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Dreaming Of The Dead

Hello Folks!

Just thought I'd make my first post on this topic, as I've recently had a strange dream about my close friend who passed away very unexpectedly almost exactly a year ago.

About 2 months ago, I had a very bad night, as I was woken up three times from nightmares in one night. I don't normally have nightmares that are scary enough to wake me, (maybe three in the last 15 years) so having three in one night is strange in itself. The first 2 dreams, I don't remember the details, but what was strange about them is that I couldn't wake up right away, and had to literally fight my way back to waking.

The third dream was very vivid, and started with me dreaming that I was laying in my bed, on my stomach, with my arms crossed under the pillow, and my head turned to the right, sleeping, (which is how I was actually positioned at the time). This is the first dream I can remember that I was sleeping in a dream. In the dream, I felt the pillow being pulled out from under my head, which woke me up inside the dream. At the same time as I was trying to wake in the dream, my friend was standing beside the bed, on my left, shaking me with his hand on my back, and telling me repeatedly to "wake up!" I could actually feel him shaking me, pushing me slightly into the bed, and moving my body.

I struggled to wake up and see what he wanted from me, and finally actually woke up this time. I lay there for a minute thinking what a weird dream that was, and how I can't recall ever having felt things physically in a dream, (except for falling/flying dreams I had when young!) I then rolled over and looked at the space where he would have been standing if he was actually there, and saw a dark shape, vaguely human sized, against the wall. I brushed this off as an outline of a poster that I have on the wall, seen in a very dark room. I then rolled over and went back to sleep.

When I awoke, the first thing I thought was that maybe he was trying to warn me about something, so had a look around the house, no smoke, fire, flood or attempted break-ins, so it wasn't a warning about immediate dangers. (good thing too, as I slept another 2-3 hours after the dream!) This dream stayed with me all day, as I was wondering if it was a message, a simple dream or what!?

Anyway, I went to bed the next night, still thinking about the dream. But as I'm laying there, I'm thinking about the dark shape I saw next to the bed, when I was definitely fully awake, and that it was certainly the poster that I saw. So I turned my head, expecting to see a dark outline, but in the dark, the tone of the poster almost exactly matches the colour of the wall, and definitely doesn't present a dark outline like I thought it did.

Now looking back, I wish I had been able to stop myself from waking fully, as I feel like my friend had something to say to me, and that I missed the chance to get some important piece of information.

Cheers!
 
Sounds like a variation on the classic sleep paralysis episode, except you weren't really paralysed! The dream did sound as if it was difficult to shake off, both when you "woke" and even later on in the day. do you thjnk it was a little bit of trauma hanging around after the tragedy? These things can stay with you for a long time.

I assume nothing terrible happened later after all? Maybe the dream was actually useful and made you extra vigilant so you avoided it?
 
No , nothing even remotely bad has happened, and this dream was almost 2 months ago!
It could possibly be some unresolved issues, as we routinely talked every day for years before, but didn't talk for 4 days before he died. Maybe it is me wishing I could have a final conversation, and say good bye!??

It just seemed weird that not only did I have 3 nightmares in one night, but that once I was awake, I continued to "see things", (the dark shape), which didn't turn out to be the poster like I thought it was. Plus, I've never had any hypnogogic/sleep paralysis before! (Though I do know that you can get those at any point in life). oh well, I figure if he has something really important to say, I'll see him again! Maybe in dreams, maybe some other way!
 
So the zombies are outside my window?
No you got it all wrong, you see we are the zombies. Hollywood is just making fun of us. You were turned into a zombies at school. Then you graduated from Zombies University. You got a good zombie job and you go to McDonalds where they feed you processed human flesh. So you are right, they are outside of your window and inside to.
 
No , nothing even remotely bad has happened, and this dream was almost 2 months ago!
It could possibly be some unresolved issues, as we routinely talked every day for years before, but didn't talk for 4 days before he died. Maybe it is me wishing I could have a final conversation, and say good bye!??

It just seemed weird that not only did I have 3 nightmares in one night, but that once I was awake, I continued to "see things", (the dark shape), which didn't turn out to be the poster like I thought it was. Plus, I've never had any hypnogogic/sleep paralysis before! (Though I do know that you can get those at any point in life). oh well, I figure if he has something really important to say, I'll see him again! Maybe in dreams, maybe some other way!

Thanks again for your take on this. What I was trying to get at is exactly what you've posted. A skeptical viewpoint is usually a good thing, but ultimately, your experience belongs to you and no-one else.

If it helps, I have never sleep walked and am a light sleeper, but I did have a single instance of sleep paralysis almost a year ago. It was pretty mundane and I knew what it was while it was happening. It wasn't a terrifying experience and I wasn't hallucinating. I just laid there waiting for my body to start moving again, which was about 45 seconds later. I wouldn't write off sleep paralysis or similar, in your case.

That being said... When you break it down, it's kind of irrelevant. Isolating the dream experience is the idea. Your waking (or partially awakened) state doesn't void the experience you had in dreaming, no matter how closely they occurred. It sounds like this person would have been contacting you in an altered state for a reason, and whether you were asleep or partially awake doesn't really matter to me.
 
It could possibly be some unresolved issues, as we routinely talked every day for years before, but didn't talk for 4 days before he died. Maybe it is me wishing I could have a final conversation, and say good bye!??

Not to tell you your own mind, far from it! but that's the conclusion I'd come to if this happened to me.

When someone close to me died suddenly some years ago another close relation had been estranged from them and was traumatised both by the unnatural death and the fact that they hadn't made up.

Some time later my surviving relation had a vivid dream about meeting up with the deceased one wherein they had a friendly talk and forgave each other. My relation woke up feeling more at peace and ready to start dealing with their grief. It was like one of the 'beautiful dreams' that Michael Rosen expected to have about his late son.

I think it's a part of our minds that are beautiful. They see us floundering in hopeless grief and send us helpful dreams to get us through it.
 
Not to tell you your own mind, far from it! but that's the conclusion I'd come to if this happened to me.

When someone close to me died suddenly some years ago another close relation had been estranged from them and was traumatised both by the unnatural death and the fact that they hadn't made up.

Some time later my surviving relation had a vivid dream about meeting up with the deceased one wherein they had a friendly talk and forgave each other. My relation woke up feeling more at peace and ready to start dealing with their grief. It was like one of the 'beautiful dreams' that Michael Rosen expected to have about his late son.

I think it's a part of our minds that are beautiful. They see us floundering in hopeless grief and send us helpful dreams to get us through it.
I believe in ancestor worship. I believe our dead ancestors live inside us. We are them and they are us. In order to be at peace with oneself, the dead ancestors must bless you. For example, one of my ancestors fought in the Civil War over a hundred years ago. When I was a young man I was banned from college campus for organizing a sanctioned rally against Apartheid. Shortly after I dreamed my Great Grandfather was on a white horse, in his uniform from that period, holding a sword with which he cut a confederate flag nearly in half leaving it connected by a thread. How do l know it was my Great grandfather, because it was me on the horse.
 
Thanks for all your replies to my post!

I like to think that I keep an open mind on all fronts, and take things as they come. I'm not sure WHAT exactly I experienced, but am not rushing to judgment either way. If it was my friend trying to communicate, then I believe if it is important and I need the information, he will find a way to get it to me. If all he /I wanted was to see each other one more time, then that has happened and we can both go on in peace. If it was my own brain trying to ease my conscience/make me feel guilty about not speaking to him before he passed, then my brain will sort it out in time. And if it was "just a dream" then, well, it was just a dream.

What I do find interesting is that the dream echoes a real life event. We were camping in a tent trailer, in winter, in the rocky mountains. No one around for miles! He was awoken in the middle of the night by repeated LOUD knocking of wood on wood not far from the trailer. (He swore that he thought it was a Sasquatch!!) He tried to wake me up, to ask if I heard it. I only half woke up, then turned over and went back to sleep. Didn't hear a thing! LOL

An ironic twist that I didn't wake up when I wish I had, (to hear a Bigfoot!) but woke up when I should 've stayed asleep,(to find out what he had to say in the dream)!

Such is life on this strange planet of ours!
Cheers!
 
I've noticed there can be a huge time lag between a life event and a relevant dream, too. When I had my first baby, we'd been trying for years to have a baby and at the time I was told it was unlikely I'd have more - also I had lost others before him. So understandably, he was the centre of my universe. And yet, a few months after he'd been born I realised I had never once had a dream about him, or even a dream in which he was a bit player. After a few more months - he was in my dreams. Ditto when people you love die. I dream only very rarely about them and not for some time after they have gone.

I'm still waiting to see my friend who died in August, in my dreams. I'm weirdly looking forward to it. And whatever happens in the dream no doubt my waking mind will interpret it as A Message or Significant.;)

But why the time lag? Is that common? Or is it just me?
 
The dead don't just contact us in dreams they also leave little clues around the house. When you are ready you will know. Also, I think time isn't the same to them as to us. We are prisoners of time, they may be beyond time.
 
The time it seems to take us to start seeing the dead in our dreams has been explained to me as coming from the lag between the intellectual and emotional acceptance of death. It's as if we can say, 'yeah, he's dead, he's gone', but not really feel their death because our hearts still don't accept it.
 
Yesterday, I saw the James Bond movie "Spector" The movie opens in Mexico City during a "Day of the Dead" celebration. This reminded me of how different cultures view the dead. Some cultures like in the Phillipenes leave food at the grave of dead family members and believe that the dead consume the food. Some day we will build cities for the dead to live in. We will treat them just like they're alive. They will live in houses just as we do. We will serve them just as if they're alive and they are. They will have an image of themselves in the front yard so you'll know how they looked while they were alive. Most will have statues which they will animate to tell visitors their wishes. Or maybe a huge face on the outside of the garage door. Yes, some dead are tacky.
 
The plot was interesting.
It seems we are being ruled by two sets of killers. One wants to implant your brain as a means of control and will kill anyone who gets in their way. The double oo want to have the right to assassinate anyone they deem a threat. The good news is they decided to stop killing each other and concentrate on controlling us. After all they were both raised by the same father.
 
My late father died a good number of years ago now but remains a regular character in my dreams. Of interest perhaps is that the fact he is dead is never ever referenced or felt. He's just another part of the cast of the story like my surviving family members. It's therefore impossible to feel his presence is in any way communication...though I may be missing something...rather I suspect he's simply whatever fathers represent in psychoanalytical terms: authority, nurture, roots, whatever.

Equally the friend who died and who appears , in a number of stories recounted on these pages, to have been providing signs of his continued existence during waking life...well, he's never once that I recall featured in a dream. Which actually seems like a mystery in itself. Even in a "dreams are just dreams" context you'd think he'd turn up once or twice. But nope.
 
My first communication with my dead father came four years after his death when I was distressed over a possible plot to end me. He spoke to me when I was fully awake, as if he were a thought in my mind phased in the first person grammatically and I knew it was him immediately in a way that I cannot explain. He advised me to flee and I did.
 
My first communication with my dead father came four years after his death when I was distressed over a possible plot to end me. He spoke to me when I was fully awake, as if he were a thought in my mind phased in the first person grammatically and I knew it was him immediately in a way that I cannot explain. He advised me to flee and I did.

So what was this plot then?
 
Let's just say that some members of my family made powerful political enemies. Even though I stayed in the background, they were not fooled.My father saved my life once before when he was alive. While working for my cousin down in Georgia, my father and my cousin warned me to flee Augusta because some of the people who really matter didn't like my attitude. "Go down Dixie"
 
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I dreamt about my Grandad and 2 aunts who have all died. The weird thing is that I only actually saw one of my Aunts, the other and my Gdad were around but I didn't see them but did use items they owned.
 
This is the thing, the dead know you can't deal with the reality of their existence. Before they reveal something about themselves, they will contact you in a dream or in my case while I was fully awake. They will tell you that you are chosen because your personality is bizaar enough to deal with something that your society told you was insane or even demonic. Yet, you are normal enough to not want to talk with them.
 
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I would have loved to dream about some of my loved ones, but I never have. Thus I was a bit put out when one of my friends dreamt of her husband and mine walking down the road together.
 
I would have loved to dream about some of my loved ones, but I never have. Thus I was a bit put out when one of my friends dreamt of her husband and mine walking down the road together.
Maybe you are not ready to know. Sometimes the dead will not visit you until you accept what they were passionate about in life. I think they can hold a grudge. Try taking up a hobby of his and you may dream about the two of you doing it together or as happened to me when I was painting my bathroom my grandmother spoke saying that the color was her favorite.
 
Oddly, after only having a couple of dreams about dad since he died in 2007, I have had two in a week. I can't recall the second one at all just that I woke up knowing I'd had a dream about him; but the first dream he was speaking directly to me (unlike above where he smiled and made eye contact but didn't speak) and my 14 year old dog who died last year was also there in the dream (that maybe less unexpected as one of y kids had been showing me a photo he found randomly, of her, a day or two before). But I don't dream about her as a rule, either.
 
You are entering a very exciting time of your life. Dreaming of ones dead parents signals what I call the rebirth. Some call it the awakening. Sometimes I just call it the Beetle.
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I'm still waiting to dream about my friend who died in August. Am missing her terribly.

I suppose it's ridiculous but I can't help thinking that I will feel 'better' if I get some kind of 'message', but maybe I only feel like this because she was trying to get me to visit her in the hospice two days before she died, and clearly had something she wanted me to know (she knew her family had given strict - and understandable - instructions at the hospice not to let anyone in as she was worn out after just speaking for a few minutes and she told me in the text she had told the people at reception to let me in).

As I posted here at the time, I had a fault on my phone that meant I often get messages a while after sent and didn't get her text til the next day, by which time she had lapsed into a coma, so I never sent her a reply. Hence the 'unfinished business' feeling I can't recall ever quite feeling with any other death - even those of people closer to me.
 
I'm still waiting to dream about my friend who died in August. Am missing her terribly.

I suppose it's ridiculous but I can't help thinking that I will feel 'better' if I get some kind of 'message', but maybe I only feel like this because she was trying to get me to visit her in the hospice two days before she died, and clearly had something she wanted me to know (she knew her family had given strict - and understandable - instructions at the hospice not to let anyone in as she was worn out after just speaking for a few minutes and she told me in the text she had told the people at reception to let me in).

As I posted here at the time, I had a fault on my phone that meant I often get messages a while after sent and didn't get her text til the next day, by which time she had lapsed into a coma, so I never sent her a reply. Hence the 'unfinished business' feeling I can't recall ever quite feeling with any other death - even those of people closer to me.
I think she knows your feelings.
 
Here's a mad'un.

A relation was recently taken ill. I mean really ill, with a post-op haemorrhage. She was rushed to A&E.

As she was having a very big blood transfusion she saw everything go dark, even though her eyes were wide open, and then a man walked up to her. She couldn't see his face clearly but overall he resembled her late father in law, though taller and with spiky grey hair.

She can't be sure if he spoke to her but he wanted her to go with him. She said, 'I can't come with you.'

He seemed to accept this and walked away.

Later when the blood transfusion had done its job and she was sitting up, she told her husband what had happened and described the man she'd seen.

Her husband was a bit shocked: the description sounded like his cousin, who'd died suddenly only a couple of hours before my relation had been taken ill. She believes that if she'd gone with him she wouldn't have come back.

What about that, then, eh! Eh! Eh! :eek:
 
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