There’s a lot of love and positivity in these dreams. Interestingly, it’s also common for a deceased spouse to appear in a dream and approve of their partner remarrying. For example, one woman told me that her husband came to her in a dream and told her not to worry about him, because he was with Jesus and no longer suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. They generally fall into one of the larger dream categories I mentioned earlier, such as the dreamer being comforted by their deceased loved one. What do grief dreams of spouses look like? And of course, I was fascinated to discover that people experienced grief dreams before knowing their loved one had passed. But even more than that, how common they are after all kinds of loss. In a sample of bereaved partners and spouses, 86 percent had a dream of the deceased. What are some of the most surprising things you’ve learned about grief dreams during your research?įirst off, how common they are. I believe that the more we understand about ourselves, the more we can love ourselves and in turn love God. Dreams can provide a new tool to understand ourselves. Grief dreams can also lead people to place more value on their dreams in general. Some dreams allow the bereaved to continue to feel bonded with the deceased, which can be helpful after a loss. For instance, my father died very suddenly, and my dreams gave me a chance to say goodbye to him. Remembering your grief dreams can provide an opportunity to reflect on and work through your grief in a new way. In this case, the negative dream can help you work through feelings you’ve been avoiding in your waking life. They are often a reflection of the distress the dreamer is experiencing after losing someone.This is especially true if you’re suppressing your emotions about the death of a loved one, which isn’t uncommon. Negative grief dreams don’t mean you had a negative relationship with the person who’s passed. So what does it mean if you’re one of the people who has a negative grief dream? Many people I’ve spoken with have told me these dreams also feel different from an average dream-they’re more vivid. It points to something different going on with these types of dreams. In one of my studies, about 90 percent of people reported having at least one positive dream of the deceased, as opposed to 44 percent who had at least one negative. When the deceased appear in dreams, they tend to be positive. So you’d think that grief dreams would follow this pattern and that people would have more negative grief dreams than positive ones. After trauma, research shows these dreams tend to become even more negative. That’s simply because of daily stress, which gets incorporated. Learn more about how to interpret dreams of deceased loved ones.ĭo people have more negative grief dreams or positive ones?ĭream research has shown that when people have dreams in general, they have more negative dreams than positive ones. The most positive dreams are the ones in which the deceased offers comfort through words or actions, or dreams in which the dreamer sees them, healthy and happy. There are also separation dreams, in which the deceased and the dreamer are kept apart by a physical obstacle, such as a wall. Similar in tone is the type of dream in which the deceased expresses disapproval of the dreamer. Sometimes the dreamer sees the deceased as sick or dead. There are rationalization dreams, in which the dreamer tries to understand why the deceased appears to be alive and present, and others in which the dreamer helps their loved one cross over into the afterlife. I’ve found seven common types of these dreams. What forms do the grief dreams in which the deceased are present commonly take? Or you can dream that the deceased is present-this type of dream interests people the most, and it’s where I’ve focused a lot of my academic research. Or, it can be a dream in which the deceased is mentioned, perhaps by an angel or a hospital worker. For example, you’re feeling overwhelmed by grief, so you dream something collapses on you, reflecting that crushing feeling. It can be a symbolic dream reflecting your emotions surrounding the loss. What are the characteristics of a grief dream?Ī grief dream is any kind of dream you’ve had after the loss of a loved one.
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