Imabe by ~diP

In my last article about dreams of the dead, I gave short shrift to dreams of bereavement, which is a subset of dreams where we are visited by the deceased.  Often, all visitation dreams are interpreted to be grief dreams, despite the wide range of characteristics shown in these bizarre experiences.   So, now let’s take a look at dreams of the recently departed that do seem to be part of bereavement, offering up healing, closure and emotional release that aids the grief process.

Like visitation dreams, bereavement dreams center around a face-to-face with the deceased, with a steady narrative of meeting, exchange, and dissolution of the dream.  Unlike all visitation dreams, however, bereavement dreams tend to come more or less promptly after the death of a loved one.  Sometimes the night afterward, sometimes a week or month, or even three months later.  Bereavement dreams indicate that grieving is still doing its slow digestive work. In waking reality, the loved one is very much a part of the dreamer’s daily thoughts.

Some bereavement dreams do not have the cognitive clarity or lucidity that other visitation dreams have; instead they can be highly emotional, resulting in waking up in grief and tears, sometimes mixed with elation. These dreams are not always positive on the onset, and they can actually be quite disturbing and confrontational.

Because these dreams begin with symbolic and visual representation (the contact with the deceased) and often end with strong emotions, some psychologists refer to these experiences as transformative dreams. Here is a dream published in Joseph Hart’s book the Functional Theory of Dreaming:

I was walking somewhere outside and I saw my father.  I don’t remember whether I clearly knew if I was dreaming, but I knew he was dead, or was dying, that I wouldn’t see him anymore. (Patient’s father has died that year).  I was sad for him, then for myself.  I cried –the feeling was stronger the more I cried.  I felt very sad that we didn’t have more contact, that I had wanted to feel more with him than I had.  Then I was very sad that I would die and all feeling would stop.  I cried openly, deeply, and in my dream I couldn’t see anything anymore.   I was inside my body.  My father’s image disappeared, there was just my feeling, a deep sobbing feeling in my chest.  That was the most deeply that I had ever cried.

Note how the dream proceeds from image to feeling, leading to a remarkably deep heart opening.

Not all bereavement dreams are so plainly cathartic.  Sometimes they bring up other emotions and realizations.  Here is a touching example of a bereavement dream that was provided by one of my readers in a public comment:

my beautiful 19 year old step daughter died in a gymnastics accident on the 19/6/09, it was devastating and really hard to come to terms with.  My nights became blank until the 22/7/09 when I had a dream.  I was sitting on the lounge looking down at the coffee table and for some reason I looked up to see M. standing on the other side of the table looking down so her long blonde hair was covering her face.  I said “M. that’s you,” (then she lifted her head and shook the hair out of her face and smiled) “you’re here.”  At that point I remember feeling so relieved that all the other stuff was a dream.  I got up and walked around the table and grabbed M. and kissed her. then I sat back down on the lounge with M. on my lap just hugging her.  She was solid in my arms and was happy. I thought it was reality and after that I woke up and had sinking feeling when I realized it wasn’t.

What strikes me about this dream is how real it seems to the dreamer at the time, so real that in the dream he knows that his daughter is still alive and “all the other stuff was a dream.”   When he awakens, this reality does not hold up to the harsh morning light, but this cognitive dissonance does not mean that the dream is merely a wish fulfillment.  First, the dream’s effect is a forced acknowledgment of this painful loss.  Also, the dream illustrates how his daughter is still alive in the dreamworld, and he still can connect with her there.  We often say that our dearly departed lives in our heart;  this dream shows that this can more than a metaphor.

The Unfinished Business of Grief

Because dreaming is as real as waking life to our minds and hearts, experiences like this allow for many possibilities of completing the “unfinished business” that comes with loss.  Psychologist Patricia Garfield has studied bereavement dreams in her private practice, and she writes in her powerful book The Dream Messenger: how dreams of the departed being healing gifts that:

“Our relationship with the dead endures. In our dreams, the dead have messages for the living.  The living also have messages for the dead that can be delivered in dreams.  Conflicts left pending when the death occurred can sometimes find resolution in the dream world.”

Sometimes these conflicts can be pretty ugly.  Dreams of anger, fighting, and reliving past hurts is possible after a loved one has passed on.  There is no shame in these dreams; they are reminders of the complexity of our relationships and the emotional burdens that come with being close to another.  These moments offer reconciliation, or letting go of bitterness and old grudges.

Grief work is messy and painful.  After all, love brings with it a willingness to be hurt. As Rumi writes, “the heart breaks…. open.”

Other times, like the father’s dream for his daughter above, the conflict can be about accepting the death.  This can included unsettling imagery.  It is not uncommon to have a dream where the deceased looks undead, or ailing from some horrible affliction.   Patricia Garfield suggests that this kind of dream, while unpleasant, helps the dreamer remember that the person has passed on.  This too is a call for acknowledgment, which may be more of an issue if your loved one passed suddenly and tragically.

Bereavement dreams stir up our grief as much as they comfort us.  In this way, dreaming sometimes offers a balance to waking life thought, where we like to stay in control and our “window” for emotional healing is often small.  The dreams prod us on to acknowledge our loss at the beginning of the day, and remind us that our love is still very much alive.

These dreams are gifts.  Let them sit with you; let them show you the way to your heart and your grief.   Sometimes the way in is the way out.

With Halloween on its way, it’s high time to take a look at visitation dreams, or dreams we have of the departed.

For hundreds of years, early November (conveniently poised between the Fall Equinox and the Winter Solstice) has been celebrated as a time of harvest and plenty, and also a time when the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is thin. Is it the death of summer, the lengthening nights, or the dark knowledge that some won’t make it through the hard winter to follow?

Who can say, but the metaphor connecting the harvest and the dead is part of the myth of agricultural societies around the world, as disparate as the ancient Celtic cultures with their celebration of Samhain and the Mexican celebrations of the Day of the Dead.

Spirits and Dreams Go Way Back

It’s no secret that a preferred method of contact with the departed in these bridging times is through dreams and hypnagogic visions.  As writer Robert Moss has noted, the dead come calling for different reasons, and not all of them seem to be about satisfying the grief process, as some psychologists have wanly suggested.

In fact, dreams of the dead can differ wildly in content, emotional embrace, and timing.  Perhaps something else — something  a little more ancient – is at work.

Historically-speaking, dreams of the dead are some of the earliest transcribed accounts of dream life.  Aristotle mentioned them, as did Lucretius, in part to comment on the widespread folk psychology that the characters in people’s dreams actually seem to be the spirits of the departed.

Don’t forget that in the ancient world Thanatos (God of the Dead) and Hypnos (God of Dreams) are brothers.  I could go on to cite ancient China and Egypt, as well as hundreds of contemporary indigenous cultures, who also have made the link between dreams and ancestors, but suffice to say that dreams have always been noted as a natural place for the deceased to mingle with us.

Mythologically speaking, dreams take place in the underworld of our minds.  Cognitively speaking, themes of mortality, depression, and sickness outnumber themes of happiness, bliss, and rapture in dreams 4 to 1.  It would seem we are predisposed to go down the dark road when we dream –- in fact, one recent dream research study found that the longer a dream narrative is, the more negative in theme and emotional content it becomes.  The road to the land of the dead is paved with strong emotions, both positive and negative.

But Aren’t Dreams Made of Cinnamon, Spice and Everything Nice?

I love to bring this point up, because our culture defends itself against the dark truths of dreaming cognition with the cheap belief that dreams are light & fluffy, random, and mostly about our mother’s sex appeal.   And what to make of the Euro-American re-scripting of the very word “dream” to mean idle fantasy, wishes of kisses, and hopes of happiness?

But behind the strained smile of the newscaster’s sound bite, there is an uncomfortable silence. It is in this silence, before being laughed off as “what a crazy dream!” that the power of the dreaming mind takes hold.

Common Traits of Visitation Dreams

Meanwhile, ordinary people around the world continue to have visitation dreams that greatly affect them.   Some say the dreams actually change their lives forever. According to Kevin Kovelant, a consciousness studies professor at JFK University, visitation dreams often have these features:

• The dream feels more real than the usual dream: more clarity, focus, and steadiness of mind.
• A “felt sense” that the person is really them, not just  a memory. “That was grandma – I know it was her.”
• Very little plot: usually the dream narrative consists of the interaction between the dream ego and the figure of the deceased person.
• Strong emotions are commonly reported: love, forgiveness, anger, fear.
• A “physical” touch between the spirit and the dreamer, usually a hug or a reaching out.
• The deceased dream figure often looks younger and healthier than when they passed on.
• Sometimes accompanied by the feeling of “weight” or “presence” on the dreamer’s bed.

Dreamworker Robert Moss breaks down visitation dreams into 13 themes. Here’s my favorites from Moss’s interesting book The Dreamer’s Book of the Dead.

5 Reasons Why We Dream of the Dead

The spirit comes for forgiveness – either to give it or asking for it.

The spirit brings a warning related to the dreamer’s health.

The spirit bring helpful information for the dreamer.

The dead has a message for the dreamer to pass on.

The spirit needs guidance from the dreamer.

But Is it Really Them?

Of course, the question begged is whether or not the dream means something about life after death,  especially after the dream visitation passes on information that the dreamer did not previously know and is later verified.  These uncanny stories will never convince a skeptic… until the skeptic gets a knock on the dream door himself.

Kovelant, who is lecturing about visitation dreams on Halloween in Fremont, CA, recently related the following documented story:

In 1925, a North Carolina man awoke from a dream in which his late father — looking very much alive — instructed him to “find my will in my overcoat pocket.” Checking the pocket, the dreamer discovered a note leading him to a certain chapter in the family Bible. Between two pages in that chapter, the will was cached, according to 1927′s Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research.

Kovelant also has noted that there has been little serious research into the actual phenomenon of visitation dreams.  Rather, most publications use the subject to advance (or denigrate) a pet theory on the nature of the universe, such as the existence of an after-life, or of the possibility of soul travel.

More often than not, of course, is the cultural narrative that dreams of the dead are “part of the grieving process.”  This perspective does have validity, of course: dreams of the recently passed can be very comforting to mourners.  These bereavement dreams are surely a sub-set of what we largely clump together as “visitation dreams” today.  However, sometimes the visitation dreams comes 20 to 30 years later….long past the traditional “stages of grief” have passed.

Early in the 21st century, visitation dreams invite more questions than answers.  And as the veil between worlds grows thin tonight, maybe you should prepare yourself for a visitation.

You won’t be alone.