Posts Tagged ‘dream analysis’
Dalai Lama
See: Guru.
Dam
This often indicates the way we ‘bottle up’ our emotions, and drives such as ambition or sex. There is often tremendous power or energy waiting to be used or directed in the dream of a dam. So it can depict the controlled release of such physical, emotional, mental and sexual energy.
The dam can show not just how you restrict, hold back or repress energy, but also how you direct or conserve it. The following dream shows another aspect of this.
Example: My boyfriend and I were at a local beach. I had been there before but he hadn’t. It was at a dam situated just up from the beach. I was floating in the air about ten feet above him, and he was dead. He had drowned. Since I had this dream we have broken-up. I still love him very much. T.H.
The dam here suggests the boyfriend was holding back his feelings, and so was shown as dead, drowned in his emotions that he kept dammed.
Building a dam shows you developing ways to control the way your emotions or sexual feelings express.
A dam bursting is an indication you either feel threatened that your emotions or sexual needs will overwhelm you, that you have no control over your feelings, or that you are experiencing tremendous release from repression or tension. See: river.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Is this dream about holding back or releasing?
In what ways do I restrict or release my feelings and sexuality?
Am I holding back my flow o feelings and energy?
Is this about what I sense in someone else?
See People Animals and Objects of our Dreams are Projections – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – A Dream is Like a Seed
Damage Damaged
The suggestion here is of a hurt or stress that has done some sort of harm. What the harm is depends very much on the dream and surrounding events and people. Often the damage does not break or completely ruin what is shown. But it is information about what is being hurt or stressed.
For instance you can damage a relationship, your health, your work prospects, your respect for someone. So it is helpful to define what is being indicated in the dream. Is it bad diet, uncontrolled habits or anger? Is it lack of care or attention to detail? You can damage yourself or others by things you do or say, or even by what you do not do or say. In this way your mouth can be a deadly weapon.
Look up the thing that is damaged for more information. See: hurt; broken.
Useful questions and hints are:
What is it that is damaged and what in my life, body or relationships is that pointing to?
Is there any indication of how I or someone else is creating the damage?
Is stress or carelessness damaging my life, prospects or people I care about?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Life’s Little Secrets
Dance Dancing
If you are dancing with someone it shows feeling at one or in harmony with someone or others, or aspects of yourself; or unity, as seen in the cells working as a harmonious whole.
It can also express happiness, or a sexual mating dance. Sometimes getting closer or more intimate emotionally or sexually. In fact so many women love dancing and want to dance with a partner because it is a woman’s way to express her full female self and sexuality.
If dancing alone or watching someone dance, the meaning depends upon what you feel as you dance or watch. It often suggests enjoyment, self expression, release, allowing your creative or sexual feelings to flow.
Many figures dancing in time with each other is an expression of an insight into how life expresses through a multitude of creatures or people, and ones own part in it. This can mean cooperation or social integration. Some dances lead to a trance state in which one touches the divine.
Many women have an urge to dance, and in past ages this was a way of expressing her beauty to a man. Today it can be a means to express oneself, ones creativity or feelings.
We can communicate something to other people by our dancing.
Example: One evening I joined a free dance group. As I danced I had a strong impression somebody was watching me and getting something from it – feeling my spirit as it flowed in the dance. At the end I stood very still for some time, sunk in the stillness again. I felt that whoever it was watching and sharing with me wanted to speak to me, but nobody came to me, so I moved away. Then a while later Una, an elderly Irish lady came and told me how much she had got from my dance.
And ancient form of dancing is done by the Sufis who twirl, rotating on the spot. This can produce dizziness, which if continued can produce a faint. This causes the ratioinal mind to faint, and so brings about a condition in which one can contact one source, perhaos having a profound vision. This was the method of Jalal ad-Dīn Rumi.
“In Black Africa, many women traditionally pride themselves on being dancers and birthers – endeavours that require uncompromising physical strength, mental clarity, rhythmic integrity, and a direct link to forces greater than themselves. As dancers they give birth, bringing to the birth process the tremendous strength acquired over years of night long and sometimes week-long- ‘spirit dances’. Daily work, the honouring of womanhood, the deities, the ancestors, the darkness, and the celebration of birth itself are all depicted in the dance. And the dance is carried into the fibres of everyday life.”
Animals dancing: Harmony with unconscious drives and sexuality.
Dancing with someone usually shows a loving relationship, or even the prelude to a sexual relationship.
Circle dancing: And ancient form of dancing is done by the Sufis who twirl, rotating on the spot. This can produce dizziness, which if continued can produce a faint. This causes the ratioinal mind to faint, and so brings about a condition in which one can contact one source, perhaos having a profound vision. This was the method of Jalal ad-Dīn Rumi.
But also it relates to the nucleus of the human identity. Although we are, in our everyday life, the magical and mysterious process of life, it is difficult for us to actually answer the question ‘Who am I?’ or ‘What am I?’ with any lasting conviction. The mysterious essence of ourselves is met in dreams as a circular or square object or design. So circle dancing can show you getting closer to you own centre.
If the dance is awkward: Lack of harmony connected with what is depicted.
Skeletons or dark ‘things’ dancing: Developing a relationship with what we fear – meeting it; dancing with death – in life we always dance with death, meaning we have an intimate relationship with it, but might not be ready to recognise who our partner is.
Stepping on partners toes shows you upsetting others or being awkward in your relations with others.
Example: ‘We were both shy of each other but as the dance went on I found I could move so well to his steps that we felt like one, it was so effortless that it felt like floating.’ Heather.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What was expressed in the dance and what do I gain from that?
Am I expressing spontaneity, creativity or love in this dance?
Did I feel any connection with the divine?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Life’s Little Secrets
Danger Dangerous
This may be unfounded anxiety or a warning about possible outcomes. We may fear the danger of allowing our sexual urges – the danger of falling in love with its possible pain – the danger of failing if we take a risk. Even ideas, such as those of future peril cause enormous anxiety. These may be depicted as impending danger in a dream, or a sense of present danger. In such cases the real danger is of taking our anxieties as reality, instead of seeing them for what they are, feeling reactions to a situation. But in fact you cannot be hurt or die in dreams. See Nothing Can Hurt You in Your Dreams
But some dreams are very clear warnings and should be used to avoid or be aware of the situation shown. An example of this and how to deal with it is shown in the following dream.
“I awakened one morning with a sense of foreboding and the word `ETIWANDA’ ringing through my mind. Realizing that I had probably failed to remember all of the dream, I simply prayed about it.
“Although it was early November, I was prompted to get out my Christmas card list and addresses. One of the first addresses I saw was the street-name Etiwanda. I called the friend who lived there and learned she was about to take a mountain road trip to Big Bear, Calif. I warned her to be especially careful and to pray for protection. When she returned from the trip, she told me: `As I was coming around a sharp mountain curve, I heard brakes screeching. Because of your warning dream, I immediately drove completely off the highway onto the grass on the cliff side of the road. The next moment a sports car, out of control, came careening around the curve in my lane.'”
Awareness and seeking to stay open to ones core self can protect and guide when danger is imminent. In fact pray for help on avoiding danger.
A relative or loved one in danger: The temptation is to believe the dream is presaging a real event. Our concern for children and loved one’s, but more often our fears regarding them, create most of such dreams. A woman told me a dream in which her daughter was strangled while at university. In processing her dream the woman wept strongly as she met feelings of fear about her daughter leaving home and living independently at university. The daughter was in fact okay. See: Child Killed; attack; precognition.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Is this danger to myself or someone else – and what can I do either to calm my anxiety or deal with the danger?
Is there any sign this is simply anxiety, and if so where does it arise from?
How can I remain aware of this impending danger?
See – Facing Fear – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams
Dark Darkness
Lack of understanding; difficult to grasp, obscure. Dark can also mean ancient, worn dark with age, and it can relate to sombre, or depressing feelings.
A woman with dark hair sometimes represents this intuition. Similarly, a dark skinned person in a dream can represent parts of yourself that are difficult to understand, or are only just becoming conscious and the way in which they influence your life and are obscure.
What is unknown, not defined by the intellect or conscious self. What is unconscious and perhaps only vaguely sensed. Some dreams of darkness depict depression or confusion, or something we are frightened or terrified of.
Darkness in some dreams illustrate forces of what we might feel overpowered by, secrets we hide from self or others, or things we do or sense that are done ‘under cover of darkness’.
Darkness can also represent age, the experience of prenatal life and feelings about death.
Universe/God was originally the darkness of night. Universe/God then created light. Science says that it look 300,000 years for light to finally shine in our Universe.
“And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. “And God said: Let there be light; and there was light.” Genesis is a scientific treatise
For the Creative force of our Universe was Everything and everything cannot take a shape or form, for then it would be something. The spiritual worship of light is misplaced, for we were all started in the darkness of Everything. Light is for the human recognition of what we sense in the Hugeness we hold within us in Darkness. If everything was light you would not be able to recognise yourself, for colour and shape exist because kight and darkneess mix to give us our experience in the world.
Dark water: Emotions that are felt and powerful but have not been defined or their source understood.
Dark colours: Feelings emanating from unconscious sources; depressed or unhappy feelings. See: Aboriginal; Black.
The following examples are given to show the many facets of darkness and its many meanings. In the first example the feeling is of being lost and trapped in depressing feelings.
Example: ‘I ran down very dark streets, like a maze, and could not find a way out of them. ‘ Mrs N.
The following dream depicts particular aspects of darkness.
Example: ‘It was a festival in this strange world, in which everything had a rather dark, dilapidated look.’ Tom.
Dark here is about ancient; things dating from times past. This may refer to ones sense of childhood which feels like the ancient past; or to our unconscious knowledge of family and cultural attitudes and experience. In general the ‘strange’ world of the unconscious or sleep.
Example: ‘I was overwhelmed by terror, as if the very darkness of the tunnel was a living force of fear which entered and consumed me. I screamed and screamed, writhing in uncontrollable fit like contractions. Nevertheless a part of me was observing what was happening and was amazed, realising I had found something of great importance.’ Andrew P.
Because the dreamer explored this dream with me, I know the darkness was depicting fear Andrew experienced while a 9 year old in hospital. He was given a rectal anaesthetic because he was about to have an operation on his nose. He fought and begged for the nurses to stop, but to no avail. This led to a very real feeling that humans were terrifyingly dangerous animals who would not respond even if you were on your knees begging. So this fear was the awful thing in the darkness. Darkness here is the unconscious area of experience.
Example: ‘I am back in time looking at an old cottage. I see the windows, walls and doors, everything about the place. It is dark and old and warm. I see the curtains and bedrooms, all the ornaments and I feel safe and comfortable.’ Mrs R.
Here dark expresses a feeling of comfort, perhaps because it is undemanding, or that one is not in any glare of attention or activity. It is the relaxed quiet of evening. This woman has a relaxed relationship with her unconscious.
Example: ‘I met a woman I know in a long, dark underground tunnel. She was waiting for me. We had sexual intercourse. She had a very formed vagina mouth, and a very large clitoris, like a small penis. I masturbated this.’ Norman.
Norman has no fear of the tunnel. It is his secret desire and pleasure which he admits to no one, often not even himself. Dark here is one’s secret self. It has the meaning of the saying, “Keep it dark.”
Idioms: A dark horse; in the dark; keep it dark; a shot in the dark.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What feeling or thoughts does the darkness in my dream provoke – can I define what they are?
Is this a warm comfortable darkness or one of foreboding and heavy feelings?
Are there things I am discovering in the darkness – if so what?
See Avoid Being Victims – Resistances – Face Fear
Darn
Healing of parts of your nature symbolised by the object being darned. Also a careful, saving attitude.
Dart
Hurtful thought, hatefulness, aggressive sexuality.
Date
Calendar date: This needs to be considered in connection with the other parts of the dream. It can relate to something that happened on that date in the past, and is still important to you in some way. If not that try looking for what you associate with the month, year and numbers in the date. In this way they are a reference point, usually for important experiences or relationships that occurred in the past.
If it is a future date, this may be about the way dreams tend to extrapolate a future from present and past events. It is like drawing a line on a graph from prior performance.
Idioms: bad date: blind date; dates you; up to date.
Romantic ‘date’: Hopes about or insight into a relationship. Release of pleasurable feelings about yourself.
Example: I was in a dorm room and saying goodbye to someone I had been dating. There was a corkboard with old pictures of me on it. I thought it was unusual for him to have these pictures of me. He really liked them, which made me feel like he was really going to miss me, which surprised me. He was trying to kiss me goodbye, but I hesitated because there was a carload of my friends looking at us, and they didn’t approve of our relationship. Then I went to my mom’s house, where I found my dog; she is actually dead in reality. Angie.
Angie’s dream is probably typical of ‘date’ dreams. In it she is assessing the relationship and realising that he really likes her. It also show how the pressure of her friends attitude interferes with her own natural feelings. Then the dog shows the coming alive again of warm feelings that were dead.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What was the dream telling me about the date?
Was it with and ex or a new friend?
Did it work out well or a complete disaster?
See Integrating an Ex – Difficult Relationship – Characters and People in Dreams – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams
Daughter
Dreaming about your child often relates to how you feel about her. Is she an adventurous creative person? If so then it will usually be depicting your own feelings of creativity and risk taking. Is she an introverted person, or anxious. Are you worried about her? If so then the dream is either about your own urges to withdraw, or your feelings of concern for her.
Any child is a fruit, an expression of the marriage or relationship from which she sprang. So she can represent what is happening, or what is being felt, about the relationship. So a sick child could represent problems in the relationship.
In a mother’s dream: Your daughter could represent the support you get from her; any ties you feel through being her parent; or even your own feelings and difficulties at her age, that might be surfacing at the time of the dream. You might even be feeling her as a competitor because of her youth.
A feelings of not being alone in the area of emotional bonds; or one’s feeling area. It can also represent the responsibility or the ties of parenthood.
Sometimes it is oneself at that age; one’s own urges, difficulties, hurts, which may still be operative.
A comparison. The mother might see the daughter’s youth, opportunity, and have feelings about that. So the daughter may represent her sense of lost opportunity and youth – even envy; competition in getting the desire of a man.
In a father’s dream: Your daughter usually represent your feelings, your more feminine or receptive side. So problems in the dream could suggest you are having difficult allowing your feelings to mature. She could also depict whatever difficult feelings you have about mistake you have made in the relationship, or self recriminations you experience. When she starts courting, dreaming of her might also point out the struggle you have to let go.
One’s relationship with the daughter – in other words what feelings you have had regartding her recently. The daughter, or son, can represent what happens in a marriage between husband and wife. The child is what has arisen from the bonding, however momentary, of two people.
In dreams the child therefore is sometimes used to depict how the relationship is faring. So a sick daughter might show the feelings in the relationship being ‘ill’. See Characters and People in Dreams this can help enormously in understanding your dream.
In a father’s dream: One’s feeling self; the feelings or difficulties about the relationship with daughter. Or it can illustrate the struggles one’s own feeling self goes through to mature; how the sexual feelings are dealt with in a family situation – occurs especially when she starts courting. It can also indicate ones sister; parental responsibility; one’s wife when younger.
Someone else’s daughter: Feelings about one’s own daughter; feelings about younger women.
Death of daughter: This can sometimes suggest you are losing your daughter because she is becoming independent. But it can signify feelings of great loss, or the end of something such as a relationship.
Example: ‘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.
Such dreams of the daughter becoming independent can occur as soon as the child starts school, persisting until the mother finds a new attitude. See: child; woman.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What way do I describe my daughter to a stranger?
What are my secredt feelings about her?
What was my relationship with her in the dream?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Associations Working With
Dawn Dawning
dawn Beginning of understanding; illumination; a new beginning; hope. Our youth or the first part of our life; energy; enthusiasm.
The emergence from darkness, depression or confusion. Also the beginning of a new cycle, a new period that is lit by the sun. A healing because of a new approach, a fresh perspective or a breakthrough in understanding.
Idioms: crack of dawn; dawn of history; dawn on me; greet the dawn.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Does this show an illumination, or beginning of understanding?
Am I hopeful about something?
Am I embarking on a new phase of life?
See Associations Working With – Inner World – Learning to Allow Yourself
Day and Night
day: Mostly our mood. In the example Kim feels bright and cheerful. An overcast day would be the reverse. Also it means being conscious; ‘seeing’ what we are doing; our waking experience. See: light; Morning; Afternoon; Evening, where relevant.
Example: ‘It was a beautiful hot sunny day, and I was in a children’s playground talking to a woman I knew vaguely.’ Kim B.
night: Similar to dark. Usually the unconscious, dark, or little sensed areas of oneself. It can sometimes indicate loneliness or areas of subtly felt urges or feelings, or even fear of being attacked, or even fear of being attacked, or even fear of being attacked. See: Night.
Sometimes: Freedom. We may be constrained by the social or moral rules we apply to ourselves during the ‘day’ or waking consciousness. But on the edge of consciousness, or in sleep, we find a wonderful freedom which allows us escape. It might be shown by escaping from a house at night and running away. See: dark.
In the example the secrecy occurs because parts of Tom’s childhood experience were ‘hidden’ behind the forgetfulness or unconsciousness of emotional hurt.
Example: ‘I was creeping through a field at night. In darkness I and others were trying to accomplish some secret act, rather as spies or underground agents might.’ Tom.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Does the day express our mood or interest?
Could it mean that we are mpre conscious?
Am I finding a new life or freedom?
See Meditation with Seed – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions
Deaf
There may be a desire not to know what is happening to you, or something you are feeling. Or you might be frightened of hearing something that could hurt you, or to learn things about yourself you do not wish to face.
Dead
Seeing something dead in your dream suggests you are realising that some part of yourself, or your feelings, are no longer expressing fully. In fact you may have killed that part of you by denying it, repressing, or freezing it from normal life. The ‘death’ may even have been caused by a painful experience. But even so, it still means you have made a decision – perhaps unconscious – to shut out that part of your life. This can also relate to a lost opportunity or potential.
Some aspect of your outer or inner life is fading, or being superseded by a changed approach, 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. 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.
If the death is someone we know: Frequently, as in second example, desire to be free of the person; or unexpressed aggression; perhaps one’s love for 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.
Death of oneself: Exploration of feelings about death; retreat from the challenge of life; split between mind and body. The experience of leaving the body is frequently an expression of this schism between the ego and life processes. Also: Death of old patterns of living – one’s ‘old self’, the loss of the boundaries that limit your awareness to an identity connected only to the body. This latter is usually a willing surrender of self to the process.
The walking dead or rigor mortis: Aspects of the dreamer that are denied, perhaps through fear.
Dancing with or meeting death or dark figure: Facing up to death.
Example: ‘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.
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.
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 ourselves to do now what we want to – especially regarding love.
Although the unconscious has a very real sense of its eternal nature and continuance after physical death, the ego seldom shares this. Unconsciously we realise that collective humanity carries living experience from the life of 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. But apart from that there is life after death. See: Life after Death By Dr. Elisabeth Kubler Ross.
Idioms: Dead and buried; dead from the neck up / or neck down; dead to the world; play dead.
Dreams about a dead person: Dreaming of someone who is dead, a relative or loved one, is quite common. After all, the person may have played a big part in your life, as for instance a husband or wife. Therefore the influence of their existence is still very much a live in you.
As an example of this, you will probably be able to realise that some of your traits, some of the ways that you think or respond to things, have arisen because of the way you related to the person you dreamt about. So in many cases the dead person indicates the feelings you have about the, the traits you still have alive in you from them. When someone close to you dies you go through a period of change from relating to them as an external reality, to meeting and accepting them as alive in your memories and inner life.
Some dreams of dead people are expressive of attempts to deal with feelings, guilt or anger in connection with the person who died; or your own feelings about death.
Dreams about a Dead husband or wife: Many dreams of dead people come from women who have lost their husband. It is common to have disturbing dreams for some period afterwards; or not be able to dream about the husband or wife at all; or to see the partner in the distance but not get near. In accepting the death, meeting any feelings of loss, grief, anger and continuing love, the dream may become as in the third example. See: Death.
Dead-End
See: Cul-de-sac.
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