Death dreams are the ones that generally produce the most anguish in people, because apart from being associated with cultural concepts of omens, they are also linked and covered with our moral part. Death scares us so much that in dreams they can even wake us up and thus end our cycle of rest and spend hours or entire days thinking about its meaning and per se, care and excessive protection behaviors arise to prevent what happened in the dream from happening. comply. In this Psychology-Online article we explain what it means to dream that someone dies .
Meaning of dreaming that someone dies
Dreaming that someone dies can fill us with anguish not only in our dream life, but also becomes part of those thoughts that operate in our field of consciousness, that is, the dreams in which someone dies and, above all, when he is someone very close, they establish ruminant thoughts in our waking state (thoughts that are repeated over and over again without being digested).
Sigmund Freud said that most elements of dreams are representations of the deepest and most ardent passions or desires , that is why the interpretation of this type of dreams could follow this Freudian line. That moral part that we all have (our ego part) tries to hinder the free expression and / or manifestation of the death wish of the person who dies in our dream, that is, it causes the dreamer a lot of anguishBecause the ego part (where morality is included) seeks in different ways the repression of the same deplorable desire to kill someone and a particular case of this ego mechanism is the anxiety perceived in the waking state. For instance. the dreamer says «I had a very strange and ugly dream, I dreamed that you had died / I dreamed that Juanito had died; I feel like my dream predicts something to me, please be very careful when you go out; I dreamed that you were dying, please be very careful when you go out on the street ».
Sigmund Freud said that hatred towards a loved one is restrained by a hypertension towards her and an inordinate fear for her fate.
Freudian research reveals that, many times, when an aggressive impulse is repressed, the defense not only prevents it from manifesting, but also exaggerates the opposite feeling, tenderness or care. He called this "reactive formation", a defense mechanism closely linked to the phenomenon of overprotection. But the repressed returns - as it usually does - in fantasy, in fear that something bad will happen to the loved one. Hostile purpose is attributed to fate.
What does it mean for a person to die in a dream? In conclusion, the meaning of the death of a person in a dream can express in an underlying way repressed feelings towards him, the signifier of death will always vary from one person to another. In some cases, the death of someone in a dream refers to feelings of hostility towards it, but the content of the unconscious that operates in the life of the dreamer must be evaluated in depth.
Next we will see some specifications of this dream: dreaming that someone dies by drowning, in an accident or burned. What will be the meaning of each of these variants of dreaming of a death?
Dreaming that someone dies by drowning
What does it mean that someone drowns in a dream? There are many references to this type of dream, where a person dies by drowning and which are associated with emotional drowning or problems that exceed or exceed the coping mechanisms (the ways in which we face the dangers or threats of life), whether of the dreamer or the person you saw in the dream. But we will maintain a line of analysis on dreams in which they do not acquire a universal or linear meaning of the "associative chain" type proposed by Freud, but rather a form of a network of signifiers, which is a more Lacanian term.
For example, in an associative chain, the traumatic scene associated with the manifestation of this distressing dream would be sought (it may be that the person has drowned in his childhood life or that he has had risks of drowning or some unique significant link such as that dreams of a brother drowning and that person actually has to emigrate or go on a mission with the army to a place that is surrounded by many beaches).
Dreams may not be associated with significant traumatic events or events that may represent distress for anyone else.
Dreaming that someone dies in an accident
As mentioned above, dreams are not always associated with traumatic events relevant to the dreamer himself or to others, nor do they cease to be unconscious manifestations of the most latent desires , but above all and again, dreams do not have a universal meaning. . However, we will try to help you to associate those elements of the dream world.
You can ask yourself some of the following questions or ask the dreamer:
Have you been in a similar accident before or of any other type that has put your life or that of a loved one at risk?
Is there a feeling that although at this moment it seems insignificant or silly that has arisen and caused discomfort with the person you dreamed of died in an accident?
During the day did you see or hear any representation of an accident, for example on television, mobile phone, books, classes?
Have you been abandoned at some point in your life? For example, when you were little you were left alone at home, you got lost in a supermarket, or even one of your parents left without saying anything and giving any explanation.
Accidental deaths are unexpected and therefore much more difficult to accept. People who have lost someone due to an accident show for a longer time a denial about the loss because minutes, hours or seconds before they had talked with them and had no opportunity to associate death, carpe diem memento mori. In this article you will find information about the grieving process in the face of losses .
Dreams where someone dies by accident can, and we repeat again "may / possibly" be associated with transience and per se the fear it evokes: fear of loss, emptiness and sudden abandonment . In this way, we do not forget that in a network this signifier (in the manner of a genealogical tree of meanings) can open as many more or come from as many and only one. For example, if one is so afraid of transience, it is necessary to explore if there is any feeling of guilt with the person who dies, it is believed that he owes him something (emotional or material), and the latent desire produces the death of this feeling of guilt and debt but at the same time a conscious fact - from the ego area - envelops him in anguish and fears.
Dreaming that someone dies burned
What does it mean to dream that someone is burned to death? Fire, like so many dreamlike and unconscious elements, has various signifiers, that is, for some, fire can express anger, suffering, evil (many times it is linked to its signifier of hell), sins, pleasure, adventure, risk , linked to an event. traumatic or not, latent desires and so on.
It is necessary to establish the network of signifiers with the elements that the dreamer describes, his relationship with the subject who dies and his involvement with the significant element present in the dream. It would also be interesting to know if the dreamer has tried to save him, enjoyed it, or what the behavior manifested in the dream was, since this can have an important association in the interpretation of the dream.
For the interpretation of the dream, it would also be relevant to take into account who the protagonist is, because the interpretation may change a lot from dreaming that unknown people die to dreaming of the death of a loved one, of dreaming that your partner dies or Even dreaming that someone dead (dead in a waking state or the reality of the subject) dies again.
