the force leading you to a new experience of yourself. It might help to read http://dreamhawk.com/body-and-mind/methods-of-awakening/
And here is a description of a whole cycle –
To my amazement a huge living and wondrous circle appeared on the wall. It was full of movement, everything dancing in time to music. At the very centre of the circle was emptiness, nothing, a void. Yet out of this nothingness all things emerged. There were plants, animals, people, hills, rivers and mountains all coming to birth. They danced out in their own individual movement, yet each unknowingly was part of the whole wonderful and intricate dance which made a great pattern and movement in the body of the circle. All danced to the periphery and there turned and moved, still in their ballet, back to the centre. At that centre they plunged into its oblivion again. But at that very moment new life sprang from it to dance once more.
Tony
i dreamt of 5-6 men carrying a coffin from the hospital, a short daughter or wife were crying, as they carried coffin the top opened and a musician carrying a horn in hand, wearing hat and brown vest fell sideways out of coffin everyone gasped and I woke up.
Help me with this please.
Maggie – It is obviously about feelings connected with death, but without any associations you have with a daughter and wife, and the musician I cannot help. Please see http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/association-of-ideas-with-dreams/#Working and http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson
Tony
I dreamed of my dead father crying holding by brother which was (Dead) in my dream in his casket. I was the only one that saw my dad. We were at his wake at the funeral home and all our family was there telling my brother goodbye.
I my dream i saw my friend in a coffin at her funereal. I dont know how she died or what events occured this to happen. It all started at the funeral. I just want to know what it means.
A.J. It probably means that a part of you symbolised by your friend has died. But as I have no idea what your feelings are for your friend I suggest you find out for yourself by reading http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/characters-or-people-in-dreams/ and http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/association-of-ideas-with-dreams/#Working
Tony
In my dream, I’m at the school bus stop with my daughter. When bus arrived,out of nowhere, there were people holding black coffin and loaded it into the bus. I was very uneasy and worried when my daughter was getting into the bus…
I dreamt that i was leaving a fuction for my cousin because my aunts were going to be there while walking across the stree a parade of horses carrying coffins were in my path i ran across the street to get away from the horses but then noticed they had a whole performace set up like a parade show casing coffins and there strength (the coffinsseem empty or had a few manikins inside) while i was on a high wall there was a monkey like creature growling at me tryig to attck me i mamanged to knock one out but the other one still tried i woke up afraid what could that mean?!