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Dreaming Of The Dead

It's very unreliable to look back at childhood memories and truly count them as 100% truthful. But I did have a very memorable dream when I was 10 ( it was the day after my 10th birthday)

My parents divorced when I was 8 and my mum moved my sister and I to Birkenhead, Merseyside, from Worthing in Sussex to live with her new Husband.

When we first arrived we were housed with his mum and dad who were both quite elderly, but who were extremely kind and loving and made us truly welcome.

His mum was called Phyllis and she loved having kids in the house as both of her sons had moved away and left them many years before.there had been no children there for 30 years or more so "nanny Phyllis" loved us very much.

My sister and I shared a room in their tiny terraced house ( think coronation street) and it was there that, one night I had the dream. First, I woke up in the night and pulled the sliding door to our bedroom open, My Nan was walking down the landing in her nightgown..I said "Nan are you all right?", she didn't say hello or seem to register me at all...she went downstairs and I followed. Then, I was outside on the cobbled street, it was daytime but very mist..there was no one else out. I was standing looking down the street and saw nanny, dressed in a long nighty, walking across the road..I was shouting to her but she didn't turn or acknowledge me, I dashed down the alleyway at the back of the houses and saw her again, walking across the end of the alleyway, shouting her name all the while...she didn't turn, smile or register my calls..

I gave up calling and walked back to the front of their house, still alone and sat on the wall which was directly below the front window and thought about why she hadn't heard me.

I then felt an urge to turn and look into the (empty) front room through the glass. As I'm looking in she suddenly appeared at the pane and whacked the glass with the flat of her hand...I jumped so hard I fell off the wall. At that second, as I fell, I woke up with a shout which made my sister nearly jump off her bed.

I was very upset and Nanny Phyl rushed in, all worth and there there. I told her all about it and she laughed, kissed me and all was well.
Two days later Grandad woke up next to her. She was dead. Massive brain haemorrhage in the night.
 
Thank you Nick for pulling this page back to my attention - I've been regaling people with my dreams of my dad over on another topic. Such a sad story about your Nanny Phyllis, she sounds like a wonderful woman. Do you think your subconscious had picked up on something 'not right' and given you that dream? Are there any signs of potential brain haemorrhages?

I had a very vivid dream before either of my parents died, of my mum being dead and my dad alone in the house, sleeping on the sofa because he couldn't face the bedroom where she died. In fact, he died ten years before her (but she had been quite ill before I had this dream and he'd told me he'd find it hard to manage if she died).
 
Thank you Nick for pulling this page back to my attention - I've been regaling people with my dreams of my dad over on another topic. Such a sad story about your Nanny Phyllis, she sounds like a wonderful woman. Do you think your subconscious had picked up on something 'not right' and given you that dream? Are there any signs of potential brain haemorrhages?

I had a very vivid dream before either of my parents died, of my mum being dead and my dad alone in the house, sleeping on the sofa because he couldn't face the bedroom where she died. In fact, he died ten years before her (but she had been quite ill before I had this dream and he'd told me he'd find it hard to manage if she died).

She had, what I now realise, was a catastrophic brain injury caused by a cerebral anyuerism.

It's far worse than a stroke and almost 100% fatal. Bearing in mind my young age at the time it would be difficult to recall if there were any pre warning signs but, having spent many years in clinical practice, I doubt whether there would have been any beforehand. I've seen others in A&E and typically it's an "out of the blue"

I do recall my Grandad saying she had a large nosebleed when he found her dead.
She was very robust and it all came as a huge shock so it does seem, at least superficially, to be a predictive dream.

I recall the dream in every detail all these years later and my sister confirms that I told her about it prior to her (Nans) death. Precognition is not something I can lay claim to on any sense since that.
 
When I was 15 my mum and dad went away for the weekend, leaving me home alone as my brother and sister had already moved out.
My uncle rang on the Saturday to tell me my Aunty had died. (Not relatives but we’d always called them auntie n uncle) This was a shock to me as even though I’d known she was ill I hadn’t been told how ill she was.
This ment I had the job of telling my mum her best friend had died when she and my dad returned a day later. My mums reaction threw me a bit. She said she’d been preparing for this news all day as the night before she dreamt her and my auntie had been running care free through fields having a lovely time. As my auntie hadn’t got out of bed for weeks she’d seen this as a sign that she was now free.
I’ve always assumed she knew she was dying so her brain manufactured a dream that made her feel better about it but who knows?
 
My Dad passed away in the mid 1990s and long before this we sometimes talked about the paranormal and life after death. Neither of us really believed there was anything after death but my Dad jokingly said that if there was he would try and find a way to let me know - neither of us were religious in any way.

I very rarely seem to dream and if I do its seldom about anyone I know but one night a few years after he had passed away I had a very lucid dream which still sticks in my head to this day.

I remember being in what seemed like a fog and out of the fog my late Father appeared. I remember feeling surprised and a bit shocked and asked him what he was doing here as he was dead - he told me that he had been trying to make contact with me but it took an incredible amount of energy , he also said time was different for him and didn't exist in the same way but even as he was speaking he began to fade and I quickly asked him if he would contact me again - he said he would try but wasn't sure if he could build up the energy again.

I still feel strange thinking about it - it was incredibly 'real' and I have never had a dream like it before or since. I realize it was possibly my mind trying to give comfort perhaps but he had been gone some years and I wasn't upset or even thinking about him over much. I am probably the least psychic person I have ever met!!
 
I lost my dad 12 years ago, i dream of him a lot, sometimes i get anxious that i can't tell him where i'm up to in my life. He died suddenly and we were in total shock. It does get easier with time but there's not a day that goes by when i don't think of him. I wouldn't like to see his ghost but i do sometimes feel his presence, like on birthdays and at Christmas, but i imagine him in heaven watching over us.
 
My Dad passed away in the mid 1990s and long before this we sometimes talked about the paranormal and life after death. Neither of us really believed there was anything after death but my Dad jokingly said that if there was he would try and find a way to let me know - neither of us were religious in any way.

I very rarely seem to dream and if I do its seldom about anyone I know but one night a few years after he had passed away I had a very lucid dream which still sticks in my head to this day.

I remember being in what seemed like a fog and out of the fog my late Father appeared. I remember feeling surprised and a bit shocked and asked him what he was doing here as he was dead - he told me that he had been trying to make contact with me but it took an incredible amount of energy , he also said time was different for him and didn't exist in the same way but even as he was speaking he began to fade and I quickly asked him if he would contact me again - he said he would try but wasn't sure if he could build up the energy again.

I still feel strange thinking about it - it was incredibly 'real' and I have never had a dream like it before or since. I realize it was possibly my mind trying to give comfort perhaps but he had been gone some years and I wasn't upset or even thinking about him over much. I am probably the least psychic person I have ever met!!

Was there anything in particular going on in your life at around the time you had the dream? Any big life event or stressful experience you were undergoing?
 
There wasn't no. I have always taken a pragmatic approach to life and death as did my Father - he always used to say that once you died that was it and I have never been the type of person to mourn forever -rather to remember them with a laugh and, being a few years after he had died I was a long way past the sad stage.

One of the reasons why I felt it was strange was that, normally in a dream, one tends to just accept the circumstance you are in however bizarre but in this I actually felt 'awake' and immediately knew that my Father was dead and was surprised to see him -it wasn't scary at all though.
 
I was having a rough time a while back and had a dream of my Granddad, the only time in quite a few years, it had the real feeling aspect you mentioned, the "setting" for lack of a better word, was different
 
he told me that he had been trying to make contact with me but it took an incredible amount of energy
this sounds like ghost logic to me ... since a bunch of weirdness in a former residence just after fortean sidekick was born, centred on her, plus my ex, and one clockwork baby toy in particular which came on on its own at the downright spookiest times ... since then the idea that ghosts -whatever they are- are only possessed of small amounts of motive energy and hence can only produce limited effects has seemed logical to me ...
 
I was having a rough time a while back and had a dream of my Granddad, the only time in quite a few years, it had the real feeling aspect you mentioned, the "setting" for lack of a better word, was different
I never knew either of my grandads, they both died when i was very young, i do remember though my paternal grandads funeral vaguely, i remember i wasn't allowed to go into the lounge of his house, found out years later he was actually laid out in there.
 
I never knew either of my grandads, they both died when i was very young, i do remember though my paternal grandads funeral vaguely, i remember i wasn't allowed to go into the lounge of his house, found out years later he was actually laid out in there.

Mine (Dad's Dad) was the only father I properly had so the content of the dream wasn't unusual, but dreaming about him like that was.


Giant Robot, it could have been him visiting or you might not have processed his passing as well as you thought, but it's still nice to see them again either way, I think
 
That sounds like an amazing dream @Giant Richard! What a comfort that must've been. I've written about a slightly similar experience on the 'Dreaming of the Dead' thread. Only similar in that I encountered a dead work colleague in a dream and I was very surprised and a little frightened to see her. The difference was that she didn't know she was dead until she saw the look on my face. As we talked she actually asked me how she had died. I saw my late uncle in a similar fashion too. Both of these encounters happened on buses in my dream, so I suppose somehow my brain imagines this as some kind of transitional place, in between two destinations.
 
Mine (Dad's Dad) was the only father I properly had so the content of the dream wasn't unusual, but dreaming about him like that was.


Giant Robot, it could have been him visiting or you might not have processed his passing as well as you thought, but it's still nice to see them again either way, I think
That sounds like an amazing dream @Giant Richard! What a comfort that must've been. I've written about a slightly similar experience on the 'Dreaming of the Dead' thread. Only similar in that I encountered a dead work colleague in a dream and I was very surprised and a little frightened to see her. The difference was that she didn't know she was dead until she saw the look on my face. As we talked she actually asked me how she had died. I saw my late uncle in a similar fashion too. Both of these encounters happened on buses in my dream, so I suppose somehow my brain imagines this as some kind of transitional place, in between two destinations.

Yes, it could well be my brain either processing it or reminding me about him saying he would try and get in touch. My Mother died about 15 years previous to this and I was a twin but the twin died immediately after birth and have also lost a few close friends but I have never dreamt about any of them in this way nor have I ever had the feeling that many twins express about feeling or missing the other one or that my Mum and Dad are 'around' unfortunately!
I will have a read through dreaming of the Dead' now!
 
Shortly after my dad died young in an accident, I had a dream in which he briefly visited to say that he had been spirited away by the government and had been sent to Australia to work as a secret agent and he wasn't really dead.

Obviously this is absolute rubbish but I remember being very comforted for as long as the dream lasted.

Later I had more mundane dreams where he would pop round and take me out for a drive and I would tell him what I was up to. This lasted a number of years. I really miss those dreams.

I think whether it is your own brain or some outside force causing these experience, the intent is clearly to comfort and I am very grateful.
 
he told me that he had been trying to make contact with me but it took an incredible amount of energy
This has always been one of the heavy question marks for me over after death communications...they are very widely reported, but clearly not by everyone. Which makes you wonder why some come back and do their stuff and others..most, seemingly..do not. The usual explanation from the spiritually minded is something along the lines spelled out by your dad in the dream..that it takes energy or time or something. The question is why then that caveat doesn't seem to apply in all those cases were the communication or even full on apparition occurs almost instantly after death. Granny turning up at the foot of the bed to reassure the person they're fine a day or two after they died..or even on the night itself. Why do some "spirits" appear to know what to do and how to do it with no apparent training or delay, yet others - we are told - need years to build up to it? One might suspect the answer is in that idea that time is different "over there", but it doesn't really answer the question even if it is.

**********************************

But on to a relevant dream. Not mine, but my sister's reported to me yesterday. She says she's been feeling a little depressed or down...its the anniversaries of the deaths of both our mother and our brother at this time of year...and she dreamt our mum was standing in front of her, looking (she was keen to note) exactly as she did at the end of her life, not the usual "in her prime" that the departed are usually said to do in dreams and visitations. My sister dreamt herself to be sobbing, when our mum reached out her hand and it entered my sister's chest and encompassed her heart and squeezed it. She then held my sister's hand tightly and again squeezed it reassuringly. Despite the slightly macabre first image my sister found the dream comforting.
 
I sometimes dream of my father who died in 1982 but it's not a warm fuzzy dream, we're standing face to face shouting insults at each other!
We never got on when he was alive, he was a terrible verbally abusive father and I stopped talking to him for the last 15 years of his life, so I suppose my dreams are just an "echo" of my subconscious rejection of him.
 
I remember being in what seemed like a fog and out of the fog my late Father appeared. I remember feeling surprised and a bit shocked and asked him what he was doing here as he was dead

After a friend of mine died some years ago I dreamed about him in the exact same situation! I even asked him the same question. In the dream he denied being dead and I eventually gave up arguing about it!
 
My Dad passed away in the mid 1990s and long before this we sometimes talked about the paranormal and life after death. Neither of us really believed there was anything after death but my Dad jokingly said that if there was he would try and find a way to let me know - neither of us were religious in any way.

I very rarely seem to dream and if I do its seldom about anyone I know but one night a few years after he had passed away I had a very lucid dream which still sticks in my head to this day.

I remember being in what seemed like a fog and out of the fog my late Father appeared. I remember feeling surprised and a bit shocked and asked him what he was doing here as he was dead - he told me that he had been trying to make contact with me but it took an incredible amount of energy , he also said time was different for him and didn't exist in the same way but even as he was speaking he began to fade and I quickly asked him if he would contact me again - he said he would try but wasn't sure if he could build up the energy again.

I still feel strange thinking about it - it was incredibly 'real' and I have never had a dream like it before or since. I realize it was possibly my mind trying to give comfort perhaps but he had been gone some years and I wasn't upset or even thinking about him over much. I am probably the least psychic person I have ever met!!
I think this dream was a psychic event, and you did see and talk to him.
 
My brothers friend was killed in a crash, i read his medical notes a few days later at work, after the funeral i had a dream about him, he was stood in our local mall and as i approached him he was touching the back of his head and he told me not to touch it.
He suffered horrific head injuries in the crash and the back of his head was actually described as 'jelly' in his medical notes.
 
Thank you to everyone to who shared their experiences and wisdom on this thread. I remember an episode of Outnumbered where the youngest child had had a nightmare, and her dad was comforting her and saying it was her brain playing silly tricks. She pondered this for a minute, then said "I thought your brain was supposed to be on your side.!"
 
I've just been watching the (rather fine) documentary on ice skater extraordinaire John Curry on BBC 4, and there was a bit where he recollected having nightmares about his dead father, who had committed suicide before his career began. He said he dreamt waking up to see his father standing over his bed, shouting at him to wake up, then he would wake up - still dreaming, because his father would still be there, trying to wake him up. Kind of scary.
 
Anyway, it reminded me that last week I dreamt of someone who died a year and a half ago, someone I had not seen in a couple of decades but was a good friend of my mum's. She looked very well, as I remembered her from when I was a child, seemed in good spirits. No idea what it means, and I don't like to ask my mum if she dreamt of her too, she was very upset when she died. Probably just typical dream randomness...
 
Again, thanks to everyone who has contributed. Thank you for sharing some very touching experiences and hugs and sympathy to those who need it.
I have found that my antidepressants cause very colourful, crazy dreams, which leave me exhausted and questioning reality for a bit.
I did dream about my mum, who died in 2011, when my marriage broke up last year. I dreamed I came into my living room ans she was sitting on the sofa, looking as she always had, and I was telling her how abusive my marriage had really been. (I kept it secret from everyone.) She said calmly "You'll be better now." I woke feeling very comforted, even if it just was my sub-conscious doing it's thing.
 
A number of times I have had this happen to me, and it continues to do so a few times a year.
My dreams concern two people who were very close to me, my father who died when I was twenty and my ex wife who committed suicide nine years ago (although we had been separated for nineteen years at the time).
Those concerning my father are always very comforting and reassuring. He died suddenly and I never had the chance to say goodbye. The dreams are always mundane and we discuss daily life and do everyday things together, however I always wake from these ones with a feeling of much happiness tinged with a little sadness. It really feels as though we are re-living old times together and there have been times when I've been convinced that these are more of a visitation than a dream.
I do believe that I have once seen his spirit, although that's another story.
The dreams with my ex wife I do at times find a little disturbing. These dreams are extraordinarily colourful, realistic and lucid. We were together for five years and had two children together and both of us went on to remarry (I am still married to my second wife).
In these dreams, we are always separated, yet on good terms, we laugh and joke and enjoy each other's company. Sometimes the dreams verge on the sexual, though never actually getting there. She promises the world, yet never delivers (much like she was in real life) and I always wake with a sense of let down despair, sadness and hopelessness.
Like the dreams with my father, I feel that when these occur (and they may only happen a few times a year) that they are more visitation than dream.
What astounds me most about them is the realism of them. I can recall every facet upon waking and they tend to bother me for a day or two afterwards, unlike regular dreams.
Make of this what you will.
 
I understand what you mean about them feeling more like visitations than dreams, Lord Lucan. The times I have dreamed about my mum, since she died, feel "different" from my other dreams. I really feel her presence and when I wake, I have this feeling for most of the following day. I read somewhere, probably on one of those sites where people believe in angels etc, that the dead are only allowed to visit us in dreams, as our conscious minds could not cope with seeing them. I know how that sounds, before anyone jeers at me! But I like the idea and it comforts me.
Deepest sympathy to those of you who have lost a loved one.
 
Anyway, it reminded me that last week I dreamt of someone who died a year and a half ago, someone I had not seen in a couple of decades but was a good friend of my mum's. She looked very well, as I remembered her from when I was a child, seemed in good spirits. No idea what it means, and I don't like to ask my mum if she dreamt of her too, she was very upset when she died. Probably just typical dream randomness...

"Good spirits"! Sorry for the unintentional pun.
 
There's a scene in the TV series Tremé that comes close to the strange atmosphere of dreams of the dead. As others have said on this thread sometimes when you dream of the dead it can seem very different to a 'normal' dream, more like a visitation.

The opening scene of series 2 episode 6 Feels like rain comes very close to capturing this feeling, in my opinion. Toni Burnette's reaction when she wakes, the bitter realisation it was a dream but the lingering sense of something more, struck a chord with me as it usually does whenever I rewatch this series.
 
Was having a nap at work, (during my break), when I dream't of a guy I used to work with there who had died.

In the dream I remember spotting him outside the building and I ran out to see him. The first thing I said to him was "John you're dead, you shouldn't be here". He ignored me. I said "John you are dead you can't be here". Then the sky darkened into night really quickly and I found myself on my old childhood housing estate being followed by a suddenly very sinister dead John.

I then woke up.
 
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