The Dream Archive

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Search across 2,348 dream symbols drawn from the older dream books and the public archive. Each entry carries an original interpretive note for the contemporary dreamer.

From the Dream Archive
Corpse medallion
Corpse

Corpse

A corpse often marks an ending that cannot be undone—something finished, grieved, or finally released. The dream rarely speaks of literal death; perhaps it asks what in your life has already ended, waiting only for acknowledgment and burial.

Miller 1901Fontaine 1862
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What the old dream-books say

These are the entries the historical dream-books record for corpse, in their own words. They are period voices, not predictions, and they do not always agree with one another.

Gustavus Hindman Miller, 1901

Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted

To dream of a corpse is fatal to happiness, as this dream indicates sorrowful tidings of the absent, and gloomy business prospects. The young will suffer many disappointments and pleasure will vanish.

To see a corpse placed in its casket, denotes immediate troubles to the dreamer.

To see a corpse in black, denotes the violent death of a friend or some desperate business entanglement.

To see a battle-field strewn with corpses, indicates war and general dissatisfaction between countries and political factions.

To see the corpse of an animal, denotes unhealthy situation, both as to business and health.

To see the corpse of any one of your immediate family, indicates death to that person, or to some member of the family, or a serious rupture of domestic relations, also unusual business depression. For lovers it is a sure sign of failure to keep promises of a sacred nature.

To put money on the eyes of a corpse in your dreams, denotes that you will see unscrupulous enemies robbing you while you are powerless to resent injury. If you only put it on one eye you will be able to recover lost property after an almost hopeless struggle. For a young woman this dream denotes distress and loss by unfortunately giving her confidence to designing persons.

For a young woman to dream that the proprietor of the store in which she works is a corpse, and she sees while sitting up with him that his face is clean shaven, foretells that she will fall below the standard of perfection in which she was held by her lover. If she sees the head of the corpse falling from the body, she is warned of secret enemies who, in harming her, will also detract from the interest of her employer. Seeing the corpse in the store,

foretells that loss and unpleasantness will offset all concerned. There are those who are not conscientiously doing the right thing. There will be a gloomy outlook for peace and prosperous work.

Fontaine, 1862

The Golden Wheel Dream-book

(See Shroud.) To dream you see a corpse, is a sign of long life.