Death as a Dream Symbol

Last night you dreamed your lover died in a car accident. Should you worry? Well, I wouldn't. What if it's you that died in the dream-accident? I wouldn't worry too much about that either. That's because dreams, including death dreams, are usually symbolic. They come in service of life, not death.

A death dream asks: What is dying within you? Within your life? What needs to transform, to die and be reborn? The following examples show that the answers to these questions—as well as the shock of the death dream itself—can lead to a more satisfying and meaningful existence.

Take, for instance, Tina's dream, in which her close friend of many years, Marcia, died. Tina was completely unglued about the dream, but as she described her life challenges, it became apparent to me that she was most likely not dreaming about the literal Marcia, but about an aspect of herself. Tina had recently gone through some major life changes: She had had a baby, and her husband had taken an executive position that required a great deal of travel. She saw herself as a very strong, independent woman and was not at all prepared for the exhaustion and vulnerability she experienced as a stay-at-home mom whose partner was often unavailable.

Though Tina and Marcia had an egalitarian friendship, and Tina felt supported by Marcia, Tina saw her friend as a "little sib"—someone who was more in need of care than herself. Given her recent life overhaul, and her perception of Marcia, it made perfect sense to me that Tina would have a dream in which Marcia perished. Marcia represented a vulnerable part of Tina—a part Tina unconsciously felt was impossible to own and therefore must "die." How could she own, let alone meet, her need for nurturing when her baby was so utterly dependent on her, and her husband, her primary support person, was frequently gone? The dream helped Tina become conscious of how much she was afraid of acknowledging her needs—as well as the consequences of not acknowledging them. So she took steps to tend to herself: She asked her husband to call a sitter so they could plan an actual date; she let her friends, including Marcia, know that she would be phoning them more often (in between feedings and diaper changes); and she bought a journal so that she could jot down a line or two about her feelings while the baby was sleeping.

One of the healing aspects of Tina's death dream was the shock itself. The fear the dream provoked really caught her attention—and it turns out her own attention is exactly what the dream was telling her that she needed.

The late Marie-Louise von Franz, Jung's protégé, knew about the special curative power death-dream shock. She addressed it in a conversation with the Jungian analyst and author Fraser Boa (also deceased) in Boa's book, The Way of the Dream: Conversations on Jungian Dream Interpretation with Marie-Louise von Franz (Shambhala, 1994). As part of a dialogue with Boa about death dreams, she offered the following example: "A woman consulted me once who had cancer, metastases all over the body. She had shocking death dreams. She dreamt that her watch had stopped. She brought it to the watchmaker, and he said it couldn't be repaired. She dreamt her favorite tree was felled in the garden. I didn't even have to interpret the dreams for her. She said sadly, 'That clearly tells the outcome of my illness.'

"The doctors told her in the usual way, 'You will get better. You will be all right.' But she was sure she was dying, and that terrible shock made her pull up her socks and face her problems. She had a problem she hadn't faced, and I can only say she's still alive after fifteen years. She had death dreams to give her a death shock. She could have died, and she could have not died. Out of shock, she chose to live. "After that experience I would say that even if people have death dreams, it might only mean that they should face death. It doesn't mean that death will actually happen but that they must come to a naked confrontation with the fact that their life might come to an end." Such a confrontation with ones mortality is sometimes the only thing that will get us to truly transform. Here's another example, from a friend. Upon awaking from an odd dream about a murderous mad scientist, she had a horrible feeling that she did not have much longer to live. What was going on?

In her waking life, she had just turned 50—a milestone that compelled her to confront dissatisfying aspects of her life, in particular her career in advertising. She wanted a change but was very scared of the consequences of shifting careers. How would it affect her financial status? Her social status? Did she really want to start all over as a beginner when she had worked so hard to be an expert? But then came the dream and, along with it, a shocking sense of her mortality.

Suddenly none of those nagging questions seemed to matter. The visceral feeling that she might die soon catapulted her into taking a stunning leap: she applied to graduate school to get her master's in education. She had always wanted to be a teacher, and had been holding herself back because of her age. But her death dream gave her the impetus to charge after her secret longing. And the rush of energy she felt after she sent in the school application told her that she was absolutely making the right decision. All of these examples demonstrate that death dreams shouldn't be feared but rather embraced. They reveal that sometimes shock is a useful experience—especially if it forces us to release our iron grip on pieces of our lives or ourselves. They teach us that if new, juicy experiences are to be born, the worn-out and stagnant must die. In short, death dreams show us how to really live.

Photo by Sigmund