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
Death medallion
Death

Death

Death in dreams often marks an ending that precedes something new — a transformation in how we see ourselves, a shift in what we value, or the quiet close of a chapter we've outgrown. Perhaps the dream asks not "who" but "what" is changing, and whether that change carries grief, relief, or both.

Miller 1901Fontaine 1862
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What the old dream-books say

These are the entries the historical dream-books record for death, 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 seeing any of your people dead, warns you of coming dissolution or sorrow. Disappointments always follow dreams of this nature.

To hear of any friend or relative being dead, you will soon have bad news from some of them.

Dreams relating to death or dying, unless they are due to spiritual causes, are misleading and very confusing to the novice in dream lore when he attempts to interpret them. A man who thinks intensely fills his aura with thought or subjective images active with the passions that gave them birth; by thinking and acting on other lines, he may supplant these images with others possessed of a different form and nature. In his dreams he may see these images dying, dead or their burial, and mistake them for friends or enemies. In this way he may, while asleep, see himself or a relative die, when in reality he has been warned that some good thought or deed is to be supplanted by an evil one. To illustrate: If it is a dear friend or relative whom he sees in the agony of death, he is warned against immoral or other improper thought and action, but if it is an enemy or some repulsive object dismantled in death, he may overcome his evil ways and thus give himself or friends cause for joy. Often the end or beginning of suspense or trials are foretold by dreams of this nature. They also frequently occur when the dreamer is controlled by imaginary states of evil or good. A man in that state is not himself, but is what the dominating influences make him. He may be warned of approaching conditions or his extrication from the same. In our dreams we are closer to our real self than in waking life. The hideous or pleasing incidents seen and heard about us in our dreams are all of our own making, they reflect the true state of our soul and body, and we cannot flee from them unless we drive them out of our being by the use of good thoughts and deeds, by the power of the spirit within us.

[53] See Corpse.

Fontaine, 1862

The Golden Wheel Dream-book

To dream you see death, denotes happiness and long life; that you will be either speedily married yourself, or assist at a wedding. To dream you see another person dead, denotes hasty news from friends.