What Does It Mean When You Dream of Someone Dying? 

Dreams are what we are as a person, and also what we wish to be or have in our lives. When these wishes and desires become intense and overwhelming, they are manifested in the form of dreams.

Dreams and the Topography of Mind

Sigmund Freud the scholar and intelligentsia in the field of psychology and psychotherapy has unfolded the secrets and mysteries of the human mind, that were beyond our imagination. Freud has postulated the theory of the Topography of Mind, according to which there exist three different layers of the human mind, which are invisible to scientific observation. The layers are :

• The topmost layer of the Conscious Mind comprises our present feelings and perceptions.
• The middle section of the Subconscious Mind is comprised of feelings, thoughts, desires, and motives which were conscious at first, but are moved into this layer due to a shift of attention to another stimulus.
• The last and most important is the Unconscious Mind. It is the deepest section of the human mind, occupying almost 70% of the total human mind. It comprises of our repressed, unsocial, unacceptable, sexual and aggressive urges, feelings, needs and motives, responsible for leading to anxiety.

Read More: Decoding Dreams of the Dead Through Science and Spirit

Freud explained that the contents of the unconscious mind are intensely disturbing and overwhelming and persistently trying to become conscious at every possible
moment. If successful, these repressed desires will cause extreme anxiety and make the person overwhelmed with guilt and hate towards their self. But the human mind is defensive, having its ways of dealing with such impulses.

The images and other contents of the unconscious mind have to pass through two censors: the primary censor, which guards the pathway between the unconscious and preconscious, and the final censor, which guards the pathway between the preconscious and conscious mind. The mind distorts and disguises the contents of the unconscious enough to pass through these censors. This ensures that the conscious mind cannot recognize their true meaning. Otherwise, it would overwhelm the person with guilt, shame, and anxiety.

In other words, whatever we dream has a hidden and deep meaning concealing the true nature of human wilderness. They have a symbolic and more significantly, a latent meaning. The symbolic meaning refers to what we see in dreams. The latent meaning of dreams refers to what they truly mean in their raw sense.

Read More: The Interpretations of Dreams by Sigmund Freud

Dream is the Royal road to the unconscious. They manifest the desires that our consciousness does not express.”

Sigmund Freud

What is being repressed into the unconscious, intentionally or unintentionally, generates the contents of dreams. A wide ranged study conducted in France concluded that the common subjects of dreams are:

• Snakes, fires, stairs (5%)
• Forgotten children or babies (5%)
• Water, wells, tunnels; traffic accidents (6%)
• Clothing or lack of clothing; nakedness (3%)
• Aggressors, thieves, being chased, etc. (10%)
• Missing the train; embarrassing baggage (8%)
• Home, especially where we lived as a child (15%)
• Animals who are generally scary: spiders, cockroaches, rats, etc. (4%)
• Relationships with partners; same sex or another sex.; intimate or otherwise (18%)
• Losing teeth or other alarming situations that make one vigilant about their self (2%)

Read More: Precognitive Dreams: Glimpses of What’s to Come

Honestly, it is not uncommon for sick or terminally ill people, or people who lost a dear one, to dream of dying, as it is in their head all along. It represents their feelings of grief and mourning for standing on the verge of death or the feeling of never seeing their loved one again. Each of these dreams will have a meaning, strongly correlated with the person’s life experiences.

Likewise, the meaning of dreaming about someone dying—whether known or unknown to the dreamer—varies based on the dreamer’s current or past experiences in life. Here, the common string between the varied images resembling ‘death’ stays to be the presence of unresolved issues within the person. This may range from positive aspects of ‘change’ to fear of change.

Read More: The Psychological Significance of 7 Common Dreams

Dreaming of someone dying can mean the following

1. Change

The death of someone can be an expression of change or transition in someone’s life. It marks a new phase in the life of the person, for example settling into a new relationship or breaking apart from an existing relationship. In this case, death is the symbolism of the transition of a set of feelings to another which is unknown to the conscious mind.

2. Missing someone

When we miss someone too much, that creates a sense of void within us. It is accompanied by feelings of hopelessness, helplessness and desperation that is often manifested in the form of death dreams. Here, the face of the person may show, followed by feelings of dejection, as a symbol of the emptiness created.

3. Grief

When a grieving person dream of someone dying, known or unknown, it generally refers to the loss of positive subjective feelings like happiness, tranquillity, and emotional stability of the person. The pain experienced in the dream signifies the extent of grief and saddening feelings of the person. Here, ‘death’ could signify the loss of someone dear, the breaking up of a relationship, the loss of a job, etc.

4. Letting go of heavier feelings

Often we are burdened by feelings of overwhelm which may occur as a consequence of some trauma or heartbreak experienced earlier in our life. In such cases, letting go of these heavier feelings creates a positive feeling in the person. Such unexpressed emotions of overwhelm which stay repressed, find their way out into the conscious and get expressed as dreams.

5. Tendencies

Often Suicidal tendencies in people get repressed as a result of social responsibility and regular demands to be met. But, the tendencies don’t fade. They get repressed and make their way into the conscious as dreams. These dreams make it a little lighter for the person to bear these Suicidal thoughts in the short run, but may actually intensify the tendencies if they keep occurring repetitively.

6. Fear of Death

It is very commonly observed among people. No living being is mortal. But at the same time, no living being would wish to die until and unless they are troubled physically or mentally. Fear of death is very legit and people do a lot to avoid it. It is quite likely that this fear will get shaped in the form of nightmares where one sees their death or the death of others. It occurs as a result of uncertainty and anxiety, paving their way out in the form of dreams.

7. Unresolved Issues, Repressed into the Unconscious

Many case studies have often shown that the childhood trauma of losing someone ( like a mother, father, sibling, or teacher) may have been repressed into the person’s unconscious without them knowing about it. Unfortunately, in their later life, when stress becomes too overwhelming these repressed unresolved issues surface in the person’s consciousness. These issues then get manifested as dreams of dying.

Read More: Do you Know these Facts about Dreams?

Managing such dreams is very important and needful. After all, such dreams bring about a gloomy mood in the person that persists for a long time. The repetitive occurrence of disturbing dreams of death must be addressed properly so that their root cause is figured out and necessary steps are taken in it’s respect. The following measures could be useful in this regard:

• Using stress management techniques, like self-grooming, meditation and problem-focused means helps in reducing the stress of the person, and thereby helps in decreasing such death dream.
• Looking out for newer and better opportunities to explore the self and the surroundings could be an effective measure to stop or reduce the occurrence of such dreams. It helps the person to let go of the negative thoughts and lead a better life.
• Keeping oneself engaged in physical activities like exercise, jogging, or even in activities like painting, music, dancing, handicrafts, writing, or regular work like cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry helps in releasing stress and therefore reduces the intensity of bad and disturbing dream.
• For such cases, where one’s life is disrupted by reasons unknown, it is always recommended to consult a psychotherapist or psychologist to know the unconscious better. This helps one to resolve unknown issues and approach towards a better life.