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Dreaming Of The Dead

Beautiful. :yeay:

And nettieb, yours really struck a chord with me - arguing with someone about whether or not they're really dead! :lol:
 
Quite a few people have those "revelatory" dreams, sometimes during a fever. I've never had the pleasure, as far as I can recall, but they are more common that you might expect. Maybe someone's trying to tell us something?
 
Yup, sometimes it's 'No I'm NOT ****ing dead!!' :lol:
 
I've oddly noted before that, whilst I dream a lot, I never dream of those who have passed away. Perhaps, like the previous post suggests, this is because I don't "accept" their deaths. :cry:
 
Or perhaps you do, so your mind doesn't need to re-create them for you? :)

One of my favourite fillums is the much-scorned A.I.
That one day, at the end... it'd be worth it. :cry:
 
colpepper1 said:
I wouldn't describe us as particularly close, although the two families were in and out of each others houses all the time.
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But that's how my family defined "close."
 
OldTimeRadio said:
colpepper1 said:
I wouldn't describe us as particularly close, although the two families were in and out of each others houses all the time.
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But that's how my family defined "close."
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What I meant to say is although my mother and elder brother were close to my uncle emotionally, I wasn't especially so. There was no 'special' connection between us that might trigger such a dream, beyond the usual family respectfulness.
By the time it occured things had very much moved on and I was living in London independently with a busy college lifestyle. The dream was 'out the blue', not anything I was consciously yearning for, although it's conceivable I was stressed at the changes and didn't know it.

Beyond the euphoric nature of the vision and the disappointment of it ending the only parts I can recall over thirty years on was the reality of the things within it, people had more 'peopleness' and even the stones in the building made our real ones look like dull, virtual imitations. Everything was 'more so' to an extent that defied description, it had a 'sanctity' without any of the word's mundane or glib connotations.
What it all meant I have either forgotten or never knew.
 
escargot1 said:
Or perhaps you do, so your mind doesn't need to re-create them for you? :)

One of my favourite fillums is the much-scorned A.I.
That one day, at the end... it'd be worth it. :cry:
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It's interesting you say that as I consider myself to have an ultra depressing view of the afterlife and death, i.e worm food.

Escargot, I too love AI. Recently I read Brian Aldiss' book of short stories (from which it's from) and loved it just as much. I've enver understood why it is so universally hated, it's such a wonderfully magical film.
 
*nods*

To me, it has a very simple theme, which is the acceptance of death. Of course, to accept death we must first know what life is. Is it intelligence? The capacity to learn? A personality? Does love come into it?

I have it on DVD but still watch a bit when it's on telly. :D
 
...keep it quiet but I also like Bi-Centenial man, the Asimov story with Robin Williams and Sam Neil. That too is generally hated!
 
You're not alone. I don't mind either of those films and the Robin Williams one is very funny n places. He's definately a better actor than singer - bloody Angels.
 
Shazzles said:
I had a strange-feeling 'dream'. I say it felt 'strange' as it just didn't have the feel of a regular dream - very hard to describe.

I was dreaming that I was sat in my living room and was being visited by all my relatives who have 'passed over'. It felt strange as I was sat with my grandma, great aunt and great uncle, and my 2 dogs, and nobody was talking, we were all just sat there. A moment just before I was due to wake up, everybody else stood up and walked out of the room.
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I used to have a very creepy-feeling recurring dream wherein I was sitting with a bunch of people I instinctively knew were dead relatives (the only one in the room I could identify was my grandfather, but I rarely see faces in my dreams, I usually just sense or feel relationships as cues to who the people are). We were sitting in the living room of my grandparents' old house, which was torn down by then. It had been built around a log cabin, so the walls were about a foot thick, and there was very little natural light in the room. It was always dark and a little dusty. In the dream, those features of the room really defined the feeling - one of near-suffocation, of an oppressive stillness (as opposed to the peaceful kind).

One morning when I woke up from the dream, I wrote a poem about it. Never had it again!
 
decipheringscars said:
....there was very little natural light in the room. It was always dark and a little dusty. In the dream, those features of the room really defined the feeling - one of near-suffocation, of an oppressive stillness (as opposed to the peaceful kind)
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This strikes me as remarkably similar to both the spirit and the setting of E. F. Benson's nightmarish (literally) vampire tale, "The Room in the Tower." (It was also used as the framing device for the mid-1940s horror anthology film Dead of Night.)
 
When my dad died in an accident I had years of dreams in which he would come back.

The first one involved him coming back and saying that he wasn't dead - he'd been asked by the government to work on the QE2 (he used to be quartermaster on the ship before I was born) and he'd been in Australia.

After I left home to go to Uni I had many years of him coming back and taking me on a drive, I knew he was dead by then but he'd pick me up in a car (which was strange in itself as mum was the driver and petrol-head of the family) and go for a little drive and we'd talk about what was happening. He'd bring me back, drop me off and tootle off. I'd wake up feeling very comforted.

Those dreams faded away a few years ago. Occasionally I have a dream where I am a kid again and mum and dad have just come back from work and are having a cup of tea at our old kitchen table. My poor little brother never gets a look-in on these dreams - he's always 'somewhere else'.
 
Early 2000, my gran and grandad met me along the highstreet in a dream and hugged and kissed me. They made me feel alittle awkward in thier manner as I had never had much to do with them - lived far away. My grandad kissed my cheeks lovingly and told me that "they would always be with me" - some months later i went through a dark patch involving a stalker. I look back and think they where there to comfort me in advance?

....

I dreamt i was strangely back at my parents house. I was upstairs staring at some of my (back then) crazy choices of shirts - very loud and vibrant. They where laid out on a bed. Members of the family where pottering about around me throughout the house. My deceased grandmother walked into the bedroom and sat in a chair looking at me. In surprise i asked what she was doing here and she raised her head and closed her eyes. This puzzled me. She refused to speak. My father could be heard coming into the house from work and hung around downstairs as i watched my grandmother.

Three weeks later my father collapsed in the garden. Later i pieced together this and the strange but very vibrant dream. Was she letting me know her son was soon to pass over?

.......

for the next 7 years i had the odd rare dream where she would walk into my dream and never speak but smile, be present etc.

......

the last dream involved her coming up to me from behind, touching my shoulder and letting me know that she was leaving me. She was moving onwards and would never again visit me. I felt a sincere silent sadness from this but also knew that she wasnt going too far away. She left me and i sat where i was feeling like i had lost a part of my life - unlike waking life where i never really knew her.
 
macrosblack said:
I dreamt i was strangely back at my parents house. I was upstairs staring at some of my (back then) crazy choices of shirts - very loud and vibrant. They where laid out on a bed. Members of the family where pottering about around me throughout the house. My deceased grandmother walked into the bedroom and sat in a chair looking at me. In surprise i asked what she was doing here and she raised her head and closed her eyes. This puzzled me. She refused to speak. My father could be heard coming into the house from work and hung around downstairs as i watched my grandmother.


for the next 7 years i had the odd rare dream where she would walk into my dream and never speak but smile, be present etc.
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Macrosblack, thanks for sharing this story - it sounds very similar in feel to my own experience as described in the first post - the presence of dead loved-ones, being there, but not speaking - and feeling totally unlike the usual sort of dreams. Hopefully it gave you the same sense of peace and 'continuation' that I got from the experience.
 
My Dad died very suddenly a few years ago, and understandably, I did dream about him for some time after - it is what is at the top of your mind.

Oddly, though, my first dream was that I was drinking in a bar with him in Cambridge (where he went to University) and he was drinking whisky (which he NEVER did). If I listened carefully to what he said, he stopped making sense and spoke gibberish, even mid sentence. I had to half listen to what he said. The entire bar, and him, was all 1960's. like it would have been for him at the time, I obviously never knew him that young.

After that,in all my dreams since, he has been how I remembered him. He, oddly, is always wearing his old painting jumper though. It was an orange/gold colour, which was his favourite colour.
 
My much loved grandmother passed away 2 years ago, and to date I've had 2 incredibly vivid dreams about her. The first was when my wife was in hospital having what we thought was a minor procedure carried out. I dreamed I had a phonecall from my Gran. expressing concern and asking me how my wife was. It subsequently transpired that the minor op. went badly wrong and my wife was in a very bad way for several days. The second time I dreamed I was at my parent's house (which they shared with my gran). I was in the conservatory with her, and all my pet cats from my childhood were there too, just sleeping as cats do. We chatted very briefly and I noticed she had a cold. I said "I didn't think you'd have colds now", to which she replied "you'd have thought so wouldn't you!"

The weird thing is that this was the most vivid dream I've ever had - every sound, every colour was enhanced to the nth degree - very strange! I've dreamed about her many times since, but these were the only times I interacted with her.
 
The FT printed a letter from me a few years ago about a dream I had about someone who'd recently died. The dream also involved the magazine. I must have that issue tucked away somewhere.
 
Not sure if this belongs in this thread. Last week I had a strange dream where someone was suddenly pulled into the water. When I went over to help they were no longer struggling and instead of an older person there was a small child peacefully sleeping under the water.
Yesterday my cousin whom I hadn't seen for years rang to say that his Father had died from heart trouble, so I don't know if it was connected. I'd been remembering visits to the farm for about a week so I wasn't all that surprised when I was told.
 
had a really wierd one last night, i woke totally freaked
glad of an excuse to get it off my chest.

we lost my Uncle on Feb 2nd and i dreamed his coffin was still in his living room
awaiting burial months later and we were had to pretend this was normal so as not to upset his widow
only it wasn't actually his house it was the house of my Late Grandfather who died in 92

i massively overslept too , i've noticed a correlation between very vivid dreams and my oversleeping
 
I've had 'coffin' dreams too.

When someone dear to me died, I dreamed about his coffin. (There was something distinctive about the coffin in real life, which was reproduced in the dream.)
In the dream, I went to the funeral home and sneaked the coffin out and dragged it up my stairs.

I placed it on my bed, took the lid off and lay down beside it. After a refreshing nap I looked into the coffin and saw its occupant sleeping peacefully.

My daughter dreamed that this coffin was in her front room. Our late relation climbed out of it and chatted with her. She felt better afterwards.

It seems to me as if my mind's struggling to accept the death and is bringing up the coffin as a sort of concrete reminder.
 
Macrosblack, thanks for sharing this story - it sounds very similar in feel to my own experience as described in the first post - the presence of dead loved-ones, being there, but not speaking - and feeling totally unlike the usual sort of dreams. Hopefully it gave you the same sense of peace and 'continuation' that I got from the experience.[/quote]

Thank you so kindly.

Perhaps one day we too shall after passing on choose to communicate with those we love through dreams.

Whilst adding the above I got a strange idea.

The method used by deceased loved ones is clearly the mind. I instantly got a feeling that this method of communication will be our future technology. We will use the mind in some time distant to do everything. We shall build things that work in harmony with nature and ourselves instead of machines that create heat, noise and pollution.

There are now alot of gadgets on the market that use brain function to generate certain electrical impulses. These display coloured lights on a child like panel, raise a ball by triggering its operation etc.

Left me thinking....
 
Thanks for posting this Escargot, i was genuinely not aware that the "coffin" dream is a universal thing.
your daughters "front room" dream is interesting
i recognise a lot of the other stuff thats been posted like the "it's all been a mistake" dream and the "i'm back now" dream
a slight variation on the "it's all been a mistake" dream that i've had for years re: my Grandad is that its years after his death and i suddenly find out that he's not Dead but that i just hadn't seen him for years, and i'm full of guilt and trying to make up for not seeing him and he's really old and infirm
would be interested to know if this is universal too




escargot1 said:
I've had 'coffin' dreams too.

When someone dear to me died, I dreamed about his coffin. (There was something distinctive about the coffin in real life, which was reproduced in the dream.)
In the dream, I went to the funeral home and sneaked the coffin out and dragged it up my stairs.

I placed it on my bed, took the lid off and lay down beside it. After a refreshing nap I looked into the coffin and saw its occupant sleeping peacefully.

My daughter dreamed that this coffin was in her front room. Our late relation climbed out of it and chatted with her. She felt better afterwards.

It seems to me as if my mind's struggling to accept the death and is bringing up the coffin as a sort of concrete reminder.
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I had a series of dreams about my mother some time after she died. The first lot of dreams she had come back and I was so happy cause she was still alive and I just felt pure elation. It was wonderful.

The next few dreams were still happy but I started to question who did we bury in her grave and why did we think she had died and where had she been.

In the next lot I started to realize that she couldn’t be my mother and viewed her with distrust and suspicion.

In my last dream I remember actually acknowledging that she had died and that she couldn’t be real and I remember her comforting me and saying goodbye to me.

I believe that it was my subconscious just trying to deal with everything. For a long time after she died it just didn’t feel real to me and when I realized in my dream that she was actually dead it hit me pretty hard when I woke up. I think it was then that I truly accepted that she was gone.
 
Around the time of my dad’s death I had a series of very vivid dreams.
It started the night before my dad’s funeral, he’d died suddenly after a short illness and we were all in shock
That night I dreamt that I was taking my youngest son to the dentist. My two teenage boys and their younger sister were there and my husband was walking along with my dad.
He looked really well and happy and years younger than he actually was when he died.
He’d been close to the kids and very protective of the younger two, (who he used to mind a few years before, when they came home on the school bus, before we got back from work)
We went in to the waiting room; the eldest two boys saw a friend they knew and started laughing and bantering with him. (I felt I was supposed to be listening in to this, but I couldn’t concentrate, as I was still agitated and upset about something, although in my dream state, I didn’t know what it was.)
There were two women with guitars and two rough surly looking men with them. The women suddenly broke into song accompanying themselves on the guitars. Before long, my daughter, who was now out of sight, joined in and completely drowned them out,
(She was prone to start singing at the drop of a hat, which my dad used to find quite amusing.)
My youngest son asked me if he could borrow some of my money for a toy he’d seen. I told him I hadn’t any money with me. He pointed behind me and there on a table, was a huge old fashioned till, with the draw open, absolutely crammed with notes. I pushed the draw shut and explained to him it wasn’t my money and it belonged to the dentist.
Just then we were called in for his turn. He opened his mouth and I could see one of his back teeth was completely brown. The dentist poked it with a probe and it popped off like a plastic cap. Underneath was a new white tooth. We thanked him and said goodbye
As we were making our way out my husband said “Fancy them leaving all that money in there, with such dodgy looking characters about.” I suddenly thought about the two men and realized I should have said something to the dentist, about the money and turned to go back
He continued, “Anyway Dad, would you like five bob?”
To my astonishment He pulled a ten pound note out of his pocket and offered it to my dad, who palmed it and slipped it in to his pocket.
My dad then gave a little smile to himself and strolled on with his hands in his pockets
I woke up with a jolt, still shocked at what had happened, in real life my dad would never take money off us, even if he’d bought groceries for us and we’d tried to make him.
As I came round more, I realized it had been a joke and that the “dodgy characters” he was talking about had been themselves!
I even laughed about it. My mood had lifted and I felt better able to cope with everything that was happening. I also felt that there had been a fond nod to each one of us in the dream
I told the family about it at breakfast, my youngest son said “how did you know?
“Know what?” I asked “About my tooth” he replied.
It turned out he’d been having toothache and didn’t want to tell me.
“Show me which one “I said. He pointed to the same back tooth as in the dream.
I took him to the dentist shortly after. The dentist said it was nothing to worry about, there was a new big tooth growing under his old baby one, causing pressure. All he had to do was keep wiggling it and it would come loose and fall out, (Which it did).
This was the first of a series of dreams I had for a few months after my dads death, but if I they were someone else’s stories, I would find them far fetched. I still find them very strange myself, it did change the way I think about everything and pulled the rug out from under my “then” belief system. I just don’t know about anything anymore and I am inclined to be much more open minded about other people’s experiences.
I will print the others up soon .
 
Lovely story, thank you! :D

Looking forward to hearing more. :yeay:
 
ormus said:
Around the time of my dad’s death I had a series of very vivid dreams.
It started the night before my dad’s funeral, he’d died suddenly after a short illness and we were all in shock
That night I dreamt that I was taking my youngest son to the dentist. My two teenage boys and their younger sister were there and my husband was walking along with my dad.
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Please, please, please don't think I'm being glib. But dreams that involve teeth are meant to be related to ageing and death (losing teeth and so on)

I often dream of of teeth loss, but then I'm 40 something and have lost family so its par for the course.
 
Having followed this thread for a while now, it's occured to me that these are all really significant dreams, because of their subject matter and the emotional 'real world' issues that they reflect.

But I did wonder if the folks that have posted and shared have other significant dreams, or dream often, say two or three times a week?

Myself, I do dream a couple of times a week, and every now and then I wake up with tears rolling down my face, although I don't usually have any clue why. And it's so rare for these frequent dreams to have such an impact that I can recall them with any depth. Yet I also think that everyone who posted would probably be able to supply a lot more information, not personal, but like, the clothes that were worn or the number of a bus going past.

So now I'm writing this, I'm wondering if the fact that the dreams are significant to each of us, makes us examine them in greater depth, and so recall with greater clarity, or is there greater depth and clarity because of the dreams significance. Ok... so a bit of a chicken and egg question, sorry about that :oops:

But any thoughts?
 
Most people will agree that dreams are hard to remember next morning. Just a handful may seem especially vivid, although of those, very few appear meaningful.

Friend of mine, whose parents were Jamaican, has several sisters. Each time one of them was pregnant their mother would know almost before the daughter did, because she would have a dream about fish.

As proof, when the daughter visited her mother, either with the news or with something on her mind, there'd be maternity dresses hanging up freshly pressed for to take home. :lol:
 
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