Can Dreams Foretell Death?

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It is quite common to dream about the death of someone close such as friend or relative.  These dreams can be very upsetting because the natural tendency, especially for those who have not observed dreams in depth, is to assume the dream has a literal meaning.  Therefore, the dreamer will often mistakenly assume the person in the dream who died will really die.  In many, and perhaps in a majority of cases, this is not the meaning of the dream.  So what does the dream mean?  In fact, the dream could have one or many meanings!

Dreams as a Reflection of One’s Own Energy

Dreams can come from many sources and have different levels of meaning but one thing is certain: Dreams always have a spiritual meaning in addition to possible literal, physical or emotional meanings.  It is important to consider a death dream first from the spiritual perspective and consider that everything in the dream is representative of energies within oneself.  So one might ask a question like the following that fills in the blanks with a descriptive adjective (happy, ambitious, generous, etc.) such as:

This _______ person reminds me of times when I am ________.  Lately, I haven’t been so _____.  Could this dream mean that that part of me has died or is dying?  Why?  Does the dream give clues?  How does the person die in the dream?  Is something similar happening to me right now?

Dreams that Make a Statement on Our Relationships

Dreams can also give us insight into our relationships with people.  To dream of someone dying may be telling us that our relationship with that person is dying or changing so dramatically that it may be unrecognizable.  It is important to reflect on the relationship and ask if the relationship might be ending or changing dramatically and perhaps make choices that will resuscitate or enrich the relationship, if that is desired.

Dreams that Foretell the Future

There are times indeed when dreams do foretell the actual death of a person, often in a graphic and realistic manner that also comes true.  I had a dream of watching my mother die in the arms of my father.  As soon as I had the dream, I “knew” this dream was a predictive one.  I made the decision to go back to the family home to visit with my parents, suspecting this might be the last chance I would have to see my mother.  I was glad I did because a short while after she passed away. What surprised me was that she died just as my dream indicated, in the arms of my father.  It was as if I had been a fly on the wall and had seen it all transpire ahead of time.

It is possible to also see one’s own death ahead of time.  Abraham Lincoln had a famous dream just a few days before he died of seeing his coffin laid in state in the White House.  A person may also dream about the Grim Reaper visiting, or an angel or possibly a relative who has already passed come to get the dreamer.  Again, the dreamer usually knows at a deep level the meaning of this kind of dream.

So when you dream of someone dying, go through the reflection process above and don’t let false or neurotic fears carry you away.  Chances are, if your dream is a predictive one, you will know it at the gut level, giving you a chance to prepare for the end.

Where Do Dreams Come From?

Dreams Come From Many Sources

Dreams can be so flighty and ephemeral and yet so profound and weighty.   It makes one wonder where they come from in the first place.  The answer is that they come from many places inside and outside the body.  According to the quote to the right, Edgar Cayce says they can come from the body, mind and the soul.  This is so because of the amazing nature of the body itself.  The body is a conduit of energy and intelligent information at three levels: physical body, mind and soul.  It can not only send messages about itself to us, such as when we feel pain in an arm, it can also send messages from what is happening in our environment such as when we read information on a billboard.  But more than this, the body can be a receptor and sender of information purely on the energy or spiritual plane—as in cases of intuitive understanding such as mental telepathy and remote viewing.  This is so because the body is connected to the wider energy field in which it lives and can pick up messages if the person’s intuitive receptors are open to this form of communication.

While sleeping, the ego’s strong filtering system of weeding out strange and frightening information is also dormant with its guard down, making the dreamer much more open to receive messages from body, mind and spirit.  For example, the soul can send its messages of value and purpose to the dreamer much more easily than when ego is saying, “I’m afraid to do that!”  The body, itself can send messages to the dreamer if it feels like it’s usual messages of pain are being ignored as when a warning dream of needing to see a doctor presents itself.   Or the mind may send messages of a solution to a problem that the dreamer’s waking mind just can’t grasp.  This is why dreamwork is so effective for keeping in tune with the needs of the body, mind and soul.

Cat Dreams

Pootsie in Dreams & Waking Life

Many people dream about cats, especially people who own and/or care for cats.  It is perhaps one of the most commonly searched dream themes that bring people to my blog so I decided to write a blog just on dreams about cats!

If you do a search on the Internet about the meaning of cats in dreams, you will find various offerings that run from the ridiculous to the profound.  Stay away from explanations that offer pat answers and answers related to superstition.  Our feline friends have had a long and rich relationship with humans collectively and us personally so they deserve much more careful reflection when they appear in our nocturnal journeys of the psyche.

A good starting point for researching the meaning of cats in dreams is to be found in Cloud Nine: A Dreamer’s Dictionary by Sandra A. Thomson which associates a type of psychic energy with the cat: feminine power.  I like this explanation because I personally believe that all images and symbols in dreams represent types of energy within our psyche.  Thus in considering a cat dream symbol I need to ask myself what part of my energy makeup does this dream cat remind me of?  Is it my desire for or joy in independence?  Is it related to the abilities of feminine intuition?  Is it related to a personality trait such as being “catty?”  In a man’s dream would it be related to feminine aspects of his psyche?

In waking life, I do have a tabby cat that is very assertive, curious and smart.  When I dream of her, I not only think of how the dream might relate to or tell me about her as my pet, but also how her energy relates to some kind of energy within me.  In dreams, I am always glad to see her acting boldly and running freely because the dream is probably telling me she is healthy and strong while those aspects of her that live in me are also healthy and strong.

And conversely, when I dream of her being hurt or unwell, it causes me to ask all sorts of questions not only about her well-being but my own as well.  For example, I had a dream that she had a wounded leg which caused her to be immobile.  A while later, that actually did happen and I had to care for her as if she were bedridden.  The dream also was warning me that my own ability to make my way through life with catlike grace and knowing was impeded by wrong turns taken that just weren’t for me.

For additional reading, please see my other blogs:

A Source of Spiritual Insight: The Appearance of Animals in Dreams and Intuitive Inspiration

Working with Dream Themes: Wounded Animals

Many Mansions: Dreams of a Dying Young Man

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Because so many dreams concern themselves with the major transitions in life, dreams not only help us prepare for life, but they also prepare us for death.  There are grief dreams which prepare us for the death of another person or help us through and after that loss.  However, there are also dreams which prepare us for when our time comes.

I am reminded of the dreams of a terminally ill young man.    He was a hospital patient with a rare disease and wanted to share his dreams before he died.  I was asked to come and talk with him because I had recently taught a class at that same hospital on the relationship of dreams to health and well-being.

When I met with him he had perhaps several weeks to live.  He was pale and weak.  He thanked me for coming and said he just wanted to talk to someone who appreciated dreams because he valued his own and wanted someone who would not take his remarks lightly.  Often it is hard to find people who take dreams seriously, and one certainly doesn’t want to be laughed at or about when sharing a dream.  So I told him that I had studied dreams for many years and had taught classes on the subject.  I was very interested in his dreams and would be glad to listen.

Dreams of Many Mansions

The young man told me about a series of dreams he had in the weeks before about seeing a city of many gorgeous homes and magnificent buildings.  He thought that he would be going where those buildings were and live there.  I asked him how he felt about this.  He said the dreams were so beautiful that he wanted to be there.  He said the dreams made him feel comfortable.

Quite often, images in dreams with remind one of imagery in the Bible; however, at the time, I didn’t connect the imagery of many beautiful homes and buildings to Jesus’ quote (John 14:2) that in…”in my Father’s house there are many mansions…” but somehow, I think the young man did.  He passed away a few weeks later.   I would like to think he is there in those mansions.  Certainly, his dream comforted me, fulfilling another role of dreams:  that they often have meanings for others besides the dreamer.

Working with Dream Themes: Meeting the Trump in Each of Us

“What am I to You?” 
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Whether we know or acknowledge it or not, we all have a little bit of Donald Trump inside each one of us.  Perhaps that is a reason why our current president has riled up so many people on both sides of the political fence.  They say that in each one of us is a universe populated by everyone and everything in the external world, where figures of energy propel us as much as they do in the outer world.  How we relate to the exterior world is a reflection of how we relate to our internal world.  The internal archetype of energy called Donald Trump seems to evoke a lot of energy both within and outside of us.

Dreams Are a Great Way to Meet Figures of Our Internal World

Have you met your internal Donald Trump?  If you are aware of your dreams and remember them, you may have already met Trump in dreamtime.  On Facebook someone posted a picture showing a dream image he had of Donald Trump.   It was of a reticent and scared toddler wearing a “Make America Great Again” baseball cap.  This graphic image not only told us a lot about this man’s view of Trump but also something perhaps of Trump’s true nature.

Yesterday, I had a dream about Donald Trump.  He was sitting on a chair in my backyard, not my real backyard, but the backyard of my house in dreamtime, giving me a clue this was in the backyard of my psyche and not the external world.  He had a comforter on his lap which was decorated with pictures of himself.  He was also wearing house slippers that looked uncomfortably like the ones I wear in waking life, again giving me clues to how this internal Trump shapes my outward behavior.  He likes being comfy at home like I do with things reflecting me and my tastes, yet reminding me to make sure I don’t make too much of that need for comfort to the point of extravagance!  A bit later in the dream, I ran into him sitting behind the counter of a post office, again not a real post office near me in waking life, but the post office of dreamtime and my psyche—a place where communications are moved to and fro internally.  This dream might be telling me powerful energy resides from where I communicate.  It may be also be telling me that I need to watch this archetype of energy to make sure it doesn’t do crazy things like the waking-life Donald Trump does!

At least in my dream, Donald Trump isn’t acting outrageously like grabbing Pootsie, my cat who doesn’t like strangers to get a hold of her, nor is he trying to manipulate me.  He is just there, someone to be watched.

How does your internal Trump fare and how is his energy driving you?  Your dreams will tell…

Working with Dream Themes: Being Led by a Woman

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Being led by a woman in a dream was one of the search topics that led a person to my blog so I decided to write a bit on this topic.

Being led by someone suggests that whatever energy this person represents is the energy that is leading the dreamer somewhere.  Whenever one has a dream about someone leading them, as asking questions like “What does this person mean to me?” And “Why would this person be leading me?” need to be done because this person, real or imaginary, is exerting great influence on the dreamer.

If the dreamer often has dreams of being led by a man and then suddenly has dreams where he or she is being led by a woman, this would indicate masculine energy such as the drive to act rationally, compete, excel or succeed has been replaced by a feminine energy.  Feminine energy often includes such traits as acting intuitively, being inclusive, all-embracing, forgiving, etc.  This shift in being led could well represent an aspect of the quest for wholeness in the dreamer, signifying a new area of growth.

Many women (and men, too) who have developed their masculine side with a strong career may experience these dreams later in life as they sense the need to develop the feminine side of their natures.  This kind of drive may find expression in new pursuits with a nurturing or intuitive creative bent such as artistic hobbies, care-giving, mentoring, etc.

For a woman, this kind of dream may also mean that the woman needs to learn such things as taking better care of herself, nurturing herself, standing her ground, trusting her feminine instincts, supporting other women, and understanding what it means to be a woman’s woman.  This is all part of the Heroine’s Journey.  Please click here for an excellent free guide for the lady on such a journey: http://annedavin.com/heroines-journey-trail-guide/.

A Great Short Video on the Meaning and Necessity of Empathy

As opposed to ESP which is the ability to pick up information “out there” that is not available to the five senses (such a correctly determining what shirt a person will wear tomorrow,) intuition is based on the ability to understand what is going on with another person in a broader and deeper holistic fashion such as picking up on their emotions, viewpoint, history, experiences, etc.  Empathy is an extenuation of intuition in that because one is intuitive, one can put oneself in the shoes of the other person and “know” what that person is going through.  One can feel compassion for that person and will feel more compelled to help that person.  It is a quality that all people in the helping professions need and one we all could develop.

Our culture does a great job in teaching kids to be competitive but does little to teach empathy.  It is no wonder why there is so much behavior manifested that is based on struggling against one another rather than working together to help one another.

I highly recommend you see this short video on the meaning and necessity of empathy at this link: lifehac.kr/C2ePfNa

 

Working with Dream Figures: Taking Back Our Projections on Other People

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It is very common to dream about friends, family members and any other type of person we come into contact in the waking world.  Sometimes, these people can greatly affect us either in negative or positive ways such as generating within us feelings of extreme loathing, fear, passionate longing or intense admiration.

It is important to know that how these people affect us in waking life and what they mean to us are often projections of what those people mean to us in dream time—often an phenomenon that may or may not be true, and may not all reflect who those people really are.

Dreamwork Can Make Us Aware of Projections

One of the great advantages of working with dreams is to help make us conscious of the projections we place on other people.  If we are aware that what we think or how we view a person may be a projection that should be investigated, we are removing one more blind spot in our field of awareness and allowing another person’s true self to speak to us.

A Useful Dreamwork Method:  Viewing Everything in the Dream as Part of Myself

The dreamwork method of first viewing everything in the dream as part of me allows to me reflect on what each person in the dream means to me.  Seeing each person as representing a type of energy within myself allows me to ask questions why this person generates strong negative and positive feelings, especially when I see how this dream person interacts with other parts of myself in the dream.  I can begin to see a very lively drama that may have very little to do with what is going on outside and has a lot to say what is happening within me.  I then may be able to view the person outside in a different light, and with more objectivity.

Unfortunately, for those who do not do dreamwork or even remember their dreams, they can be subject to being driven by unrecognized energies operating in dream time.  In other words, it is like they are being programmed and don’t even know it.

My new blog on a call for Spirituality: Three Women at the Tomb

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Recent political events have made me question how a so many voters in a so-called Christian country could vote for a candidate who is more unprepared, unqualified, unsuited and uniformed than any presidential candidate in our nation’s history.  I can understand the need for change, a need for a new way of doing things.  But why didn’t they select a candidate who represented the highest of their hopes and spiritual ideas, and not the worst of their prejudices and fears?  I was stunned that so many people were willing to compromise principle in this election.  That is very similar to the rise of Adolph Hitler.  Does the end justify the means?  Apparently so, just as it did in the worst of the fascist and communist purges.

One has to ask why so many so-called Christians voted this way in the US and in pre-war Germany.  Was it the way they were trained in the Christian faith to be faithful servants to an organization and not to Jesus himself?  Jesus was a radical who was opposed to violence and treated everyone equally.  He was against the accumulation of wealth. It is no wonder the pope sent such an urgent reminder to President Trump.

When Christian Americans were voting, where was the spiritual depth to see that HOW WE DO THINGS IS AS IMPORTANT AS GETTING ORGANIZED AND GETTING THINGS DONE? The soul is in the how, not in the doing.  I have started a new blog that issues a call to get spirituality as found in the true model of Jesus out of the shadows and bring it front and center to shine real light on Christian action.  Please visit my blog https://3womenatthetomb.wordpress.com/.

Dreams of Spiritual Transformation

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Big changes in life are usually easy to detect.  We all recognize when there is a need to change a job, or a desire to get married.  There are external and internal catalysts that tell us it’s time to make a change.   We no longer feel the job is right for us or we meet a special person who awakens new and wondrous feelings.  We go ahead and make the decisions that set in place the change, and change happens.   We get a new job or we get married.   Our lives are transformed.   We judge the success of the change by the outcome of the new job or marriage.

Monitoring Spiritual Transformation is Often Not So Simple

On the spiritual level, the need to make a change, as well as the ability to monitor the success and degree of change is often a lot more subtle, and may take years to notice if we lead a busy, work-filled lifestyle.  The catalysts for spiritual change, especially the profound and life altering changes at the soul level, such as the need to live for a deeper reason, or a loss of feeling comfortable with the way things are can bring on rich, insightful, and even guiding dreams that help one through the often difficult challenges and obstacles that happen later in the process of spiritual transformation.  Dreams help us get prepared for the shift at the soul level.

Dreamwork Helps Monitor Spiritual Change

Doing dreamwork over a long period of time has many advantages, and one of them is the ability to see one’s own spiritual transformation take place before one’s eyes, over a period of time, presently or imminently—before it actually manifests in waking life.  This can be especially helpful if one is going through a long, dark period when no glimmer of hope for change seems so on the horizon.

This transformation can be seen in dreams by symbols and stories of change.  A symbols doesn’t have to be obviously spiritual or religious, but the dreamer will make the association if it is.   An important symbol in the dream may actually morph and change shape, showing the type of transformation that will take place.  A process taking place in the dream may symbolize what the dreamer will go through.  Voices may actually tell the dreamer that change has taken place, or will take place.

I am reminded of a recent dream I had where I parked my car and walked off, only to return to find that my old car had morphed into an amazing new car that had a special feel to it.  Someone in the dream scene told me that I had parked my car in a “zone of transformation” so that caused the car to be transformed!  Previously in the past couple of years, I had dreams of my old car having brake and tire problems—even being blown up, all of which seem to reflect the many spiritual challenges I faced at this time that related to making my way through life.  This transformational dream related to my car certainly lets me know that all those challenges are leading to change!