Dreaming Of The Dead

[staticgirl]

Impybat, your dreams sounds most unsettling and I expect they might have put you in a low mood for a while. I hope you have since shaken that off.

 

[Impybat]

Impybat, your dreams sounds most unsettling and I expect they might have put you in a low mood for a while. I hope you have since shaken that off.

Hi staticgirl, thank you and yeah they did but things are better now.

 

[IbisNibs]

An old guy who was an acquaintance of mine years ago appear in a dream (not exactly a dream but that place between being awake and asleep) . . .
The following week I heard he had died around about the same day I had the strange dream, had few similar things happen especially in the liminal space between sleep.

I once had a similar experience between sleep and waking, but the being who appeared to me was the pet cat of a friend of mine! His demanor resembled that of a very bashful and adorable little old man, but was it unmistakably the cat.

 

[grimnebulin]

I just wanted to say I feel honoured that so many of you have shared your experiences on this thread. And that Chinese letter...(I'm not crying, you're crying.) One thing I have taken from my dreams of my mum, I feel sure now that there is something beyond physical death. Somehow the 'soul' or essence of a person goes on. I feel that it's all to do with love and how much we have loved in this life. We can only speculate and guess because we're not meant to know everything. When we die we will know all the secrets.

 

[gattino]

Damn I wish I'd bothered to record my dream last night as there are only image fragments left and impossible to reconstruct a coherent account of any plot detail. But what I know is that my nan appeared in it and, more relevantly, I was aware of the impossibility of her being there as she'd died nearly 30 years ago. This acknowledgment or awareness of the person's death is exceptional in my dreams. I can't recall a previous example.


The fragments I retain in my mind's eye is that I, with others, watched her and other people through a open window or door between two rooms. I'm staring amazed that that's her , clear as day, as I either say or think how long she's been dead. Secondly there was some direct interaction as I recall her looking a little confused or trying to place me when I tell her it's me. She smiles benignly as she says , inappropriately, "yes I know you. You're my friend" or words to that effect. Ie the nature of our connection seems it's on, or rather off, the tip of her tongue.

*****
Unrelated to the above it maybe worth making a record here that yesterday a friend of mine in Australia whatsapped me to say he'd just been woken at 5:45 am local time by a loud knock at the door, with of course noone there. He's hoping it was a real event as the phantom knock, if it was one, came two nights after dreaming of his father dying which, combined, has left him superstitious and unnerved in case they are portents of real events.

 

[Cochise]

Something I’ve noticed about dreaming about my dead family members - and this is pretty much a nightly occurrence - is that they are always younger, usually significantly so, than when they actually died.

There is a view in some Christian thought that in the afterlife you are restored to 33 years old, the age Christ died. Good if you are over that, not so good if you are younger. I like it, also the idea that everyone gets 1 acre and a tree . I'm not sure whether I want a Rowan, a Silver Birch, an Oak or a Larch. I've planted all of those round my house except the Silver Birch which was there already.

I don't know whether those ideas come from the Bible or not.

 

[grimnebulin]

Cochise, that sounds good to me. It's lovely that you live somewhere you can plant trees, I'm so envious!

 

[escargot]

Damn I wish I'd bothered to record my dream last night as there are only image fragments left and impossible to reconstruct a coherent account of any plot detail.

Sometimes I think this too, but I reckon it's the feelings in dreams that count more.
So I might have dreamed about a whole series of incidents and people but be left with an impression of, I dunno, warmth or contentment.

 

[Ghost In The Machine]

That's interesting and explains a lot about how the spirit guides seem to be particular types.

For me it’s a comfort that Derek and Sam are finally together...

 

[Ghost In The Machine]

There is a view in some Christian thought that in the afterlife you are restored to 33 years old, the age Christ died. Good if you are over that, not so good if you are younger. I like it, also the idea that everyone gets 1 acre and a tree . I'm not sure whether I want a Rowan, a Silver Birch, an Oak or a Larch. I've planted all of those round my house except the Silver Birch which was there already.

I don't know whether those ideas come from the Bible or not.

Trouble with that is, 2000 years ago in Syria, 33 might be a respectable old age. So is it a literal Jesus age or the modern equivalent (88)?

 

[Cochise]

Trouble with that is, 2000 years ago in Syria, 33 might be a respectable old age. So is it a literal Jesus age or the modern equivalent (88)?

Common misconception. Because so many people died young, it looks like what you say. But actually if you managed to survive childhood , diseases, famines, war and so on people didn't age much more rapidly than now. Which was why, up until the 20th century, old people were so revered - they had survived.

 

[Sabresonic]

Taking the account at face value for the purpose of speculation, there are a number of other things it makes sense of.


I've been intending a few times to start a post about that tv show i keep mentioning, Celebrity Ghost Stories, or more to the point about the interesting patterns which emerge when you've watched a large number of accounts of apparition encounters over multiple episodes and seasons. One of the repeated features - i must have seen at least 4 or 5 stories on that show that involve this - is of a ball of light appearing in the witness's room at night. Sometimes it remains as such, other times it morphs partly or wholly into a recognisable person.

It's immediately interesting to me to wonder if this represents confirmation of "Lois's" sense of herself as being a ball of energy.

Well let's go with that. We can skip past whether some "orbs" are more than dust specks and give a few moments thought to what it would mean to be a formless ball of energy, to exist without a body. I imagine when most of us contemplate the possibility of an afterlife we people it with physical forms, including our own in some "astral body" indistinguishable from our earthly one. To discard that comforting notion for one of being truly discarnate is at first very unsettling. What kind of existence would that be? But, again taking Lois's reported words as real and accurate it becomes less disturbing. If say you left your body at death and 'met' your dead loved ones - if the act of "projecting your appearance into their minds" was a mutual thing, how indistinguishable would it be from waking reality? Sound, touch and taste would presumably just as mutually transferable with your thoughts. When we dream at night our dream selves have no literal physical form, but it does as far as it's concerned. This would also explain the oft reported claim via mediums that this "summerland" realm, like dreaming, involves changing your physical surroundings with a mere thought. Apparitions and hauntings she appears to have partially explained. Perhaps poltergeist activities and the meaningful coincidences of after death communications are the increased psi abilities of an un-encased mind.

Wasn't Celebrity Ghosts Stories made up or over exaggerated ?

 

[escargot]

Wasn't Celebrity Ghosts Stories made up or over exaggerated ?

I've only seen one or two episodes. The one that sticks in my mind is where a female TV presenter* went to look at a house she was considering buying. She found it totally empty except for a full-sized coffin, which her mother sat on!
Diamons and her mother had been let in by the last owner, who was, she discovered later, actually dead at the time.

The purchase was not made. I'd have jumped at it!

*For some reason I misremember the presenter as Gloria Hunniford when it was actually Anne Diamond.

 

[Sabresonic]

I've only seen one or two episodes. The one that sticks in my mind is where a female TV presenter* went to look at a house she was considering buying. She found it totally empty except for a full-sized coffin, which her mother sat on!
Diamons and her mother had been let in by the last owner, who was, she discovered later, actually dead at the time.

The purchase was not made. I'd have jumped at it!

*For some reason I misremember the presenter as Gloria Hunniford when it was actually Anne Diamond.

I got it mixed up with some American one which with a episode with Natasha Henstridge and Bret Micheals and thanks to watching that I never watch another again.

 

[gattino]

There may be some confusion between so many paranormal shows.

I've probably caught about 15 or 16 episodes. I'm obviously not in a position to vouch for the veracity or otherwise of any given account, or indeed the show as a whole. I can only observe that the exaggeration and dramatisation apparent to me lies entirely in the visual reenactments which, as I've observed earlier or elsewhere , frequently digress from the anecdote being narrated by the purported witness themselves. Above all Hollywood style juddering and jerking apparitions appear on screen when the person speaking only mentioned feeling a presence or some such.

That leaves the stories themselves. A small percentage seem far too fantastical , but the vast majority have impressed me as they are largely told with the appearance of sincerity and emotion. Of course being celebrities, the majority are performers so could be expected to give a convincing delivery of a script. However their public status seems to me to counter somewhat such suspicions. Above all the dead or dying person they're discussing is very frequently their own mother, father, sibling or partner...on a human level spinning lies about the death of their own loved ones for entertainment and cash sounds like a minority sport to say the least. And their being known to a larger number of people than the rest of us would, I would imagine, put them at far greater risk of being called out for bullshitting by watching relatives or witnesses alike.

What I do know is that they changed the format in the most recent revival series, whereby it's a medium taking them back to the place they had their experience. That has no appeal to me and sounds more likely to be contrived. And there was a UK version.

 

[catseye]

Last night I had a dream of my dad. It was also an horrific dream (for me) and I debated putting it in the vivid dreaming thread, but since that is already 98% me, I thought I'd come here for this one.

I dreamed that I woke up shouting 'Daddy!' but I was unable to shout. You know that kind of half-whisper that is all you can produce in dreams? I sat up, still trying to cry out and I was back in my childhood bedroom, with my brother asleep in the other bed. He looked to be about eight (we moved into separate rooms a year or so later). I carried on trying to shout and eventually went in to find my father asleep in the other room, alone in the double bed (my mother should have been there, and if my brother was eight, I would have been about ten). I felt like a child. My dad was aged roughly 40, as he would have been when I was ten.

I finally managed to shout out, and then woke up. I don't know if I shouted out IRL as there's nobody here but the dog to hear me. I woke in a strange feeling of dread, as though someone was in the house and moving around (couldn't happen: because of Dog). So maybe a mixture of sleep paralysis (unable to shout, plus the dread on waking) and a bad dream, but I have NEVER dreamed of myself as younger before.

 

[Sabresonic]

Taking the account at face value for the purpose of speculation, there are a number of other things it makes sense of.


I've been intending a few times to start a post about that tv show i keep mentioning, Celebrity Ghost Stories, or more to the point about the interesting patterns which emerge when you've watched a large number of accounts of apparition encounters over multiple episodes and seasons. One of the repeated features - i must have seen at least 4 or 5 stories on that show that involve this - is of a ball of light appearing in the witness's room at night. Sometimes it remains as such, other times it morphs partly or wholly into a recognisable person.

It's immediately interesting to me to wonder if this represents confirmation of "Lois's" sense of herself as being a ball of energy.

Well let's go with that. We can skip past whether some "orbs" are more than dust specks and give a few moments thought to what it would mean to be a formless ball of energy, to exist without a body. I imagine when most of us contemplate the possibility of an afterlife we people it with physical forms, including our own in some "astral body" indistinguishable from our earthly one. To discard that comforting notion for one of being truly discarnate is at first very unsettling. What kind of existence would that be? But, again taking Lois's reported words as real and accurate it becomes less disturbing. If say you left your body at death and 'met' your dead loved ones - if the act of "projecting your appearance into their minds" was a mutual thing, how indistinguishable would it be from waking reality? Sound, touch and taste would presumably just as mutually transferable with your thoughts. When we dream at night our dream selves have no literal physical form, but it does as far as it's concerned. This would also explain the oft reported claim via mediums that this "summerland" realm, like dreaming, involves changing your physical surroundings with a mere thought. Apparitions and hauntings she appears to have partially explained. Perhaps poltergeist activities and the meaningful coincidences of after death communications are the increased psi abilities of an un-encased mind.

So maybe what I have mentioned before on this forum about the swirling wave like mist in my room could of been that deceased energy and maybe if I watched it for a bit longer it would of took to a form of a person ?

 

[Sabresonic]

Not making this up a go a month of dreaming about my brother and then nothing but last/this morning It was the usual makes no sense dream and he had a red top on that looked a bit like what my nanna would were in the 70s and I kept asking him to show me the afterlife and got no sense back by his actions apart from the words you can do all the good things you like but not off the bad.
Sorry not much into that but at least one dream months I asked him about 7 questions and when I woke up Iike a tune when you hear in your dreams I tried to remember it the last 2 answers of him I could remember and he said 'There is afterlife" and ' He is watching us all the time'.
Makes you wonder like a Alien Abduction when some abductees have some or most of their memories erased about the experiences and I wonder if in our dreams we do venture to other worlds, afterlife but then they erase most/all of experience before go back to sleep mode.

 

[Iris]

Last night I had a dream of my dad. It was also an horrific dream (for me) and I debated putting it in the vivid dreaming thread, but since that is already 98% me, I thought I'd come here for this one.

I dreamed that I woke up shouting 'Daddy!' but I was unable to shout. You know that kind of half-whisper that is all you can produce in dreams? I sat up, still trying to cry out and I was back in my childhood bedroom, with my brother asleep in the other bed. He looked to be about eight (we moved into separate rooms a year or so later). I carried on trying to shout and eventually went in to find my father asleep in the other room, alone in the double bed (my mother should have been there, and if my brother was eight, I would have been about ten). I felt like a child. My dad was aged roughly 40, as he would have been when I was ten.

I finally managed to shout out, and then woke up. I don't know if I shouted out IRL as there's nobody here but the dog to hear me. I woke in a strange feeling of dread, as though someone was in the house and moving around (couldn't happen: because of Dog). So maybe a mixture of sleep paralysis (unable to shout, plus the dread on waking) and a bad dream, but I have NEVER dreamed of myself as younger before.

Catseye maybe a lot of us are dreaming of deceased parents because we are all being told what to do by governments at the moment.
We have had our adult choices taken away and wait until we are told what to do next, just as we did when we were children.

 

[IbisNibs]

Makes you wonder like a Alien Abduction when some abductees have some or most of their memories erased about the experiences and I wonder if in our dreams we do venture to other worlds, afterlife but then they erase most/all of experience before go back to sleep mode.

One man from Australia, Robert Bruce, who writes about astral projection says that when your consciousness travels on astral (or other) planes, memories have to be transferred to your physical brain on "re-entry,"( f you want to call it that). If you don't do that, you don't recall the journey. Even if such experiences and dreams are "all in your head," your brain still has to move short term memories into long term memory for you to recall things later. Short term memories come from working memory, which only lasts a few seconds. If you are interrupted or distracted before memories move from working memory to short term memory, those memories go "poof!"

 

[Sabresonic]

One man from Australia, Robert Bruce, who writes about astral projection says that when your consciousness travels on astral (or other) planes, memories have to be transferred to your physical brain on "re-entry,"( f you want to call it that). If you don't do that, you don't recall the journey. Even if such experiences and dreams are "all in your head," your brain still has to move short term memories into long term memory for you to recall things later. Short term memories come from working memory, which only lasts a few seconds. If you are interrupted or distracted before memories move from working memory to short term memory, those memories go "poof!"

Thats really interesting as i'm a quite distracted/dreamy type of bloke but often wonder you can have dreams of your passed life ( if it's true) and how to bring them on.

 

[catseye]

Catseye maybe a lot of us are dreaming of deceased parents because we are all being told what to do by governments at the moment.
We have had our adult choices taken away and wait until we are told what to do next, just as we did when we were children.

I do like that idea, Iris. Not sure it applies in my case, as my life has largely been unaffected by Covid. I've worked right through and not really had to stop doing any of the things I did before (no noteable social life, exercise has continued uncurtailed as I live very rurally and, as I said, I've carried on working). So I've only tangentially been aware of the Governmental advice!

 

[gattino]

There are a dozen threads this could go under, but this seems the most apt, title wise.

Just off the phone to a friend. A is South Asian. His uncle (by marriage) died a couple of days ago of Covid, only in his late 40s, which is not much older than A himself.

A tells me a week or two ago, on two nights in succession, his deceased nan (who had raised him) came to him in a dream telling him something, but he doesn't know what. More precisely on two successive nights he got up out of bed still in a semi-dream state, to go for a pee while still talking to himself. This woke his partner each time who wanted to know what he was doing. He replied "I'm talking to my nan. She's telling me something". "Talking about what?" "I don't know".

Two days later the aforementioned uncle was rushed to hospital, where as i say he has subsequently and tragically passed away.

The obvious sense and understanding is that the Nan was telling A of what was to come. (It may be relevant to elaborate that she had in fact, he tells me, lived with the uncle and his wife, her daughter)

But the story doesn't end there as last night the uncle appeared in A's dream and was distressed and frantic, not comprehending that he was dead - or perhaps being shocked and distraught by the realisation - and was pleading with A to "look after my kids".

There's not much more I can add to the tale, it is as told above. Except to note that while A accepts the first the dreams as being a genuine visitation from his grandmother, he's more prone to see the uncle one as a reflection of his own subconscious mind.

 

[gattino]

24 hours later would you believe a second friend, with no connection to or knowledge of the first , reported another dream communication incident to me.

He was in fact replying to my account of an unrelated "psychic" dream experience of my own by showing me his own dream diary entry for last night.

Chris was an older lady best friend of his who died suddenly at a relatively young age a few months ago.

He added "I could hear her voice so clearly in the dream. It was like she was actually still dead but she was communicating to me through this “device” it was really neat."

 

[Spookdaddy]

Around six months after my dad died I had a very vivid dream about going to visit him in hospital – and like most of my dreams (or what I recall of them), it was pretty succinct.

In the dream we had been told by the hospital authorities that he probably only had a matter of hours to live, but as my brother enters the room in front of me he turns and says, 'You're not going to believe this!'

Lo and behold, my dad is up and dressed – buttoning the jacket on his smart suit. He has a quick look around the room, looks at us and says: 'Right, I'm ready to go now'.

This was actually a pretty accurate replay of a real event which took place around three years before he died, when he was first taken ill and we were told he possibly only had days to live. I'd raced all the way down from Scotland expecting him to be at death's door - only to find him bumbling around his room looking for his clothes: 'Thank goodness your here', he says - 'I've not had any breakfast...and some bugger's hidden my trousers.'

The suit seems somehow important. My dad had been an exceptionally handsome man - a veritable matinee idol in his army days - and a smart, if not expensive dresser; it distressed him that he couldn't keep himself up to the mark on his own in the last year or so of his life and needed our help to do so. (He stayed at home until the last couple of weeks of his life, but we had to help him a lot in those last months.)

I've always thought that dream was him, (or maybe just me) telling me that it was time to let go of the most recent memories and remember him as he really was, not as he had been at the end.

There was a second dream. This one more recent. And it starts with all the paraphernalia of a nightmare.

I am in a very large hangar type building – it’s clearly derelict or rarely used, it’s huge and dark and water is dripping from the rafters, and in the middle distance, illuminated by an inspection lamp, I can see a metal gurney with a shrouded body on top of it.

As I’ve said elsewhere on this forum, I seem to view my dreams from one remove; I am generally conscious when I’m dreaming that I am dreaming and have the ability to switch off and walk away – or at least tell myself that what I am seeing is not real. But in this case, although I went through that process of recognition, something made me carry it through.

I walk on and at some point, without any indication of movement, the body is no longer a body, but a figure sitting up on the gurney. And it’s my dad – only he looks like some sort of Indian guru; he’s sitting cross legged, half naked – a blanket wrapped around his loins, his hair is long, he’s got some sort of markings or maybe adornment around his upper chest (I can’t visualise exactly what now) and – of all things – he’s rolling a joint!

That’s it, really – almost an image rather than a narrative, but – despite the off putting nature of the set-dressing, I was left with a great sense of well-being and the overriding impression that I was being informed that everything was totally, totally cool.

 

[Impybat]

I am in a very large hangar type building – it’s clearly derelict or rarely used, it’s huge and dark and water is dripping from the rafters, and in the middle distance, illuminated by an inspection lamp, I can see a metal gurney with a shrouded body on top of it.

I have had a few dreams lately that featured hangars and other gigantic, warehouse-type buildings (and people/beings that seemed to be dignitaries?)

 

[NomDeGuerre]

I've been having very vivid dreams about my deceased grandma recently. They always have the same form - I'm visiting her at her house, the one she lived in for over 40 years (and not the retirement home she spent her last year in). In most of the dreams to now, she's been fast asleep and I've not had chance to speak to her. In the past couple, she's been awake and chatty (although sadly can't remember anything she says).

The weird thing is, I know she's already dead in each of my dreams, and her presence back in the world of the living is always only temporary. In my dreams, I'm thinking to myself how awful it is that she's on a time limit.

Nothing too odd with these dreams (although my mum and I have both had a dream, on the same night, of my grandma and her sister on a bus). My parents still recount a dream I shared when I was 3 / 4 (just after my grandad died) in which I was in a big old house with him, but he wouldn't talk to me (shock can do funny things).

The only other bit of loved one related weirdness I have, as far as dreams are concerned, is my sister having a vivid dream about my other grandma packing up her home and saying that she really must get going as she had somewhere to be... only to be woken with a call that my grandma had died.

 

[Jepra Peld]

I dreamt about my nan last night, next month will mark twenty years since she died and it's only the second or third time I have dreamt about her. The first time was shortly after she died and it was such an awful dream that I don't want to go into the details, last night's dream was more neutral and involved her waiting around a bus.
By contrast my dad died in April and I have dreamt about him a few times.

 

[brownmane]

This reminded me of when I used to dream of my maternal grandmother. She babysat us kids a lot. My grandfather had died when I was 4 so she was on her own for many years. She would stay over night Christmas Eve's to celebrate Xmas mornings with us before she went to work. We could stop in and visit her anytime we liked. So I had a fairly close relationship with her.

In her 80's (83 or 84, not sure) she moved to a nursing home as she had numerous health issues. I did not enjoy visiting her as much because it just isn't the same as hanging out to laze on the sofa in her home. She also wasn't well some days and also had crystalized gout in her fingers which was very painful. I found it difficult to see her in pain and not feeling well. I do believe that grandma knew that I didn't enjoy the visits with her as much, but neither of us ever talked about it. She died in 1999.

So I can't remember how long these dreams went on for, but they were probably happening at least in the first year after her death. I would dream of her and wherever she was (ex. in a subway entrance trying to get up the stairs) she would get hurt. These dreams were very disturbing for me.

Finally one evening, as I lied in bed, I had a heart to heart talk with my grandma. I told her that I felt bad that I hadn't visited her as much as I had before she moved into nursing home and explained why. She said that she understood. This was a conversation that I had in my head, not a dream. I had a good cry and felt much better.

I never dreamt of her being hurt again. I have had other weird dreams of her after, but she was more a character in my dreams than my grandma.

 

[Spring Heeled Spud]

I mentioned in my post in the "hearing your name" thread that I'd had a vivid dream after my dad died. I'm even managing to post this in the right forum this time!

I've always dreamt a lot but sometimes my dreams are almost too vivid - it's the difference between watching a film on an old VHS to a 4K UDH movie - the difference is massive. I'm guessing others will know what I mean and have experienced it. In any case, this was probably the most vivid I've ever experienced. Like a 3D/ 8K massive detail type of thing. I grew up in a council flat that was directly on the other side of the road from the main rail line into Portsmouth & Southsea station and around 200 yards from the block of flats was a bridge that crossed the railway lines. From childhood the bridge had always been known as Jacobs Ladder. No one has even been able to tell me how it got the name but everyone knew it as that. In the dream, I spotted my dad at the top of the steps. He died quite young at 63 but in the dream he was how I remembered him when I was around ten, looking young and fit, his hair almost jet black and very tanned. He smiled and waved and started to cross the bridge. I called to him and ran after him but by the time I got the the spot where he'd stood he'd crossed the bridge (spot the symbolism, folks), waved again and started to go down the steps. I remember thinking "he'll be gone by the time I get there" but ran across and as I reached the end he was at the bottom of the steps looking up at me. I charged down to him and kissed him and remember looking in his face and said to him "What's it like"? "It's beautiful," he replied. "It's like a small, Scottish fishing village". He actually showed me an image of the place he was talking about, I can't remember if it was a photo or whether he projected the image to me somehow but I clearly saw it. And as he smiled I woke up.

As I said, the detail was kind of hyper real. I remember the graffiti on the bridge was the same as in real life (I walked over the bridge the next day and recognised patches from the dream which seems weird). My dad's grandparents, who died before I was born, were from somewhere near Aberdeen so whether that fact played a part in my psyche conjuring the fishing village up I don't know. This was 1996 so looking for places wasn't easy then but I did have a look on Google for fishing villages a few years back and there's a small village in Aberdeenshire called Crovie that does look extremely similar to the image in my head. But I wonder if the fact it's close to Aberdeen is influencing memory on that. I want to visit some day. Will I meet some young guy in his mid 20's who's the image of my dad?