A departed loved one visited me in a dream. What does it mean?
What does it mean to encounter a dead person alive, and talking to you, in your dreams?
As a professional dream interpreter and the author of "The Alchemy of Your Dreams," I help people come to insights about their dream patterns — and dreams of the departed are among the most common.
It's worth paying attention to what, or who, show up while you're sleeping.
Dreams have been proven to help regulate negative emotion and process what’s going on in our lives. In a previous interview with TODAY.com, Adriane Soehner, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh and the director of the Pitt Sleep, Affective Neuroscience, and Development Lab, said dreams have a “functional” purpose, aiding with “memory, emotional processing and sensory processing.”
Dreams about dead people, specifically, can often help with closure around unfinished business, or simply provide comfort. Here's what to know.
Are the dead people I'm seeing figments of my mind, or something else entirely?
There are generally three schools of thought regarding what and who dream figures are. They are as follows:
Dream figures are psychological projections of your own mind, all of whom represent different aspects of your psyche. This can include deceased loved ones, shadow figures, helpful guides, and even people you know, which can all be a reflection of your unconscious or subconscious impulses, beliefs, emotions, and drives.
All dream figures are simply figments of your imagination.
Dream figures a part of their non-physical essence and and as such can be sentient.
Within my practice, I work with the first and third schools of thought. I don’t believe that dream figures are simply forms of imagination, but are instead are a combination of both the psyche and non-physical. Ultimately, this is up to you to decide.
The dream figures that you meet can often inform aspects of yourself, your story, and the experiences that you are having in your everyday life. For example, a dream that features a persistent or overbearing dream figure can highlight equivalent behaviors that you may be experiencing (either within yourself or because of another person) in your waking life.
When you dream of a deceased loved one, or a guide, who imparts guidance and well-being in some form of another, the dream leaves a sense of emotional gravitas that feels different.
This is the same thing as getting an intuitive or gut feeling that ends up being accurate in waking life. The dream simply hits differently.
In many ways, this is the psychological, and intuitive insight work that is required when you when you interpret your dreams. It is a skillful art that can be learnt.
When interpreting your own dreams, consider how the dream as a whole — the dream places, symbols, dream figures, and actions — offers you a message of guidance through the interaction of the sum of all parts.
What does it mean if I see a dead person in my dream?
These dreams can take on endless formats, but here are a few common scenarios and what they might mean.
I saw a famous dead person alive in my dream. What does that mean?
Who was was the famous person and what do they represent to you? This dream may alert you to certain traits within yourself that you should highlight, or monitor. You want to look at the famous dead person in relation to what you are currently experiencing in your own life.
Say you dreamed of a dead president. Perhaps they stood for loyalty, strength, and fidelity, which you need to call on right now. If you dream of famous movie star, your dream may be telling you to mimic their confidence or charisma.
I dreamed of a dead family member I didn’t get along with them while they were alive. What does that mean?
If you had a turbulent relationship with your family member and then you see them alive and well in your dream, it may simply be your psyche’s way of restoring balance by offering some form of positive closure.
In other words, the dream comes to help you resolve any inner tension that you may be experiencing around their passing.
Grief is multi-layered and complex, and so dreams like these are particularly helpful because they act as a mouthpiece for the subconscious mind to help heal and identify those feelings. You seeing a person alive and well provides some level of closure and comfort because you did not receive that experience while they were alive.
As an intuitive and a dream analyst I also believe that dreams about deceased family members or loved ones can also be spiritual messages that go beyond our current understanding of life and death. Could this dream be a message from beyond the veil? In my opinion, yes.
I would recommend that you reflect on what they said or did in the dream. Did they give you guidance? How did you feel when you woke up? It is up to you to give your own meaning to this kind of dream depending on your personal belief systems.
I dreamed of my dead partner who died unexpectedly. They were alive and happy in my dream but didn’t say anything to me. What does that mean?
Sudden loss is incredibly difficult and painful, and so a dream like this can act as a type of soul balm, arriving to sooth the pain and distress of losing a loved one in this way.
This dream also seems to have a calm overtone to it. Although your loved one did not say anything to you, this dream acts a sign showing you that all is well.
Whether it's a message from your subconscious or the Great Beyond, this kind of dream can be healing, and that's what's important.
I saw my dead partner standing at the bottom of my bed when I was in that half-awake, half-asleep state. They looked well and happy. Were they really there?
Every night just as we are about to fall asleep, we slip into a state of awareness scientifically known as the hypnagogic state. We also experience a similar state of awareness, known as the hypnopompic state, just as we are about to wake up in the morning from dreaming.
During these periods of being half-awake or half-asleep, we are in a liminal state of being in both in realms of consciousness.
Many spiritual systems will state that in this in-between state, we have access to higher states of consciousness and can become aware of non-ordinary and non-physical — like your deceased partner.
Again, it is up to you to map your own meaning from this experience, but in my personal opinion, I believe this was indeed a "visitation" dream.
How you choose to interpret the figures in your dream is up to you. But when these dreams occur, ask yourselves the same question: Why is this person appearing, and what message do they have for me?
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
