The dream of death is one of those that, on waking, leaves a strange chill and lingers all day. Dreaming that oneself dies, that someone close passes on, or watching a stranger’s death — because of that vividness, many are seized by a foreboding. Yet the old dream-lore tradition has, unexpectedly, seen the death dream as one of the foremost auspicious dreams. For it read death not as an end but as a “being-born-again,” the old withdrawing and the new coming in.
In traditional lore, dreaming that oneself dies is often read as a signal of shedding the present self and being born anew. It was welcomed as an omen that a long illness would heal, an old problem be resolved, or a new phase open. It was even held that the greater the death dreamt, the greater the change and fortune to come. The image of death, the greatest “end,” was paradoxically turned over and read as the symbol of the greatest “beginning.”
A dream of someone close dying, too, mostly does not foretell that person’s misfortune, but is seen as a signal that change is coming to that relationship or to one’s heart entangled with them. A dream of a parent dying may mean independence or standing on one’s own; a dream of a lover dying, a new phase of the relationship. Death in a dream is often not real death but a drawing of a turn where “one season of a relationship or feeling sets and the next opens.”
Of course not every death dream was read brightly. If one was too afraid and pained before death, it may be an expression of a heart now finding some loss or parting very hard. So, as the same symbol shifts its grain by the dream’s mood and one’s state, it is better to look together at the feeling the dream left than to nail the death dream to a single formula.
Today’s psychology reads the death dream as a “dream of change.” Just as a snake sheds its skin, the image of death is often seen as symbolizing a farewell to an old self, an old habit, or something one must now let go. That many say this dream comes often at turning points where life crosses a stage — a job change, graduation, a move, a parting — is for this reason. Because something must end for the next to begin, the heart may be living that end in advance through the vivid picture of “death.”
So there is no need to be seized by anxiety just for having dreamt of death. It is no omen that nails down a coming misfortune, but closer to a mirror that tenderly reflects, “now in your life one season is setting and a new one opening.” Rather, such a dream becomes a gentle signal to send off well what has passed and meet calmly what approaches. Look quietly at what you must set down, what new phase lies ahead, and the chilled heart often turns, before you know it, into lightness.
Herein lies FortuneLeaf’s reason for introducing the death dream — not to frighten with an “ill dream,” but to help you, through this heavy dream that everyone has at some point, read and soothe the grain of your heart and the turning of your life clearly and by your side. Death in a dream does not come to frighten you, but is a tender guest come to tell you, quietly, to make ready to be born anew.