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Dreaming Of The Dead

catseye said:
Yep, and the 'seven stages of grief' can get stuffed as well. There are as many stages as anyone needs. Sometimes one is enough. Other times you kind of cycle through all of them ad infinitum.
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As you'll know, the 'stages of grief' business is a misreading of Kubler-Ross' findings about the subject. The most glaring difference is that Kubler-Ross was examining the reactions of terminally ill patients to their own deaths, not those of bereaved relations.

The 'stages' are deep in the culture now, along with a healthy pinch of salt.

I enjoy the way the idea of them is used humorously, say when a comedy character has to finally scrap a beloved car and their friend nods knowingly and mentions acceptance.
We know it sums up how hard the car owner has worked to keep their banger going. :chuckle:
 
Grief can come at any time and for some seemingly unknown reason.

IMO, let the person talk about whoever they've lost, whenever they want to. Stories and memories help.

I think some people are hesitant to talk to people in the early days of grief because they are fearful of making the person feel worse. A funny story or just stating that you miss the person, as well, does not make the grief worse, it just allows the person to work through it with someone who cares.
 
One of my sisters had a miscarriage and my nephew was a teenager and didn't know what to say to her. It really didn't matter what he said, in the end, it was that he went to see her, and said he was really sorry that it had happened, that was important to her. Nothing anyone will say will help, but the fact that they said something does make a difference I think.
 
Dreamed last night that I looked down the side of the sofa and saw, instead of my laptop case and other usual stuff, our late and much-beloved big daft dog Rocky. He was lying down in that 'relaxed guarding' position, head on front paws.

I thought That's definitely Rocky but he's long gone. If I look away and back he'll be gone and that will prove it.

So I looked away and back, and Rocky was still there. I thought Well, THAT'S strange, what's going on?

This is because I often see dogs resembling the ones we had, especially when we're out on the bikes, and it brings them to mind. Part of me still wants a dog to walk.
 
Dogs'll walk if you let 'em! :p
 
escargot said:
Dreamed last night that I looked down the side of the sofa and saw, instead of my laptop case and other usual stuff, our late and much-beloved big daft dog Rocky. He was lying down in that 'relaxed guarding' position, head on front paws.

I thought That's definitely Rocky but he's long gone. If I look away and back he'll be gone and that will prove it.

So I looked away and back, and Rocky was still there. I thought Well, THAT'S strange, what's going on?

This is because I often see dogs resembling the ones we had, especially when we're out on the bikes, and it brings them to mind. Part of me still wants a dog to walk.
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Very similar to my recently reported experience of the very clear image of the dog sat on the end of our bed. Mind said it was the cat but the image wouldn't go away and the cat, sat up, also apparently staring at it. It was a good few seconds before the image faded. Not a dog that ever belonged to either of us though. Maybe a wandering spirit who just fancied a bit of warmth and company?
 
PeteS said:
Very similar to my recently reported experience of the very clear image of the dog sat on the end of our bed. Mind said it was the cat but the image wouldn't go away and the cat, sat up, also apparently staring at it. It was a good few seconds before the image faded. Not a dog that ever belonged to either of us though. Maybe a wandering spirit who just fancied a bit of warmth and company?
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Our home has a 'ghost cat' that (among other phenomena) drove my ex a bit mad. :chuckle:
 
Dreamt of my mum, last night. Probably prompted by reading yesterday of other posters' recent bereavements. In the dream, I knew she was dead. She came walking down a path in some kind of park. Her eyes were bright, and she responded to me, albeit without speaking. All I could think to tell her was how good it was to see her again. It was a positive encounter, although of course I'm crying now.

ETA: it's amazing how our words betray, or anticipate, us. Re-reading the above, I've only now remembered how the last time (prior to her final crisis) I saw her in waking life, she was up and about, responding to what people said, but unable to speak herself.
 
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I had an unusual, vivid dream the other night.

I was in a room with someone who I knew to be a young adult male but couldn't see. This young man then bear hugged me in a friendly way and I told myself I should look at him. This I did and clearly recognised who it was without a shadow of doubt, said "Oh, it's you!" and then woke up with a start.

It was a person I hadn't seen in the flesh since I was at school from 1979 to 1984 (although It is possible I may have seen him occasionally at some village disco or other event up until about 1989 when left the area). He was a year or two younger than me, with a brother older than me and a sister my age. They were well known in my small school for being from a well-off family and also because the sister was stunningly beautiful in a Catherine Zeta Jones way.

However, I have seen his face since those distant school days as about a decade ago a friend posted our old school group photos on Facebook, I had noticed him with his distinctive fringe and parting as he was next to a boy from our village. So it is hard to argue there was anything particularly Fortean about this dream but rather just a random memory.

Or so i thought. Curiosity got the better of me as not only was it a very vivid dream, but also he had appeared perhaps two years (?) older in my dream, his hair a bit longer and his parting less pronounced/scruffier. He had very different hair to his older brother, so I hadn't confused the two. He was also turned side on to me in my dream, turning to face me as he walked to my left and not facing to the front as in his photograph. So I idly checked Facebook and found his entire extended family on there, including an elderly aunt. None of them had him listed as family and I could not find any trace of a profile for him.

So, has he been disowned by his family for some reason or did he die in some accident or of a cancer-related illness, like too many of my old school friends...? Suddenly it felt like my dream had some significance and I am in the process of discretely finding out what I can about his circumstances.
 
Well sorry folks, I've just been taught lesson in memory, recall and time and I feel a bit of a muppet.

Found the birth records and mother's maiden name of the brother and sister and, well... they don't have a younger brother so I was mistaken. However, I then found a tagged version of the school group photo elsewhere on Facebook and I now know who it was that I saw in my dream. I have found his profile on Facebook and can see a clear similarity in the face of this now older man and his Facebook friends from my old school are of the correct age. So I am confident I now have a match.

That said, his profile hasn't been updated since 2009. I share a mutual friend on Facebook and so Investigations continue...
 
Last week I dreamt about being on a "holiday" and my father was in it - or someone who was a dream version of him anyway....I am not actually sure he looked like my father, but he was a father figure - mentally I knew that was who he represented.
 
My dad passed away about a month ago. Since then, he's shown up in several dreams, mostly in passing, as in, he never says anything to me, just kinda shows up, looks at me, then slowly walks away. I know that's probably just wishful thinking on my part, but last night was a little different....

I don't remember the full context of the dream, but I was walking down the stairs and he was in front of me. He stops, turns around, looks me straight in the eyes, then shakes my hand. It was probably the firmest handshake I've ever received. He then turns around and continues down the steps and as I remembered that he had died, sort of disappeared.

In each of the dreams, I've remembered that he's dead, yet fully accept that there he is, right in front of me. It's weird.
 
MercuryCrest said:
My dad passed away about a month ago. Since then, he's shown up in several dreams, mostly in passing, as in, he never says anything to me, just kinda shows up, looks at me, then slowly walks away. I know that's probably just wishful thinking on my part, but last night was a little different....

I don't remember the full context of the dream, but I was walking down the stairs and he was in front of me. He stops, turns around, looks me straight in the eyes, then shakes my hand. It was probably the firmest handshake I've ever received. He then turns around and continues down the steps and as I remembered that he had died, sort of disappeared.

In each of the dreams, I've remembered that he's dead, yet fully accept that there he is, right in front of me. It's weird.
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Sorry for your loss, that's rough... but your dreams are offering you a chance to say goodbye, were you able to before he passed away?
 
SimonBurchell said:
Sorry for your loss, that's rough... but your dreams are offering you a chance to say goodbye, were you able to before he passed away?
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Thank you, and yes. We patched things up and all. I was actually there at his deathbed and saw him pass (which kinda messed me up for a bit. I've seen bodies, but never someone actually die).
 
MercuryCrest said:
Thank you, and yes. We patched things up and all. I was actually there at his deathbed and saw him pass (which kinda messed me up for a bit. I've seen bodies, but never someone actually die).
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It's great that you were there for him and were able to work things out between you.

I have had dreams of my husband, both a little disturbing and inane. The disturbing ones were him still being alive and living another life, intentionally, without me.

All of these dreams do not seem to be him, but a dream figure. I had one very brief dream of him shortly after he died. There was no background and he couldn't hear me and I couldn't hear him. There seemed to be an invisible barrier between us. He looked confused. I just told him that I loved him. That is the only dream that I believe was him.

I do believe that people we love do appear in dreams to let us know that all is ok. I would believe (though you know how the dream felt) that your dad's firm grip handshake and direct eye contact was probably him letting you know how important it was to patch things up with you.
 
I had an interesting dream last night where I was away on holidays with all my cousins in what I thought was the Algarve. Now my uncle died recently so there was an air of sadness as people consoled my aunt and there was a long table where everyone was eating. The dream then moved to talk of walking to the local town but there was no interest and then my wife came in to say we had been charged 8,000 for our room as we had waved some insurance. Then as I sat on the end of the table as others looked at a bill my uncle appeared in the doorway wearing a some sort of holiday hat sideways as to be humorous and he said he was heading down to the town and he would see us later. I seemed to be the only one who seen this and I explained it to one of my cousins being careful to say it was not an apparition but that I had seen it in my mind! then the dream ended.
 
I dream of passed loved ones a lot, but only certain ones. I find it strange, for example, even though I was equally close to both sets of my grandparents, I only regularly dream about my maternal grandad and my paternal grandma. I think since my maternal grandma passed in 1990 she’s only appeared once or twice, yet her husband - my grandad - is regularly there in my dreams.
I lost my mum when I was a teenager and she used to always appear in my dreams afterwards being nasty to me, no idea why, in real life she didn’t have a nasty bone in her body and we had the closest relationship. As if I wasn’t lost and upset enough, I’d got my mum being horrible to me in my dreams! Strangely enough after one of my friends lost his mother several years later he had the same experience with his warm, good-natured, loving mother being nasty to him in his dreams. Thankfully dreams of my mum these days are much more pleasant.

I was once chatting with a medium (a friend of a friend) and I said whilst I‘d had a few strange encounters over the years I’d never actually seen a ghost. She told me I had, she was in fact insistent I see them regularly. I assured her I don’t but she replied that I do, I just don’t realise it, adding, “You see them in your dreams.”
 
I was going to post this on the "What did you dream of last night?" thread but thought it would be better off here.

I had a terrible night's sleep last night, not insomnia as such (although I spent about an hour and a half awake before dozing off again into fitful sleep), just shallow sleep with a mishmash of disjointed, disturbing dreams, most of which are forgotten now. I only remember one snippet of a dream from before I woke up in the morning. I was walking across an open area (it looked like a green on a council estate, although no buildings were visible), towards a road junction (no traffic). Standing by this road junction were three people. Two of them were ladies who looked to be in their 50s. I looked at one confused, thinking "That looks like Old Nan but younger than I remember her". Old Nan was my great-grandmother who died in the 1980s, and she was already very elderly by the time I knew her as a child. I looked at the other lady, who looked like my grandmother, who died a couple of years ago aged 100. I was convinced it was my maternal grandmother and her mother and spoke to them. I don't remember most of the conversation, but I remember asking "Where's Mum?", and my grandmother answered something like "She's not here with us." - which makes sense, because my mother is very much alive. The mysterious third figure just seemed to hang around in the background and I don't remember anything about it, except the presence of a shadowy third person watching the proceedings.
 
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