Can A Bad Dream Be A Warning?
Bad dreams are unsettling, yet between the lines of unsettling fear, they frequently communicate more than that. In the thousands of bad dreams I’ve interpreted, I’ve actually stumbled upon veiled warnings beneath the surface. Sometimes they reveal answers to life, answers to the meaning of the dream itself, even give warnings.
Bad dreams can very much be a warning. Dreams that communicate a forewarning to the dreamer sometimes come right out and say it in an obvious way. Other times the warning is disguised within metaphor and may not be readily recognizable. Many times dreamers don’t recognize the warnings within bad dreams and and dismiss them.
A discerning eye can tell the difference between a bad dream that’s a warning and a bad dream whose purpose is to promote fear. In this blog I’ll reveal the little known ways you can detect a warning hidden within the fear of a bad dream.
What Does a Warning Dream Look Like?
Here’s just one example of a bad dream that’s a warning. Here’s the dream:
When I was 10 years old I used to have a recurring nightmare about my death, to put it bluntly. I can’t remember all the details of the dream. I would be looking through what might’ve been a window frame from the outside. There was also an orange jacket or garment on a chair inside that I could see through the window. I would make a motion as if I was going to ascend a rung and suddenly I would fall what felt like at least 3 stories. Then I’d be lying down staring up at the sky and see a wooden ladder, presumably from which I fell. The image of this ladder leaning against a house would be the last thing I’d see before waking up. These nightmares probably wouldn’t have caused me so much distress if it hadn’t been for how real they felt. I could smell the air, and feel the sun on my back. I could even feel the incredible pain throughout my body as I lay on the ground.
End of Dream
Anyways, I pretty much forgot all about these nightmares as I grew older. I stopped having them around age 11 and never had one again. I’m 33 now and my good friend just got married to his high school sweetheart. We’ll call him Jerry. They live in a nice barn style house that he built himself. I have limited carpentry skills but despite knowing this my friend asked me to help him with certain parts of the building process: drywall, putting in windows, shingling, and whatnot. To be honest, I think he just wanted to spend some quality man time with me.
It took a total of 11 months to complete the house. And like I said I would drop by from time to time to help Jerry with the odd job. Once the house was nearing completion Jerry had started putting in the windows. He asked me to come down one weekend to help him put some windows on the third floor. We ended up doing 3 that Saturday and called it quits around 7. Sunday morning Jerry called me up to ask a favor. There was a big storm coming on Sunday night and he hadn’t realized that. While we did put the windows in, we didn’t seal one of them with caulking. He didn’t like the idea of water getting inside after we’d just put the drywall up so he asked me to seal the window up soon if I could. He had to take his wife to the hospital so he was unable to, plus I only lived 20 minutes away.
So after a brief Mcdonald’s breakfast, I headed down to the house, found the caulking gun and searched for a ladder. Jerry had brought two down to the site—one aluminum and one wood. I grabbed the wooden one as it was already on the side of the house with the unsealed window. Once I propped it up against the house I began to ascend. Once I was high enough I was able to peer through the window and when I did I felt like a jolt of electric fear went through my body. The nightmare I had as a kid came back to me in a flash. The smell, the warm sun hitting my back. It was identical to the dream. And I also recognized Jerry’s orange hunting jacket that he had left on a chair on the other side of the window. Everything was exactly the same. Remembering the rest of the dream I quickly DESCENDED the ladder and went to my truck feeling kind of disturbed. I stood there for a while debating if I should try to seal the window or not. In the end what I did was try my best to seal it from the inside. I’ll admit I did a half-assed job but hey can you blame me? I finished up and went home. Trying to forget about it all.
The following weekend Jerry asked me to come down and help him shingle the roof. When I arrived there I noticed Jerry was limping a bit. When I asked him what happened he said he rolled his ankle when one of the rungs on his wooden ladder broke. He was only a few feet up so it wasn’t a big deal. That was it for me. I stayed calm but mentally I was a wreck. Not only did my dream somehow predict that ladder breaking, I half knew about it but never even warned Jerry. I felt terrible.
Later on, I did realize that I must’ve had the ladder upside down when I climbed it, meaning the defective rung would be near the top. When Jerry went to use it he must’ve flipped it the other way so the rung was near the bottom. I still think about this from time to time and it never ceases to disturb me.
There are no monsters, haunted houses or blood in this bad dream. Yet the bad dream imprinted on his heart so when he found himself in the situation in real life, he’d heed the warning.
How Can You Tell A Bad Dream Is A Warning?
you don’t easily forget the dream
its a precognitive dream and it happens before your eyes
there’s a tormenting aspect of the dream that won’t let the dreamer alone
warning dreams are effective
may have a certain feel
sometimes shows what could happen sometimes gives the dreamer a sense of what could happen
sometimes you just know
the conscience is tripped and gives a sense something might happen
the dream gives a definitive “if this then this” to let the dreamer know not to do something
the dream connects to the dreamer in a personal way
EB
Credit: This nightmare was an archived post on the website reddit.com/Glitch_in_the_Matrix
Photo credit: sniggie via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA