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

-Bian 2016-01-21 1:50:18

I dreamt of being with my cousin, who died in an accident years ago, with a girl who is also dead -i do not recognize her. They seem close. They are both pale, injured, bruised. At first, we were with our clan, but then later on, i refused to let my cousin go, so i went to the coffin with them, i lay between him and the girl. As i say how much i miss those days with him, how much he means to me, he assaulted me. The girl helped me. And so he stopped, and so is my dream. How to interpret these? even with the assault, i would still love to dream of him again. Maybe he was mad at me for not visiting him in the past year? What do you think?

-Hmarie 2016-01-06 2:15:58

Hi again, I remembered another dream that’s been on my mind for quite some time. It was a beautiful day out and my family members were all standing in my living room talking. I soon realized everyone was there but my grandma, who was always the person I wanted to be with the most. I looked out my glass sliding doors and there my grandma was, looking happy as can be sitting in my green chair and next to her was my uncle Brian (he passed when I was 2 years old, I’m now 23) she loved and missed him so much, she always talked about him. A day later I was talking her on the phone when she told me the cancer was spreading and she didn’t have much longer to live, I then told her about the dream I had. Do you think this could have been a premonition or a sign from my deceased uncle that she would soon leave us on this side of life to the next side of life wherever he may be, that’s maybe why we were separated on either side of the doors and I felt like I couldn’t/shouldn’t go out there and join them? She also passed away on a beautiful Sunday, when I went outside the sky instantly reminded me of the one in the dream I had.

    -Anna - Tony's Assistant 2016-01-11 13:20:30

    Dear Hmarie – I believe this dream is created because of the close connection you have with your grandmother. She must have known at the time of the dream that she did not have much longer to live and this is what was expressed in your dream too.
    Also dreaming about your grandmother sitting next to your deceased uncle, might reflect the process your grandmother was going through at that moment; she was beginning to detach from this life and preparing for letting go of her physical body; a step your deceased uncle had taken already.
    What you perceive with being on “either side of the doors” and the feeling that you could not or should not go out there and join them might be related to the way you perceive death.
    As your other dream shows, there is no real death; your (inner) grandmother is alive and well in that dream and so in your inner world. See also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/grandmother-grandma/
    It might serve a purpose to explore your thoughts and beliefs about death and perhaps these articles can give you a start; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/dreams-about-dead-people/#dreams-about-dead%20-person and http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/death-is-life-without-form/
    Anna 🙂

-Hmarie 2016-01-06 2:06:01

Hello, I recently lost my grandmother who was my entire world. Last night I had a dream about her burial, only she was alive and well. There were priest there and my entire family was there too. The priest sounded as though they were saying some very religious stuff although I can’t remember word for word. Then each one of the family members went up to her and had their last time with her. When it was my turn I was talking and laughing with her I felt nothing but happiness, then she started taking off all of her jewelry she had on and handed it to me. One piece of jewelry caught my attention especially, it was the same neclace I have of her ashes and when I asked her who was in it she said it was my uncle Brian’s ashes (he’s been gone for 22 years now and wasn’t cremated but she was.) and I took it, when I went to go sit back down, I felt a feeling of overwhelming dread when she got in a white coffin, then as the priest spoke what seemed to be a different language, they then began to bury her alive. That’s where I started screaming “no! She’s alive, don’t bury her!” And I woke up feeling confused. I still don’t know what to think of it.

    -Anna - Tony's Assistant 2016-01-11 14:56:52

    Dear Hmarie – What I see in this dream – and please explore it yourself as well http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/dream-yoga/ and http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson is that you become aware of the process you are going through. When someone close to us dies we go through a period of change from relating to them as an external reality, to meeting and accepting them as alive in our memories and inner life and there might be some conflict involved there; “no! She’s alive, don’t bury her!”
    The priest in your dream might be a symbol of your wider awareness and inner wisdom that your grandma did not and cannot even die, as she lives on inside you. To explore this symbol in your inner world you can use “Being the priest”.
    The jewellery you receive from your grandmother could be a symbol of all the valuable things that you have received from her in every possible way; through being with her and loving her and also through genes that are passed on and through deeply buried tendencies that you have unconsciously inherited from the long past and so all that you have gained from your family tradition; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/jewels-jewelery/
    I do not understand this sentence; “, it was the same necklace I have of her ashes (a necklace made of ashes?) and when I asked her who was in it (in the necklace?) she said it was my uncle Brian’s ashes (he’s been gone for 22 years now and wasn’t cremated but she was.)”
    The part where the priests speaks what seemed to be a different language, reflects parts of your inner world that is not clear to you yet; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/language-foreign-or-strange/ and http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/what-we-need-to-remember-about-us-3/#Seed
    Let me know if you have any questions Hmarie.
    Anna 🙂

-Mari 2015-12-26 6:58:07

I am not sure if I feel asleep but I saw my daughter dead in a coffin. She was so pretty with a lot of makeup and had a rosary she wanted for Christmas in her hand that we have yet to buy. at the time I was stressing out about her coming home cuz it was snowing . I have coffin dreams a lot and people die after I have them. My dreams are usually not about that person they have something in common with that person . This one was so descriptive about her. Please let me know if this could be real

-Tori 2015-12-14 10:23:28

I keep having the same dream!!! It’s my 9 year old son standing at my gravesite crying!!! It’s freaking me out:(

-Melissa 2015-12-14 6:37:51

I dreamt I was looking at some extravagant wedding of people I don’t know, and right next to each the groom and bride and I think two other people had a coffin next to them each one coffin. The coffin was wooden and were closed. Can’t seem to find coffin and wedding both in the same sentence anywhere for a dream interpretation.

    -Anna - Tony's Assistant 2015-12-18 16:05:56

    Dear Melissa – The way I see your dream – and please explore it for yourself as well http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/dream-yoga/ – is that each of us takes our “buried, unconscious self” with us when we unite with another person.
    J. Krishnamurti expressed it in this way in his book “The Mirror of Relationship”:
    Relationships act as a mirror to reflect all the states of our being if we allow it. In relationship if we become aware, both the conscious and the unconscious states are revealed. This self-revelation ceases when we use people as needs, when we depend upon them, when we possess them. Mostly, relationship is used to cover our inner poverty; we try to enrich this psychological poverty by clinging to each other, flattering each other, limiting love to each other, and so on. There is conflict in relationship but instead of understanding its cause and transcending it, we try to escape from it and seek gratification elsewhere.
    We use our relationship with people, with society as we use things – to cover up our shallowness.
    See also http://dreamhawk.com/body-and-mind/the-great-and-ancient-secret-part-three/
    Anna 🙂

-Celine 2015-11-26 11:07:02

I am a lebanese and living in Germany now for over 2 years and I have a boyfriend since over one year now. He is my first boyfriend. I dreamt that i was somewhere between Germany and lebanon. Dad took a big rock and asked me to hold on to it like he does, and we starting flying. We flied really high and we enjoyed it. Everything was sunny and green and beautiful. When we landed back, it was snowing, and it was in Germany. My boyfriend joined us. We all hid in a school with a neighbour and his two kids. I was later informed that my boyfriend is terminally ill and he is not going to live long. So dad told me to spend as much time with him as possible. Then my boyfriend kissed me and went to a kitchen. I heard the church bell ringing. (My dad is a priest). I rushed to my house to see if my boyfriend died. I saw a luxurious coffin, closed. I started crying that they closed the coffin without letting me see my boyfriend. I asked dad to tell the old men holding the coffin to open it. An old man, who wasnt very nice, opened it. The inside was purple and there was two male children in the coffin (not the neighbour’s),in tuxedos, lying opposite to each other. I felt relieved and ran to the kitchen to see my boyfriend there. What does that mean? I also dreamt two months ago that i received a call from a hospital informing me that my boyfriend is dead, without me seeing him.

    -Anna - Tony's Assistant 2015-11-30 9:52:52

    Dear Celine – Thank you for sharing your dream with us and some information about your waking life.
    Please read this first; http://dreamhawk.com/news/summing-up/
    What I see in your dream is that it starts with expressing your faith and hopes and positive feelings about your (father’s?) decision to leave Lebanon and move to Germany.
    Perhaps your dream about starting a new and better life –“We flew really high and we enjoyed it. Everything was sunny and green and beautiful” – was shattered when you arrived in Germany and you did not dare to share how you felt and feel about that?
    Both snow and hiding are symbols for not expressing your true feelings anymore and when you stop doing that parts of you can become “terminally ill” and die.
    To stay alive in your inner world, you might need to find a way to express your true thoughts and feelings about your father first and how you honestly perceive your life in Germany; if only to yourself; http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/the-lifestream/
    Allowing yourself to release your feelings will help you to heal your relationship with your inner male; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/archetype-of-the-animus-jungs-view-of-the-male-in-the-female/
    This is an important step because when the relationship with your inner male is damaged in some way, the love you might have for your father and your boyfriend might die too.

    The inside of the coffin was purple, which could be a symbol of your unexpressed anger – “purple with rage”- and the pain that is underneath and it is also a symbol of mourning.
    Perhaps this association with the colour purple will also help you to understand more of your inner world?
    “Purple fabric used to be so outrageously expensive that only rulers could afford it. The dye initially used to make purple came from the Phoenician trading city of Tyre, which is now in modern-day Lebanon. Fabric traders obtained the dye from a small mollusc that was only found in the Tyre region of the Mediterranean Sea.
    To get a deeper understanding of all the symbols in your dreams, you could use “Being the person or thing or the colour purple” – http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson
    Let me know if you have any questions Celine.
    Anna 🙂

-Jordan 2015-09-12 12:48:31

I just had a dream where I died, then I woke up in a coffin. I had my phone so I called someone for help. My spirit transferred over to them and I was with them. I helped dig and I opened my own coffin. Then I felt my spirit being sucked back.everything went black for a second then I was able to get out.

-Marion 2015-08-17 1:40:40

the words casket change came to me in a dream but the first thing i noticed was that it appeared to be in the subject line of an email.f I never use the word casket either, that in itself seemed strange. And the word change immediately meant size to me not style. and it seemed as if i was thinking this in my dream and as I was waking up.

-Gem 2015-07-26 23:48:06

I have a dream that i’m walking on my way home then at front of the store near in my house there are people greeting me happy birthday then the dream started again to the same area where the people greeted me..I walk and i saw there’s a burial an old man had died and i can see clearly the coffin because it is place outside the house exactly infront of the gate beside the mini store.Again the dream started in the same area and there’s another burial and the person who died is the brother of the first person who died..i felt confuse because in my dream i climbed up the coffin of the old man’s brother when i see a dead person in the coffin i went down really terrified and asking why i do that.Then the last part again in that same area, but now a young boy aged 12 to 15 years old died and i conclude he’s a nephew or a grandson to the first and second people who died.He is in the coffin like he’s just sleeping.He hugs a picture frame i don’t exactly recall.who’s in the picture but all i know is that he is with someone. That’s all about my dream. Thanks..

-Avegail 2015-07-20 12:18:42

My husband dreamed of a white coffin and flowers around it. He just saw a coffin.

-John 2015-05-28 10:23:40

In the coffin I was completely at peace.

-Deborah 2015-05-14 17:36:44

I lost my papa about 2weeks before I turned 16 (I’m now19) and have these dreams where I am looking for his coffin and find it in a cupboard in my bedroom what does this mean? Is it because I have never came to terms with losing him?

    -Anna - Tony's Assistant 2015-05-18 8:15:19

    Dear Deborah – I think this dream recurs because your attitude or response has not changed yet and your dream is trying to help you change your mind about something.
    The closet is a symbol of the past relationship with your father, of the millions of bit of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with your father, and they are what makes you the person you are.
    The memories and experience you gather unconsciously changes you and are not lost; it is part of you.
    Many people do not realise that they have an inner father equally as powerful as an external father and in your dream this is symbolised by the coffin in your closet.
    So why not carry the dream forward and open the coffin and let your inner father out; bring him back to life in your inner world?
    You can do that by imagining yourself in the dream and then you continue it as a fantasy or daydream. Consider what it is that troubles you or is not what you want in your dream. Now take time to think how you would alter it and how to have an ending that would satisfy you. Now you can, in your imagination, enter your dream and alter the dream in any way that satisfies. Experiment with it, play with it, until you find a fuller sense of self-expression.
    http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/peer-dream-group/#carryforward
    Good Luck!
    Anna 🙂

-rach 2015-04-11 14:07:12

I had a dream about coffins, the only thing i remember is that certain women who reached a certain age who looked indian were putting themselves in a coffin like putting themselves to sleep there and waiting to die.i was walking and i came to pass 2-3 of them, sometimes they come out of coffin when i passed by but they go back to the coffin once i leave. I felt sad for this unlucy fate they had in my dream,.what does it mean? I am not indian in any way btw.

    -Anna 2015-04-14 13:35:17

    Dear Rach – I trust that when you are aware of the beautiful meaning of your dream, you will not feel sad about it anymore. Often we take the values and beliefs from our waking life – for instance about death and dying – with us in our dreams and these beliefs give rise to certain responses like feeling sad.
    I see that meeting the Indian women in your dream is about contact with the mysterious meaning of Life – the great mother from which wisdom springs – and about initiation into the many states of being and the many lessons of life to learn.
    Initiation into a different stage of life can be linked to a certain age “beyond time” and so that is why these women once they had reached a certain age put themselves in a coffin like putting themselves to sleep there and waiting to die.
    I will explain “beyond time”. There are no fixed boundaries and so one may achieve these levels of initiation and of transformation at any period of our life, when we are ready for it, or to stay with your dream “when we have reached a CERTAIN age”.
    You probably have heard the old saying that every cell in the body is changed over a period of seven years; but recent investigation has uncovered facts of far more significance to us as human beings. This concerns the emotional, physical and mental changes that seem to occur in approximate seven-year intervals as far as linear time is concerned.
    What dies is in your dream are your “old selves”; they make way so new aspects of you can be born and brought to fruition. It is a never ending cycle of Life.
    Please also read http://dreamhawk.com/body-and-mind/every-seven-years-you-change/
    So imagine the coffin as a chrysalis; and so as a symbol of an outer inactivity, while you are inwardly going through great change. A new aspect of you is then getting ready to emerge.
    Many of these changes from one level of maturity to another are quite difficult. As with adolescence, the emerging trends often make it feel as if all that one is at the time is dying or being lost. What is emerging is unknown. It has never been experienced before and so can even be felt as threatening. Such shifts through the levels of possible maturity are at the very core of human experience.
    See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/dreams-growth-and-the-trackless-way/
    Anna 🙂

-Ana 2015-03-14 14:38:12

I dreamt that my brother was having surgery and the doctor said he was not waking up finally I went looking for him and found him awake with all my family around him but when I enter the room it was full of coffins and peole crying and my brother was fine on a hospital bed awake but people were dressed in black and crying for their loved ones atound those coffins whay does this mean?

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