Death Dreams
Death is the way of the world and has invaded so many aspects of our daily lives that it is inescapable. The residue left by death’s fingerprints is everywhere, whether we’ve recently experienced the loss of a loved one, been exposed to it in entertainment, or encountered death in a dream.
When death appears in your dream it most often symbolizes the end to something. Most dreamers view dream death as a portent, a warning of physical death. This, however, is a wrong assumption. Death is almost always symbolic. If your friend dies in your dream it could very well symbolize the death of the friendship. The dream death of your boss could symbolize your job’s coming to an end. Your death in a dream can symbolize the death of innocence, immaturity, or the past.
The myth that when you die in a dream it means you’re going to die in waking life is so prevalent that it’s difficult to consider anything else. The meaning of death in a dream has almost endless possibilities. The specific meaning of death in your dream depends upon a variety of factors that make up context. This idea of context is so crucial in understanding the meaning of a death dream because it’s possible for dream death to have a positive as well as negative meaning.
The Symbolic Meaning of Death
Edgar Allan Poe is credited with the phrase “Sleep. Those little slices of death. How I loathe them.” He was not the first to compare sleep to death. Those before him and many after him have made similar comparisons. If sleep is a slice of death, does that mean dreams a glimpse of the afterlife? Or portals to the realm of the dead?
Few things are what they seem in death, dreams, even life. Many Poe experts, for example, agree the phrase referring to sleep as “little slices of death” wasn’t written or even said by the author. The phrase in question is actually the opening quote in the horror movie Nightmare on Elm Street: Dream Warriors.
There have been countless metaphors for death over the ages, including ‘the big sleep’, ‘taking a dirt nap’, ‘assume room temperature’, but dreams have been using some of the most creative death metaphors since the beginning of time. Here’s a prime example.
In my dream I saw a dead person. They weren’t in a coffin or anything in particular. I just saw a dead person from the shoulders up. The person’s face looked lifeless and began to turn pale. I woke up.
This dream was a first in a series of recurring death dreams that haunted this dreamer for weeks. Then the dreamer saw the image of the dead person in their mind’s eye while they were awake. Seeing a dead person in your dreams is one thing, seeing an image of yourself as that dead person is quite another.
The first few times the dreamer saw the dead person in their dreams they were confused by the dream. The meaning, however, became crystal clear to them when they saw themselves as that dead person many years younger than their actual age. They believed wholeheartedly they were being warned about their own death. Yet that wasn’t what it meant at all.
The symbolic meaning of death in this dream is the dreamer’s past self is dead. In other words, the person the dreamer was when they were younger has died and they’re not that person anymore.
Encountering the Dead in Dreams
When I encounter deceased relatives in my dreams they’re very often silent. I had a recent dream where I saw my aunt who’d died twenty years earlier. When I recognized her I blurted out: “Hey! You’re dead! Do you know you’re dead?” She didn’t respond. No words. Nobody language. No communication at all.
In another dream, I was in my grandparent’s living room at what seemed to be a family reunion. A mix of living and dead relatives filled the room. All at once I noticed that nobody else realized the dead were among the living. Nothing much happens in the dream but after I awake I had a good feeling I was able to see those deceased family members again.
Another memorable deceased relatives dream included another of my mother’s sisters. In this case, I was thinking about a certain sister of my mom’s before I went to sleep. She’d overdosed on prescription drugs about a year earlier and it was unclear whether it was accidental or intentional. I asked to have a dream that would help me understand exactly what happened.
A few nights later I had a dream where I was standing in front of this deceased aunt and asked her “Why did you die?” She looked me in the eye and said “Because I wanted to.” There was my answer.
When you encounter the dead in dreams, especially deceased relatives, it could be a positive experience that warms your heart just to see them again. The dreams could also bring much needed closure, even answer questions about the circumstances of their death. It isn’t uncommon for the dead to communicate messages to the living by speaking words, so pay close attention to what they say.
The negative aspect of seeing deceased people in dreams include dreams that cause you to loose heart or to fear death itself. Death is, after all, the last enemy we face on earth. It’s worth our time to take a look at perhaps the most frightening aspect of death dreams: encountering death.
Encountering Death in Dreams
Death is commonly characterized as a hooded figure in a black robe gripping a scythe. Yet, it doesn’t always appear that way. Dreamers of today can and often do encounter death disguised as something else. Even so, there’s nearly always a way to identify death in your dream. Consider the following.
I was tailed by a 9 foot being in black, wearing what seemed to be an expressionless porcelain mask. I would have considered this dream to be a nightmare when I turned to see “it”, but as it came at me, all I could express was awe and familiarity before shortly waking up. It was so vivid.
I find it interesting the dreamer was tailed by a 9 foot tall being. They never used the word chase per se, but what they described sounds a lot like being pursued. Being pursued by death can be a frightening ordeal, but you’ll notice the dreamer says they felt awe and familiarity. This is unusual, even for a dream.
When you’re attempting to extract meaning from a dream it’s important to look for things that are unusual or out of place. Awe and familiarity for something chasing you fits the description. Let’s set this aside until we get a little farther along.
The dreamer describes the being as 9 ft tall. My experience with other similar dreams lead me to search out the meaning of the number 9. I find the most success decoding dream numbers by searching for their meaning through an ancient world filter. I’m not referring to numerology. Interestingly enough, subjecting dream numbers to the filter of numerology always seems to take me further from the meaning of the dream.
Example: 9 in numerology represents completion, the culmination of wisdom and experience, and seems to buzz with the energy of both new endings and new beginnings. However, that meaning doesn’t make any sense when placed in the context of this dream.
The ancient meaning of the number 9 is finality, the end, and death. This makes perfect sense in the context of this dream simply because it’s a living being. Completion and energy are things not living beings. Death, however, has been looked at as a living being since the grim reaper originated in Europe in the 14th century.
Additionally, there’s the ceramic death mask. When I first heard this dream I thought it sounded like a death mask. Death is nearly always depicted as faceless or having a generic look. The insinuation is that death’s face is so horribly decayed and grotesque that it has to wear a mask in order to disguise itself. Its ceramic mask is a deceptive replacement for identity and the awe and familiarity was camouflage for its real intentions.
There’s a whole lot more to say about death dreams, unfortunately my time is up. Follow the links below to discover what else death dreams have up their sleeves.
EB