Death
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Death the walking dead or rigor-mortis
Death dancing with or meeting dark figure
There are two forms of death and any study of death needs to be aware of them.
- The easiest one for us to confront is the death if the body. This occurs when the body is badly injured, has suffered a bad illness or is dying from old age and so cannot support the intricacies of consciousness, then consciousness can longer function in the body.
- Another one that many people are not aware of is ‘ego death’. There are many descriptions of ego death, in fact the term Ego Death is misleading, because nothing dies in this process of enormous process of growth, instead it is a huge enlargement, a massive shift of our ideas and experience of who and what we are. The history of those who obviously have experienced this enlightened state, does not show that their experience of themselves has disappeared, it has been transformed. It occurs when we have stopped living in our thinking, beliefs and opinions – or what is sometimes thought of as our personality.A man, Anthony, describes the experience of it by saying, ‘I was sitting opposite someone during an enlightenment intensive workshop. We had been posing the question for days – “Who are you?” Suddenly I realised that it was a silly question, because I was the answer. All thought stopped and I existed as the answer. My being had always been this. In this state there was an awareness of being connected with everything around me, in the beginning of creation. This was the first day.While in the state of simple existence I was able to observe many things I am usually not aware of. For instance while I simply existed, my usual pattern of behaviour and thought went through contortions to be the centre of attention again. I could see them almost like habits, systems, that have life, like a body does, and they were dying and twitching in their death throes. Also I saw that I knew that all thought is like a mimic, so all our thinking is like photocopies, without any real life. Also as I saw this I had an image of a monkey that was actually my normal thinking self running alongside my every motion and trying to mimic it. It was almost as if as I as a person walked along, another mechanical person ran alongside trying to keep up and mimicking everything I did in an attempt to be alive and real. Yet thought can never be life. If you think of dog, the thought can never be a living creature, just a word.’
Another person says, ‘Unexpectedly everything changed and my fundamental self was something that existed throughout all time. It didn’t have a beginning or end. There was no goal to achieve. I am.
I am a wave on a shoreless sea.
From no beginning
I travel to no goal,
Making my movements stillness.
Constantly I am arriving
And departing,
Being born and dying.
I am always with you
And yet have never been.’Slightly different but still the same enlightenment. ‘Everything seemed to slip away and I felt as if I melted back into the primal being of the universe. It didn’t seem as if my ego was gone, just melted into everything else. It was blissful.’
Dreaming of death: Some aspect of your outer or inner life is fading, or being superseded by a changed approach or attitude, so may be shown as dying. Your drive to achieve something might die, and be shown as a death in your dreams. Changing from adolescence to puberty, maturity to old age, are also shown as oneself dying. Lost opportunities or unexpressed potentials in oneself are frequently shown as dead bodies.
But death of anything also involves a tremendous release of energy as the form breaks down. But the various levels of energy involved in the death of a person are never lost, for energy cannot ever be lost, it is transferred and used elsewhere. A transformation takes place. The consciousness and energy that gave the body life also goes through a process of transformation into universal life.
All of us unconsciously learn attitudes or survival skills from parents and others. If these are unrecognised they may be shown as dead. Sometimes we have killed the child or teenager in us because of difficulties or trauma at those ages, and these may be seen as a dead person in one’s dream. Some death dreams may show the awakening of new life in the dreamer. For instance, Sue worked on a dream in which she was told her baby had died. She woke shaking with grief and tears. The dream and emotions appeared to show her becoming alive enough to feel the grief of her past pain as it connected with the death of her hopes, love, and ideals. She had suppressed her pain for so long. In now coming alive enough to feel her emotions, she was feeling at last that something had died in her.
Because you cannot actually die in your dreams. It is like you become totally involved in a movie that you can only escape from by waking. But when you wake things are the same – you are not dead – but you have been enriched by a lot of new experiences. I feel so deeply that our society does not let us die. What a terrible thing! The process of death isn’t just your heart stopping, it is a long process of shifting values, of creating a self that is no longer so deeply identified with the things of the world. The way our society is structured forces the ageing individual to go on and on almost like a hunter or warrior tied to processes in the external world trying to pay their way. Why I wonder? It seem so strange that the Stone Age societies living in very difficult circumstances, without our massive technological back-up, could manage to support their ageing and allow them a period of sinking into death. We, with massive resources, cannot do this. I felt a tremendous desire here to let go of all my worldly activities. I wanted to hand all my savings over to my sons and say, look, you care for this. All I ask is for a small amount of money to pay for my food and basic needs. I dearly wanted to give up and live from within myself.
Also parts of ones feelings sometimes die. Our love for someone might die for instance, and so our dream illustrates this with a death, perhaps of that person. Some teenagers dream of their parents dying as they start to become independent. This is a form of killing of dependent feelings about their parents as a means of growth. This happens in some relationships too, where we want to break with the person. See Dimensions of Human Experience
“The dead differ from the living only in this respect: they are in a permanent dream state the subconscious state because the conscious mind of the physical body no longer exists. But the body is an expendable shell, and all else is intact. On the astral level of existence, the sub-conscious mind replaces the conscious mind of the soul, and the superconscious replaces the subconscious. Hence, in dreams, we find that communication with those who have passed on is more logical than the average person is able to comprehend.” Quote from Edgar Cayce.
Death of someone known: Frequently, as in the example, this might express desire to be free of them, or unexpressed aggression. Perhaps your love for or connection with that person has ‘died’. We often ‘kill’ our parents in dreams as we move toward independence. Or we may want someone ‘out of the way’ so we do not have to compete for attention and love. When someone we know dies lots of things happen to us. First of all we have always thought of the person as being outside of us. Then suddenly they are gone from the outside world, and we either think of them as gone forever never to be seen again; or we do what dreams often do and find them inside of us. In this way we can discover a new relationship with them, either because they now communicate with us as a dead person, or we receive from them what they left in us.
Example: ‘During my teens I was engaged to be married when I found a more attractive partner and was in considerable conflict. Consistently I dreamt I was at my fiancé’s funeral until it dawned on me the dream was telling me I wanted to be free of him. When I gave him up the dreams ceased.’ Mrs. D.
Death of yourself: You might be exploring your feelings about death, or retreating from the challenge of life. Sometimes it expresses a split between mind and body. The experience of leaving the body is frequently an expression of this schism between the ego and life processes. It could also be death of old patterns of living – your ‘old self’, or the loss of the traits that limit your awareness to an identity connected only to your body.
Example: ‘I dream I have a weak heart which will be fatal. It is the practice of doctors in such cases to administer a tablet causing one painlessly to go to sleep – die. I am completely calm and accepting of my fate. I suddenly realise I must leave notes for my parents and children. I must let them know how much I love them, must do this quickly before my time runs out.’ Mrs. M.
This is a frequent type of ‘death’ dream. It is a way of reminding yourself to do now what you want – especially regarding love.
Example: During a major operation I dreamt I saw my little daughter – dead for many years – standing in a corn field. When she was actually buried the cemetery was skirted by a corn field, and later in life, coming to terms with this early death of a child, I imagined my daughter walking into the corn field. In the dream I walked into the corn field. My daughter was waiting for me with her arms held up. I put my arms to her and we greeted each other smiling. At that point I felt it wasn’t time to die yet, turned and walked out of the corn field. Ken S. Example: I was upstairs watching T.V. with my dog laying on the bed. I heard a motorbike out in the yard. I went downstairs and the dog followed me and this person on the bike tried to run the dog over. My husband came out and told me to go back to bed. I picked the dog up and started up the stair, reached the top and there was a big gap from the top of the stairs to the bedroom door, so to get to the bedroom I had to jump across this gap. I tried to jump this gap but missed and I fell and hit the bottom. The next thing I remember was I was floating up, I looked down and saw myself lying face down with arms spread out and I suddenly realised I was dead. I was so frightened that I woke up. I had the feelings of fear of dying and that the dog had been killed. I felt no pain.
The dream is obviously about her fear of dying, and also shows that even if one hits the ground one does not actually die, but experiences feelings of dying.
Death of child: Dreaming that your child dies can have several meanings. In some dreams a parent, much to their horror dreams of killing their child; or as one dreamer said, “I saw him jump off a bridge to his death.” This occurred at a time when her young son was making his first moves toward independence, and it was a difficult thing for the mother to face – the loss of her son. So it can easily be shown as the death of ones child in a dream. Another women describes it differently as follows:
‘I am standing outside a supermarket with heavy bags wearing my Mac, though the sun is warm. My daughter and two friends are playing music and everyone stops to listen. I start to write a song for them, but they pack up and go on a bus whilst I am still writing. I am left alone at the bus stop with my heavy burden of shopping, feeling incredibly unwanted.’ Mrs F
Mrs F was dreaming about her young daughter leaving her, and she has to grieve it, almost like a death.
This can mean a lot of other things than your actual child dying. For instance a man told me a dream that worried him enormously about walking with his wife and his young son fell down a hole and was apparently dead. But in fact he had had a terrible row with his wife that day, and it was showing the child as what they had created between them. In fact the dream child recovered as did their marriage. Your child dying can also be a warning that your inner child is dying. We each carry some awful memories from childhood that are shown in our dreams as our child. So it is worth taking hold of your apparently dead child – nothing can actually die in our dreams – and hold it and tell it you love it. Watch any feelings that emerge as you do this and any tears you shed. See what you understand from what you feel. Of course this could be a ‘mother’s’ dream in which your terror of losing your child is dreamt. A woman ones told me a dream in which her daughter was murdered. As we helped the woman explore her dream – not interpret it – she burst out into enormous sobs, crying that her daughter was leaving home and she was terrified of losing her. The girl was never murdered. See Baby or child hurt or killed So ask yourself what your fears are about.
But our dream child can represent many things, and it is useful to realise that any person, object or scene in a dream is not a symbol – it is not dead thing that has to be interpreted – it is a living part of you and can only be understood by relating to it. So in this way I have found that a child can represent whatever our strongest feelings about them are. It can represent your marriage or partnership because it is what you have created between you. In that case the death of the child can depict something like an awful argument that feels as if it the marriage has died.
A child and its death can also show you how you have killed out the growing or adventurous side of you; or if you see your child as vulnerable and needing protection it could show you the death of that part of your feelings.
So you need to ask yourself what your dream child depicts as a living part of you.
When our child actually dies it is one of the most heartbreaking experiences we can meet. Sometimes it takes years to adjust to what has happened. Not only is the adjustment emotional and psychological, but also your way of life is often built around the person you have lost. Therefore the changes we meet can be enormous. However, we each have enormous resources of healing and ability to meet the new if we can access them. Very often there are experiences we have, or dreams, that continue our relationship with the child. Unfortunately we live in a culture that often denies the possibility of this. See Life’s Little Secrets
For instance, Dr. Morse, in his book Closer to the Light, tells of a mother who came to him because she hadn’t slept properly for 1041 nights after the death of her son. She showed him a picture of her son, but Dr Morse was suddenly called away to a ward emergency. Having dealt with the sick baby, he was writing up the notes and a nurse who had been helping said to him, ‘Who was that person who came in with you? Is he a student?’ Morse did not understand what the nurse was talking about as nobody had come into the hospital with him. As he was trying to find a pen for the notes he was writing he pulled out the photograph of the woman’s son. Immediately the nurse said, ‘That’s him. He kept trying to get your attention’. When he returned to his office Morse asked the mother if she had ever been contacted by her son after his death. She said, ‘Oh yes. After he died, for several nights he would stand at the foot of my bed and tell me he was alright, and that I should stop crying. But that was only a crazy dream.’ However, such things are not crazy dreams, but insights into a greater reality. After her converstation with Dr. Morse the woman slept properly for the fist time in nearly three years.
Death the walking dead or rigor mortis: Aspects of you that are denied, perhaps through fear.
Death dancing with or meeting dark figure: Facing up to death and developing a different attitude to it – unless of course you are running away. If you turn around and face these figures you will break through to a different way of life. Death of someone close to us: As explained above, this often refers to ones own feelings or talents that have been hurt, denied, or ‘killed out’ by events and your response to them. The following example illustrates this.
‘My son comes in and I see he is unwashed and seems preoccupied and as if he has not cared for himself for some days. I ask him what is wrong. He tells me his mother is dead. I then seem to know she has been dead for days, and my two sons have not told anyone. In fact my other son has not even accepted the fact.’ Anthony.
Anthony is a divorcee. Processing the dream he realised the two sons are ways he is relating to the death of his marriage – the children’s mother. Although the unconscious has a very real sense of its eternal nature and continuance after physical death, our conscious personality seldom shares this.
Also we all we all carry within us ideas, behaviours, talents and ways of life from those now dead. The farmer today unconsciously uses the collective experience of humanity in farming. What innovation he does today his children or others will learn and carry into the future. This aspect of a life beyond the physical is shown in many dreams.
For instance a man I knew dreamt of walking with a friend of his. As they walked they came to a river. The friend crossed, but the dreamer was unable to. Even in the dream he felt crossing the river meant his friend had died. Some time later he discovered that his friend had died at about the time he experienced the dream.
As the dream points out, the friend died, but continued another type of life ‘across the river’. A woman told a similar dream to me. Her teenage son came down to breakfast looking very unhappy. When she asked him why he said he had a dream that deeply disturbed him. In it he was walking with a friend and the friend walked through a door. When her son tried to follow he could not pass through the door. They could not find a rational explanation for the dream, but on arriving at school, her son heard that his friend had been killed in a motorbike accident on his way to school.
The river and the door are often used in this way, suggesting a change to another dimension of life usually unreachable by the living. Idioms: Dead and buried; dead from the neck up/or neck down; dead to the world; play dead; dead to the world; dead tired; drop dead; stone dead; at death’s door; brush with death; death wish; kiss of death; sick to death. See: Dreams of Death; Illness;
Useful questions and hints:
What feelings about death does this dream highlight?
If I imagined the dream being carried forward, how would I change it?
Am I changing and my past self dying?
If this is someone I know what are my feelings about them – and where are those feelings arising in me at the moment? What part of myself have I killed?
See Being the Person or Thing – Near Death Experiences – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Journeying Beyond Dreams and Death
Comments
i had just woke from a terifying dream to witch i had tears fall down my face and lots of them, i had dreamted that my 5 year old daughter was alive and well in my but but just before i woke i was saying bye to her . there had been an accident in my dream but i didn’t think it was that bad until moments before i woke! i would really like to know what this meant and if you could please help i never ever once woke up from a dream the terrifyed. i even had to get up and check her room to make sure she was still there and she was, but i am so scared to go back to sleep! thank you!
As a child I always lived with my Grandmother and when I was 17 she died. That was the hardest thing that ever happened to me. I just lost my Mother. After that day I am always having dreams of her looking at me but because I am scared I don’t really wanna talk to her. I just want to know what is the meaning of her looking at me without saying anything.
I am getting married in less than a year and I had a dream that my fiance died. I did not know how he died, just that he was gone. It was truly horrifying. I was not able to function and, in my dream, I contemplated suicide to be with him. I woke up terrified and crying. To make matters worse, my best friend had also died as well as my brother. At the beginning I grieved for my friend, and then my brother, until I realized my fiance was gone, and I grieved for him over everyone else. I am still reeling from the dream and worried this means something awful will happen.
Hi Tony,
I had a very weird dream about being at an uncle’s funeral even though he has passed on for 5 1/2 years now. I could see the priest conducting the funeral rights and every once in a while the body would sit up while others would try to beat it down. That was scary! His daughter also appears possesed in my dream. Then as we say our last goodbyes, I somehow offer pens into his casket instead of flowers. But in his coffin there are already pens filled everywhere with the body. In the end, I hear people lining up a woman who they say is to be made as a ‘sacrifice’….this is such an odd dream, please help. Btw I am in no way close to this Uncle. But when he died, according to his daughter – she had a dream that he told her I should get married to my husband soon as we intended to only marry 7 months later after our engagment. In the end we got married 3 months after our engagement date and have been married for 5 years now. Thank you.
Hey,
Sooo i’m 14 and an only child and last night i had a dream about my brother (which is non existant) got murdered, I didn’t see him i just got told by someone…
I told my mum about this and she said that before she had me she got pregnant with a child but had to abort it due to her being not able to care for the child at that moment ( she was really really sick). I had never heard of this before….
Was does this mean…like the death of my unborn sibling coming to my dream and being killed….Weird aye??
B =)
I wanted to what it means if you die in your dreams a lot? Ever since i was 13 I’ve had dreams of me dying several ways but its not like a usual dream of dying its like my body feels the events taking place. For example I’ve gotten shot in several of my dreams and when i get shot i start to loose breathe, my chest gets tight, things on my body start to hurt, i cant move, and I wake myself up. I dont have dreams often but when i do have dreams their the ones where I’m dying. Please write me back
Hi i am 20 weeks pregnant and dreamt that i was dead but that i had another life left (although this was my last life) in the dream i am alive but seeing to my dead body! Just wondering what this might mean, was really strange,
Thanks Claire
Hi- I had two dreams- back to back- while taking a nap that I was hoping you could help me understand. The first one involved me being taken hostage in my front yard by a child about 10 years old. My oldest son (19)- actually he is my stepson who I have raised- tries to save me and is fatally shot. I am shot too, and I can’t help him.
In the second dream, I am at a restaurant with my mother, husband, aunt and kids. The restaurant has an indoor swing and my mom and I are swinging on it really high. I feel like we might fall off and we are touching the ceiling at one point. I slow us down. When we get off of the swing, my deceased uncle asks me if the bolts in the ceiling were shaking and tells me that the restaurant needs to fix that. I reached out to him to touch him and said his name. It was so real and I woke up sobbing. He died six years ago and we were very close. Thank you so much for your help
Sorry, not that it matters, but my oldest daughter is 23.
Also, in my son’s eyes, I saw that he felt alone and disgusting, which was why no one tried to help him up, but left him hanging. And also why I knew he needed to feel me touch him.
Hi Tony!
I am a single mother of 3 kids, and each child I’ve had a dream of them in tragic situations. I’ve also who had 2 sons who have died prebirth and at 1 mo old.
My first dream was of my older daughter, 19, who was diagnosed with lupus. Years before she got sick, I dreamt that she was diagnosed with a terminal illness at about 7 years old and didn’t have long to live. In my dream, she was extremely happy and carefree, and wasn’t affected by her illness. Per the doctors request, I asked her what was the one thing she wanted to do before she died. She said that she wanted to wear her favorite dress. In my dream, (and even now) I broke down because of her innocence. Even with her illness, the smallest little thing made her the most happiest. Not a trip to Disneyland, etc.
My second dream was of my youngest daughter. I can’t remember most of it, but I do remember that she was gone. In my dream, I knew in my heart that she was dead. I was calling her name and crying. The feeling of losing her forever was so real.
Most recently, about 1 month ago, I dreamt of my son who is now 19. I was downstairs in a warehouse talking to a friend, when we both heard a loud crash upstairs. Everyone upstairs said it was “Victor” (a family kid friend) and that everything was fine. My friend continued talking, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had had happened. I ran up the stairs asking what happened. My son called out to me from the roof that it was Victor and he was ok. When I got up to the roof, I noticed that my son was between a 3 foot gap between 2 buildings, and that other boys were scared and looking at him. My son was hanging onto the other building and looking at me with tears and the most frightened look in his eyes. I noticed his lower body from the torso down was on the roof I was standing on, and he body was cut in half. No one wanted to touch him, maybe because they were freaked and grossed out, so I ran to him and put my hand on his back to let him know that I loved him and that having half a body did not gross me out. What I can’t seem to get out of my mind after the dream was the look in his eyes. He was shocked that he was missing half of his body, and that he knew his life was never going to be the same, and that he was scared out of his mind. Possibly even about to die.
I can still feel all the emotions that I had felt in my dreams, and it always takes my breath away. I can also feel the emotions of my children in those dreams. Why do I dream such horrible dreams about my children?
Marlene – Sorry I took so long in replying.
I am saying what I want to say, not as an effort to comfort you, but because of my life experiences I know it to be true. You wrote that the feeling of losing her forever was so real. I see that such feelings come about because that is what we see as true, that death is the end. Yet you experiences of dreaming your daughters illness shows that you are in touch with a wider awareness. None of your dead are ever lost. Ask your dreams that always point to tragedy to show you the other side of the coin. You have the ability, but all you see is heartbreak. See http://dreamhawk.com/body-and-mind/the-next-step-criticisms/
You have a wonderful gift that can shine a light into your own heart and life as well as the life of others.
Tony
A few nights ago i had a nighmare. My sons school called me to tell me that he had hung himself.. It was the worst thing ever.. He is 6 and soon to start 1st grade. Does any one know what this may mean?
Linda – Dear woman, don’t be afraid of your dream. I have had many like these where the child dies, and it is always about the first step in becoming independent. Your dream is not really about your son, but about your own feelings of him leaving you. Remember that when he was born he died to the wonderful world of the womb and was born as a baby. Then he dies as a baby when he learnt language and communicated with you as a young person. Then again he dies when he becomes a teenager. Life is all about dying and being born again in a new life. So feel the loss of your young son but help him toward independence.
Tony
My older brother Gino died almost 3 months ago and last night he was in my dream. He seemed to materialized before my eyes as he came into the dream. I immediately realized it was him but I was in shock. After a while I came to the conclusion that I had gone insane, i was hallucinating and accepted it. I put my arm around him so we were standing side by side. I said to two strangers near by, “Can you see him? This is my brother.” The strangers acknowledged that they could see him and went about their business. After that he left without saying a word, without me realizing it and the dream continued. I miss my brother so much and I want to know if there is anything special about this experience. Is my brother visiting me?
Joey – The question is who or what are you? Do you think you are the body? If so how could it happen that people lose both arms and legs and yet their consciousness is still there. And if you believe it is the brain that gives you life and awareness, how come people brain dead still are aware or themselves? See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/near-death-experiences/
Every night while you dream you enter the level of awareness of death and are at one with those close to you. The reason that we are so blind to it is because you think it is all preposterous think about this – you can see Less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum and hear less than 1 % of the acoustic spectrum. As you read this, yon are travelling at 220 kilometres per second across the galaxy. 90% of the cells in your body carry their own microbial DNA and are not “you”. The atoms in your body are 99.9999999999999999% empty space and none of them are the ones you were born with, but they all originated in the belly of a star. Human beings have 46 chromosomes, 2 less than the common potato. The existence of the rainbow depends on the conical photo receptors in your eyes; to animals without cones, the rainbow does not exist. So you don’t just look at a rainbow, you create it. This is pretty amazing, especially considering that all the beautiful colors you see represent less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum. See: http://dreamhawk.com/body-and-mind/the-next-step-criticisms/
So yes I think it is highly likely that you were aware of our dead brother. Visiting no – you are still living in an old worn out paradigm – see http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/archetype-of-the-paradigm/
Tony
reading up on this page has eased my mind my ex told me he had a dream that i died while giving birth and i am pregnant to someone else now but i was very scared when he told me that i couldnt get it off my mind thanks so much
Hi Tony, I had this very disturbing dream today early morning. I am an insurance agent. In my dream, as usual I am going for one of my client meetings. As I enter the lift, I see a couple leaving the lift. I go inside the lift and saw there was this school bag full of books. I thought they missed it there so I was about call that couple back. When I was about to get out of the lift to call them, I realized there is something more inside the lift. At the side wall of the lift, tyere was a small hook in which that couple had hung their son with his school uniform tie. That kid is dead hanging there. I run outside to catch the couple. They were leaving in a car. The color of the car is peculiar, a weird olive green car. I make a note of the car’s registration number. And I luckily have one of cop’s personal mobile number. When I was waiting for him to pick up the call, I woke up. I have to say this is the worst dream I have ever had in my life. What could be the interpretation. I have never seen the couple and kid in my life before. Thanks Tony.
My daughter saw her father who died a fe years ago he held her in his arms and cuddled her as she was crying what does this mean