I had an odd dream this morning. Usually dream details fade pretty fast, but not this one.

As some of you know, my wife passed away 22 months ago. I don't dream about her much anymore. I sometimes dream about driving around other towns and cities, and that was the case this morning. I was driving an old red Miata that in real life I gave away nearly 15 years ago. In the dream I'd gotten off the interstate, driven through a city and as I reached the edge of town, it was more suburban and spread out, more country feeling. There was a big lake on one side, and forest on the other, but all highly groomed and landscaped, perhaps artificial or man made. At this point in the dream it occurred to me that my wife lived nearby, and that I'd stop by to visit her. At the far edge of the lake I navigated a stop sign, crossed another road and as I started up a hill the beautiful top-down weather got cold, and all of a sudden the road was covered in about a foot of snow and ice. I thought, "no problem, the car can handle the snow," and continued up the hill. But then it occurred to me that perhaps she wasn't there, like out or maybe at work, and that maybe I should phone ahead to make sure it was ok that I come at all. Then I woke up.

The last bit was distressing, both in the dream and afterwards.

Anyway, thoughts?

It might be about missing your wife, wanting to be with her again but things -- like reality -- are thwarting you. Or your wife could be symbolic of some other lost thing you can't recover.

My bad dreams consist of pets getting lost.

It sounds like you are missing her.

To feel like you were that close to seeing her, and then not being able to for whatever reason ... would feel distressing.

If you could go back in time to be with her again, you would. To be driving in your 15 year old car again, to imagine seeing her face again, be on a country drive. And then the reality of the cold and ice and the uphill climb sets in.

It cannot be. The past is behind, your memories are what you have to cherish now. Your love for her is what lives on.

For a moment it felt like you were connecting though, almost like time travel. That's the dream state lifting you into a higher realm of consciousness.

I'm not familiar with the depth of your mormon back ground and the influence it may have had on you, but if it was a typical mormon experience, you were conditioned to know what happens when you die. That conditioning gave you comfort through life. When that conditioning is undone and what happens after death becomes uncertain, that can be very stressful.

Perhaps in the dream, you knew your wife was somewhere other than where you were, and as you drove through the pastoral landscape, it matched a vision of an afterlife you once had so you thought your wife might be there (mormon conditioning).

When you went off to find her house and pay a visit, the uncertainty as to whether she would be there or not came back to you (mormon conditioning undone) and the weather changed to cold as a measure of your distress.....yourself trying to get you to turn around and go back because you ultimately don't know where she is, and that is very distressful indeed.

So maybe your dream was the internal struggled between missing someone you love, and the uncertainty that comes with death,and whether you will be able to see them again.

Everything in your dream was working until your 'world view' that communication with your wife would not be possible ---- came in.

Beliefs do matter, even if you don't recognized some of the 'beliefs/world views' you formed when very young and may feel you are 'open' to now.

Tonight, before you go to sleep make a 'specific intention' that you will communicate with your wife in a dream. State to yourself that such things are possible as other people have experienced that type of thing.

Try that!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/05/2019 12:27PM by spiritist.

My interpretation of this is that you are not sure if she is still out there or not. I've had these types of dreams about people who passed away

I think spiritist is on to something there. Sometimes I have lucid dreams, or at some point they become lucid. You might want to not only try dream of your wife but think about it being a lucid dream.

I don't want to brag, but 'dreams' are significant to me.

I periodically have a lot of questions I want to get some input on. I will write out the question and put it with a pen near the bed. I establish my intention that I want a dream answer and want to be awakened so I can remember the dream so I can record it. That sometimes means 2-3 am getting up to record key things I remember. Then I go back to sleep and don't worry about interpreting it until in the morning. Most of the times I get dreams I can remember ----- sometimes nothing. When I get 'dream answers' I record the question, dream and interpretation in a journal.

I also establish the intention what time I want to wake up in the morning ---- I do not use any alarm clock.

In my personal experience, grief (and other manifestations of intense emotional stress) cause some very intense, often very detailed, dreams.

In my (admittedly untrained) opinion, dreams rarely have any meaning in the conscious world. I think the brain is doing some daily thought maintenance.

I share your opinion.

CrispingPin Wrote:
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> In my (admittedly untrained) opinion, dreams
> rarely have any meaning in the conscious world. I
> think the brain is doing some daily thought
> maintenance.


That's true about 95% of the time with me, but I also have dreams directly connected to my waking world. Sometimes they're surprisingly literal. And there are recurring themes that, while abstract, point to things I'm anxious about, or at least remind me I've been repressing certain things.

It sounds like you are looking for her but not too sure. It could be a manifestation that she is far away. But for me if dreams are important then you wake up immediately afterwards. And they should be vivid as well.

I woke up yesterday after discovering that I had a Negative on my eBay Profile. For years I've enjoyed a perfect score.

I went to see why that person left a Negative.

There was no negative. I just dreamed it.

I was so relieved.

Thanks for the thoughts, everybody.

I'm no expert on dreams, but I agree that they are probably the subconscious sort of working through things. Perhaps the more a given thing consumes your daytime conscious thoughts, the more it intrudes on your dream state. And the fewer stressors you have, the more your dreams are free to deal with whatever, maybe happier stuff. At least that's been my experience.

Anyway, grief has certainly fueled my dreams over the last couple years.

I suspect that this particular dream struck me yesterday because it's a distinct change from my earlier grief-related reoccurring dreams.

The earliest were dreams where my wife and I were not in control. For example, someone at a church might be badgering her to sing, or do something, and I'd be saying, "can't you see she's sick?" Or a teacher would say, "put your chairs up and leave the room," and I'd be saying, "we can't leave, she's sick."

The next phase was marked by dreams in which I was clearly losing her. For example, she'd have gotten on the wrong bus or train, and I'd be frantic because it was pulling away without me (and she was sick and needed me).

I didn't have these dreams every night, but frequently enough to recognize the patterns. And if it's fair to say that a lack of these dreams was a third phase, that was it. She appeared in my dreams less and less frequently, happy or sad. Phase 2's ending seemed almost a recognition that after being her full-time caregiver for nearly two years that she no longer needed me. And they came at a time in which I also stopped feeling like she was just upstairs when I was downstairs, or out shopping and would pop through the door at any minute. Believe it or not, when I realized that I no longer had those fleeting thoughts, it hit me pretty hard. And the lack of related dreams struck me too. Sadly, I dream about her less and less.

Grief is a weird process, and there's a lot of duality. For example, as you move forward you feel better, but you also feel bad for "letting go." I loved my wife dearly (still do, always will), and hate letting her go. But I really have no choice but to live without her.

This new dream struck me yesterday because it was so different than the previous ones. I thought about it a lot yesterday. At first I thought the pastoral lake and forest might represent a heaven-like place, her new neighborhood, so to speak. That I had inadvertently journeyed there somehow, but obviously couldn't reach her. But what kind of place is it where you don't live with your wife? Where it may not be appropriate to see her, and you have to try to find out if it's ok...? And it isn't?

After more contemplation though I started to think that the pastoral scene, and the nice top-down road trip through it actually represents my life, things getting better. But the contrast of the winter storm is also my life. It's that duality. My car and I can deal with the snow and ice because we'll get through it. My life is improving, although she's not in it. But what about feeling like I was in her neighborhood? She did love a top-down country drive, or even a drive in the snow. I'm doing the things she loved, only without her. Maybe that's both her neighborhood and my heaven, or vice versa.

As I write this it occurs to me that perhaps both explanations are equally valid. Life is complex and multifaceted. And, for that matter, it was only a dream.

The truth is, she's everywhere I go, in my thoughts and memories. More memories than thoughts as time progresses. And duality? I also believe that she's in that proverbial better place. At a minimum, she's out of physical pain and earthly torments.

Anyway, perhaps this begins phase 4 of my grief-related dreams, in which I reluctantly acknowledge she's gone, and that I have to live without her.

Thanks again for your thoughts, everyone. And thanks for "listening." :)

There is another aspect of your dream I thought of. You moved from the city - lots of people - into the country where there are fewer people. You took the road less traveled.

You might receive a message from your late wife via dream channeling.

Gene Wilder did from Gilda Radner. She came to him in a dream after her death from cervical cancer.

She appeared to him wearing a simple lavender dress. It was a color she wouldn't have worn during her lifetime, nor was the dress a style she'd have worn when she was alive. It was an A-line type dress to let him know she was on the other side and happy where she was.

She suffered much during her cancer treatments. So it brought him some peace to get a message from her.

Neither was particularly religious, though both were Jewish. I doubt their religion had anything to do with it. It was a kindred connection they shared that she wanted to send a message to him from beyond the grave.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/06/2019 09:37PM by Amyjo.

The last 3 nights I tried a dream experiment to see if my dreams could give me a headliner in a specific news source for the state I lived in.

I got 3 hits, unfortunately my dreams are in metaphors/symbols so it is similar/like this but not literally this. Therefore, so far I am not getting enough key information to 'aid' someone. Will that change ---- time will tell????
1. Dreamt of being in high school and seeing people running around in the hall. News was a high school was used to train police on a school gunman.
2. Dreamt of a pick pocket taking peoples wallets. News was an 'embezzlement case'.
3. Dreamt of a fire and a water craft outside on lake or river with bad 'feeling'. Early news was a death occurred while floating down a river on rubber rafts. I normally give it the whole day so time will tell if a building catches on fire.

I was motivated by the 'dream detective' but listening to him ---- it is clear he truly has a 'special gift'. My dream clues are minor to insignificant compared to what he gets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6kBL94n32I

To me, #3 sounds like a hit. 1 & 2 sound like same old, same old. School ahootings are ten a penny in the USA and so is embezzlement.

edgar cayces dream interpretation

I like to interpret dreams. If you aren't easily offended I could try?

nomonomo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I
> was driving an old red Miata that in real life I
> gave away nearly 15 years ago. In the dream I'd
> gotten off the interstate, driven through a city
> and as I reached the edge of town, it was more
> suburban and spread out, more country feeling.

Driving a car you probably loved once in a place that is more spread out seems to indicate some distance from some pleasanter times where you were driving for fun.

> There was a big lake on one side, and forest on
> the other, but all highly groomed and landscaped,
> perhaps artificial or man made. At this point in
> the dream it occurred to me that my wife lived
> nearby, and that I'd stop by to visit her.

You noticing on your drive some interference with the pleasant aspect of the drive. Along with the "fake" appearances you feel your loved one close. This could indicate that you feel like your present life isn't as real as your previous one. The loved one was a part of your enjoyment of life. This sudden juxtaposition of the loved one and the staged environment might be the feelings you have of conflict in enjoying life moving forward.

> At the
> far edge of the lake I navigated a stop sign,
> crossed another road and as I started up a hill
> the beautiful top-down weather got cold, and all
> of a sudden the road was covered in about a foot
> of snow and ice. I thought, "no problem, the car
> can handle the snow," and continued up the hill.
> But then it occurred to me that perhaps she wasn't
> there, like out or maybe at work, and that maybe I
> should phone ahead to make sure it was ok that I
> come at all. Then I woke up.

It sounds like you yearn to reach your wife and have something of your past life. The car represents the past life which you know can overcome the breach.

> The last bit was distressing, both in the dream
> and afterwards.

It feels distressing because your brain thinks it can reconcile the loss of a previous life with previous pleasures and the comforts of a loved one.