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Dreaming Of The Dead

You say you don't watch zombie movies etc, but that's in the past tense..it may well be that the images of which the dream fantasy were constructed are ones you will encounter in the coming days.

I've had at least one apocalyptic dream in the past similar to yours, then with relief noted scenes from the movie Les Miserables a few days later on TV matched it. That's to say - in my own terms (I don't presume you accept the reality of precognitive dreams as matter of factly as I now do)- it wasn't a warning of doom, but simply a story inspired by a future encounter with the trivial.
 
You say you don't watch zombie movies etc, but that's in the past tense..it may well be that the images of which the dream fantasy were constructed are ones you will encounter in the coming days.

I've had at least one apocalyptic dream in the past similar to yours, then with relief noted scenes from the movie Les Miserables a few days later on TV matched it. That's to say - in my own terms (I don't presume you accept the reality of precognitive dreams as matter of factly as I now do)- it wasn't a warning of doom, but simply a story inspired by a future encounter with the trivial.
Hmm. No, I don't think it's precognitive at all, though what you say is interesting. Thanks for your reply
 
Well it depends on what you understand precognitive to mean in terms of dreams. Again I'm only talking for myself as its my pet "thing" in terms of ongoing fortean experiences, but i've long concluded that there is no such thing as a precognitive dream per se, but rather elements of past and future trivia become the building blocks of an ostensibly unrelated dream story. That's to say there is no defining feeling or quality that says "This dream is a special one!" because it isn't, its just an ordinary dream..its the items and sometimes events within it that are taken, partly, from the future, rather than the plot as a whole.

So in this case if any of it were precognitive it wouldn't be that you would see it all played out in a movie or whatever, but rather that some reference to zombies or a dystopian future or world warIII etc etc might pass your eyes in reading the paper or overhearing a conversation or what have you. A "coincidental" encounter you would never take notice of or remember but for your reporting of the dream. Equally if you search your mind you may find some elements of the scenes you dreamt about passed your waking awareness prior to the dream, but in such a trivial way you've half forgotten them.
 
Well it depends on what you understand precognitive to mean in terms of dreams. Again I'm only talking for myself as its my pet "thing" in terms of ongoing fortean experiences, but i've long concluded that there is no such thing as a precognitive dream per se, but rather elements of past and future trivia become the building blocks of an ostensibly unrelated dream story. That's to say there is no defining feeling or quality that says "This dream is a special one!" because it isn't, its just an ordinary dream..its the items and sometimes events within it that are taken, partly, from the future, rather than the plot as a whole.

So in this case if any of it were precognitive it wouldn't be that you would see it all played out in a movie or whatever, but rather that some reference to zombies or a dystopian future or world warIII etc etc might pass your eyes in reading the paper or overhearing a conversation or what have you. A "coincidental" encounter you would never take notice of or remember but for your reporting of the dream. Equally if you search your mind you may find some elements of the scenes you dreamt about passed your waking awareness prior to the dream, but in such a trivial way you've half forgotten them.
Yes,
I think that's very plausible. The sub-conscious is a strange thing.Thanks, that's really interesting and makes me think.
 
The Victorian theme is interesting. I think your dream is prophetic. It sounds like the end of the world as described in Revelations in the Bible. It says in one of the verses that men shall seek death and death shall flee from them. Let's say that to seek death would be something like suicide. Imagine a deadly wound that festers and decays with you still walking around alive. So in the last days, the decaying British empire or The United States which is The Whore of Babylon in the Book of Revelation will attack its African Americans as a last ditch effort to survive. What do you think, did I nail it or what?
 
The Victorian theme is interesting. I think your dream is prophetic. It sounds like the end of the world as described in Revelations in the Bible. It says in one of the verses that men shall seek death and death shall flee from them. Let's say that to seek death would be something like suicide. Imagine a deadly wound that festers and decays with you still walking around alive. So in the last days, the decaying British empire or The United States which is The Whore of Babylon in the Book of Revelation will attack its African Americans as a last ditch effort to survive. What do you think, did I nail it or what?
You so did
 
Last night, I dreamed of my late best friend, James. I've only dreamed of him a very few times since he passed on.

In this dream, I visited him in the tiny trailer (I think in the UK you'd call this a caravan) where he lived for a time, by a lake. This particular lake is a dark one, surrounded by dense cypress trees and had/has a gloomy atmosphere. I probably only visited him a couple of times when he lived out there. Anyway, this atmosphere permeated the dream and seemed to be an important part of it.

James and I are sitting in his tiny caravan, talking. He looks and is dressed as he always did, down to his wrist band. He's telling me about a conspiracy, rumors, word spreading from person to person. There is a sense of this rumor and talk being wide-ranging, people being tipped off, stuff going down. The whole thing has an air of a crime story or a film. A wee bit Southern Gothic, maybe.

This echoes a conversation we had in real life, one of the times I visited him at the lake. At that time he was having problems with his girlfriend's crazy ex-boyfriend, to the point where the police stopped by his friends' bridge game one night, to warn that crazy ex was spreading rumors about him, trying to cause trouble.

The dream didn't seem like just a memory, though, it seemed to refer to something current. And the conspiracy and rumor he spoke of didn't seem to refer directly to me, but it didn't seem entirely unrelated either. As if it might be something happening around me, or in the wider world, so I should be alert to it.

The dream wasn't a bad one, but has made me uneasy. I dream of James so rarely that I can't help but take it seriously when I do.
 
I keep dreaming of my deceased maternal grandmother (once a week or so).
It's odd, because in every dream she's upset or angry with me, which she never was in reality.
Even odder is that the dreams always take place in a house she sold years before her passing. Indeed, I've had dreams of that house (a very ordinary '30's semi) where, whilst she's not in the dream per se, her presence can still be felt.

It's made more peculiar that I almost never have dreams about my paternal grandparents, yet had a similar relationship to them, and in the case of that grandmother, died not that many years before my maternal one.
All most peculiar.
 
I keep dreaming of my deceased maternal grandmother (once a week or so).
It's odd, because in every dream she's upset or angry with me, which she never was in reality.
Even odder is that the dreams always take place in a house she sold years before her passing. Indeed, I've had dreams of that house (a very ordinary '30's semi) where, whilst she's not in the dream per se, her presence can still be felt.
A psychologist, i'm guessing, might ask you to consider things like...what she as a person represents to you: authority? Tradition? wisdom? family unity? OR/and what's going on in your life now that you could feel she might have disapproved of? Both an old house and a childhood relative like grandma suggest symbolism of home, family, belonging and a sense where you come from....are you leaving those things behind in someway? Making choices that risk creating physical or emotional distances in your own current family?

Bearing in mind I'm making this up, I still charge £150 per hour.
 
I keep dreaming of my deceased maternal grandmother (once a week or so).
It's odd, because in every dream she's upset or angry with me, which she never was in reality.
Even odder is that the dreams always take place in a house she sold years before her passing. Indeed, I've had dreams of that house (a very ordinary '30's semi) where, whilst she's not in the dream per se, her presence can still be felt.

It's made more peculiar that I almost never have dreams about my paternal grandparents, yet had a similar relationship to them, and in the case of that grandmother, died not that many years before my maternal one.
All most peculiar.

One of the most persuasive (to me) dream theories is that all dreams are about ourselves. If I have a weird dream about a person or place I have a think about what aspect of my life, or myself, that it might represent.

Sounds farfetched, but it usually makes sense. Like, I sometimes dream about a lion strutting around. That's me feeling proud of myself. I'm not the lion in the dream but I look at it admiringly. The lions walks when I've had a tough time, say at work, and have come out on top.

Maybe something about Granny reminds you of something you get up to? I dunno!
 
As I've been noting down my dreams again lately (I downloaded a phone app thats meant to help you achieve lucidity, largely by reminding you to do a reality check several times a day. It may take a while.) and consequently have begun to realise my recently deceased brother is featuring almost every night, or certainly wiht great regularity.

The nature of his appearances is very much like that of my dad for many years (possibly past tense as I don't seem to notice I've dreamt of the latter very often now)..ie there is no reference to his status as being dead, and nothing profound or conversational as one might hope if you believed they were really communicating through dreams. He is merely a regular participant in otherwise unexceptional dream stories. No emotion is attached to these dreams of his appearance, as far as I can ever recall. So it does make me wonder what the brain is doing...if it is the sole culprit (I almost wrote soul culprit then!).
 
I keep dreaming of my deceased maternal grandmother (once a week or so).
It's odd, because in every dream she's upset or angry with me, which she never was in reality.
Even odder is that the dreams always take place in a house she sold years before her passing. Indeed, I've had dreams of that house (a very ordinary '30's semi) where, whilst she's not in the dream per se, her presence can still be felt.

It's made more peculiar that I almost never have dreams about my paternal grandparents, yet had a similar relationship to them, and in the case of that grandmother, died not that many years before my maternal one.
All most peculiar.


*Deleted as caused offense* apologies.
 
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Every time I dream of my maternal grandmother, she's very pleased with me and she's always smiling. In my last dream about her, she said that she had to be leaving and then she turned into my current wife. Very strange there, Grandma!
 
This experience wasn’t a dream but this is the closest thread I can find to post it in. Apologies, this is long and gets into some pretty personal stuff, but it’s stuff that is intrinsic to the story. And we’re all anonymous here.

In August 2013 my brother Paul committed suicide. He’d been suffering very bad depression for most of his adult life and had tried everything to overcome it to no avail. As upset as I was about his suicide I ultimately came to respect his decision as really the only means available to escape his pain. He was a very level-headed and logical man who had clearly thought everything through carefully – the why, how, when, and where, the tying up of all loose ends, providing for his family afterward, etc.

My mother’s relationship with him, with all of us, was difficult. She had been fairly abusive when we were children but later in life had made great efforts to change and somehow make it up to us. She’d always felt some responsibility and remorse for Paul’s precarious psychic health. I don’t believe this feeling is entirely justified as he certainly must have had some brain chemistry issues too – e.g. I had the same upbringing and don’t suffer from depression.

She felt absolutely tortured when he killed himself; she blamed herself.

About six months after his death we were talking about it for the umpteenth time. I let her ramble through her same remorseful narrative over and over. Always ending with: they had been in touch more frequently in the weeks before his death. Then he had called her the night before and spoken to her at great length. It was a wonderful phone call, he had been so loving and warm and had told her how much he loved her, had recounted wonderful memories from the past. She just could not reconcile the "happiness" of that phone call with his suicide less than 12 hours later.

I suddenly had a very clear and strong insight, and told it to her. Paul was planning to kill himself the next day. He could not tell her this. He knew her well enough to know she would blame herself. He could not tell her in so many words not to. The purpose of that phone call, I told her, was to signal to her that he did not hold her responsible for his pain and his suicide and to please not hold herself responsible either. All was forgiven; his actions had nothing to do with her. He wanted to make this clear to her. He did not want her to spend the rest of her life agonizing over it.

I felt profoundly, intuitively that this was his intent in calling her. As I spoke it, my mother got quiet for some minutes, and I could tell that she heard and understood at a deep level that this was the truth. I know this because afterwards, from then on, she did stop blaming herself.

But here’s the other thing that happened: right as I finished saying it, I suddenly had a very distinct and intense impression of Paul being present right next to me, nodding vigorously, smiling, and saying “That’s right! That’s right!” In my mind’s eye I could see and hear him clearly. I could feel his personality. It was very powerful. It lasted just a second. It kind of took my breath away.

Through my adult life I have vacillated between believing/not believing in an afterlife: open to the possibility but not dwelling on it much since it seems to be completely unknowable. I obviously can’t claim that Paul was definitely there, it was a completely subjective experience. But it was so unexpected, unprecedented, un-dreamed of, and so convincing to me at a deep personal level that I have come to the conclusion, gradually, that it was in fact him. It is as though the communication of this information to my mother, through me, was important enough that he made the effort to break through.

I've had no other similar experiences in my life.

So, another subjective fortean anecdote, make of it what you will.
 
Sundog:

First - condolences on the loss of your brother. I lost my own problem-plagued brother 2 years ago, and I can sympathize (though the dynamics and ultimate cause of death were different).

A comment on the last - apparently better-than-expected - interaction between Paul and your mother ...

It's long been noted among caregivers, therapists, family members, etc., that suicides often exhibit a notable 'upswing' right before the final(-izing) act. This usually involves a marked elevation of mood / attitude that resembles an improvement.

I've been personally acquainted with two people who ended their own lives (both of whom suffered from long-term depression), and both exhibited this upswing right before the end.

This effect or phenomenon was sufficiently recognized (if only anecdotally) that I was advised to watch out for it in two training contexts back in the 1970's (one for a crisis intervention center where I volunteered; the other my training to be a front-line Social Security representative / case worker).
 
Every time I dream of my maternal grandmother, she's very pleased with me and she's always smiling. In my last dream about her, she said that she had to be leaving and then she turned into my current wife. Very strange there, Grandma!

This strikes me as being a reminder from your subconscious that you've found a really spiffing girl to look after you.
 
EnolaGaia - thank you for condolences, and the same to you, although in truth I feel I am well reconciled to my brother's decision.

I've heard about the upswing phenomenon you describe, and had heard about it back before he did himself in. If I'd known about the phone call to my mother I might even have had the clarity of mind to suspect what he was about to do. Though more probably I would have failed to recognize it.
 
It's long been noted among caregivers, therapists, family members, etc., that suicides often exhibit a notable 'upswing' right before the final(-izing) act. This usually involves a marked elevation of mood / attitude that resembles an improvement.

I've been personally acquainted with two people who ended their own lives (both of whom suffered from long-term depression), and both exhibited this upswing right before the end.
Yes, I've seen this also.
 
Yes, I've seen this also.

Isn't / wasn't there a label for this upswing effect? It's been decades, but I want to say there was a term (if only a professional buzzword) for it.
 
After losing a close family member to suicide I needed all the help I could get and began attending a suicide bereavement support group. I now co-run it. Over the years I have heard many, many accounts by the friends and families of what went on around the time of their loved ones' deaths and yes, lots of people who've done it seem to have become calm just before the event.

With hindsight, especially to experts, it seems obvious but it's not at the time. This is hard for the people left behind, to think they missed a 'clue' and could have stepped in before the person died. If the person who died was living with someone else, like one parent who was estranged from the other, it causes further conflict.

(I've even known a mother to want to have her son's housemates arrested for not noticing that he hadn't been seen for two days. The fact that they respected his privacy but eventually did become worried, and broke into his room and found him dead, and took all the appropriate steps afterwards, didn't impress her one bit and she is still bitter.)

I have to say that some people who eventually kill themselves have exhausted their families over many years with suicide attempts, drug and/or drink problems, imprisonment and general trouble. Their families love them and try to see them through their problems and I have nothing but admiration for these kind people.
When their friend or relation eventually seems to knuckle down a bit, it seems like things are getting better, not logarithmically worse, and anyone but the most seasoned psychologist would be fooled: and even some of those are.

So yeah, when a person who has previously been unsettled and troubled becomes quiet and approachable, it might be time to worry. Or not. At that time you can't tell and that makes everything so much worse.
 
I have to say that some people who eventually kill themselves have exhausted their families over many years with suicide attempts, drug and/or drink problems, imprisonment and general trouble. Their families love them and try to see them through their problems and I have nothing but admiration for these kind people.
Yes, I've seen this also, although I was geographical distant and the 'general trouble' fell to other family members.
So yeah, when a person who has previously been unsettled and troubled becomes quiet and approachable, it might be time to worry. Or not. At that time you can't tell and that makes everything so much worse.
At the time it never occurred to me it was potentially indicative, although Mrs Coal and I, with hindsight, thought it was suggestive of a 'mind made up'.
 
... With hindsight, especially to experts, it seems obvious but it's not at the time. ...

So yeah, when a person who has previously been unsettled and troubled becomes quiet and approachable, it might be time to worry. Or not. At that time you can't tell and that makes everything so much worse.

... At the time it never occurred to me it was potentially indicative, although Mrs Coal and I, with hindsight, thought it was suggestive of a 'mind made up'.

Yep - this aligns with my experience, too. Even if an 'upswing' is noticed, it's not recognized as a clue until afterward (i.e., too late).
 
And if you do recognize the upswing indicator, or think you do, what are you supposed to do exactly? Have them committed for sounding better?
 
And if you do recognize the upswing indicator, or think you do, what are you supposed to do exactly? Have them committed for sounding better?

Exactly ... It's a double-bind sort of situation. He / she is acting notably more upbeat - should you laud the improvement or notify someone you think you've detected a danger sign? :dunno:
 
My deepest sympathy to those of you who have lost loved ones through suicide. It must be about the most painful grief to experience, regardless of whether you feel you could have or couldn't have helped prevent it.

Sundog, it sounds like your brother was an amazing, generous person. I'm glad your experience when discussing his death with your mother brought you such healing. I hope your mother also can find healing somehow.

There are several people I've been close to who have died, but I've only dreamed of one : my father. (Unless one dream I had was about the death of a close friend I've lost track of, but that's a different thread). I've dreamed of my father a number of times. I was fortunate enough to arrive several days before he died, and be with him when he died. He died about five years ago, and if I dream of him now, he's a normal living person like the others in the dream. However, for a few months after he died, I dreamed sad dreams where he tried to phone me, and I either didn't recognize him, or I couldn't understand what he said. There was one that was different, and the most intense dream by far. It was one of those highly vivid dreams which feel like they take place in a spiritual realm. I was in an underground corridor with a man and a woman, who counseled me to tidy my appearance. They left, and another woman in a pale robe and a man in a bright, shining white robe approached. The man looked like he was dressed in light. It sounds corny in writing, but it was impressive in the dream. I didn't recognize the man as my father until I woke up; in the dream he looked like Peter O'Toole playing TE Lawrence. His eyes were bright blue, and he looked directly into my eyes, and said "thank you". I apologized for not recalling how to say "you're welcome." That didn't seem to matter to him. Afterwards, he and the woman went down some stone steps and through an arched entry of what looked like an ancient church or crypt.

This dream was highly significant to me not only because it was such an intensely vivd dream, but because it seemed to offer his forgiveness to me as well. I had committed a great injustice against him in years past. Fortunately, we were reconciled about 8 years before he died, while he was still healthy.
 
The problem is that 'we', by which I mean 'normally-thinking ordinary people', can't tell where the thought processes of a suicidal person are leading. You'd have to be professionally trained to spot how psychosis works and 'we' are generally not. For this and many other reasons, the suicide of another is not our fault.

It's an abnormal state of mind which can induce quite extraordinarily deceptive behaviour. The person might work hard at appearing co-operative and calm for long enough to convince those around them that they're feeling 'better', so their guard is down and the suicidal person can slip away and kill themselves.

Once a suicidal person is in that state of mind the only way to stop them is to physically restrain them. They can't listen to reason. Here in the UK they can be involuntarily detained (or 'Sectioned') under the Mental Health Act; but again, someone would have to spot the signs of severe psychosis in time, which for a lay person is difficult.

It's true that some suicidal people can be 'talked down' from a high bridge or wherever, but those are the ones who've luckily not been quite psychotic enough to carry it out. If they had been, they'd have just disappeared and then been found dead.

The sad truth is that a truly suicidal person will be able to plan and do it without their friends or family knowing what they're up to. There might have been previous attempts or none, or erratic behaviour that can be put down to drinking or drug use. Families might learn to accommodate abnormal behaviour so that a time of calmness seems like a rest from the turmoil. We might not spot how dangerous it is.

I googled the Mental Health Act just now and whose picture is on the Google front page? Virginia Woolf, a famous suicide.
Woolf drowned herself after filling her pockets with stones. She knew her own body would fight against death and she wanted to defeat it. That's how determined a psychotic person can become.

Anyone who's lost someone to suicide might have the added pain of wondering how they could have stopped it. Short answer: you can't, without a huge stroke of luck or the timely intervention of a mental health professional who knows them well enough to spot the signs. People sometimes manage this but not always, and 'we', those who love them, are not to blame.
 
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