Dreaming Beyond Death: A Guide to Pre-Death Dreams and Visions

Patricia Bulkely is a spiritual counselor in Hospice. And Kelly Bulkeley has wide experience as a dream researcher and author. Together they have written a poignant book of the dying and their dreams. By exploring the meaning of the dreams and visions of the dying, the authors hope to help people recover not only a meaningful sense of death, but what it means to be alive. The lessons of pre-death dreams constellate around three themes. And the authors report that the understanding of these themes can help the dreamer expand and deepen the awareness of their life. The first theme noted from the dreams of the dying is that death in dreams is most often represented by the idea of a journey, rather than the cessation of life. For example, one dying man began to have dreams of a ship on the ocean. And in the dream, he was the captain of that ship. The second type of dream often experienced by the dying is the "visitation" dream, an emotionally intense and often "hyperrealistic" dream in which the dreamer is visited by someone deceased who returns to provide guidance, reassurance or warning. These types of dreams, the authors report, do not so much deny death but transcend death, "providing experiential evidence of human connections that extend beyond mortal life." The third type of dream often experienced by the dying is dream in which the obstacles in life are made known. If death is viewed as a journey, write the authors, then these pre-death dreams serve as a source of insight of the obstacles along that path. This type of dream seems to tell us that impending death will not wash away our regrets, our mistaken beliefs or what we view as our transgressions. We will in life, have to come to terms with the obstacles that have hindered us while living. The authors note as example, a dying woman whose traditional religious beliefs offered neither solace nor guidance as she neared death. Her dreams though helped her envision a reality where God did not punish, and where death was seen as a passage into another realm of life that included joy and reunion with those she loved. "What the dying person experiences in waking life as an agonizing onslaught of painful memory becomes, in dreaming," the authors point out, "the raw material for new growth, broader connections, and a deeper sense of self-integrity." The self that lives in denial of dark secrets, inevitably crumbles in dreams. The authors disagree with claims "that all religious and mystical traditions lead to the same realization of pure consciousness, peak experience, absolute unitary being, or any other monolithic, one-size-fits-all state of mind. At least in the realm of dreaming," the authors report, "the revelatory experience is so deeply rooted in the individual's personal life history and cultural context that it makes no sense to try and extract a `universal core' from it." This book also includes a chapter on "Care for the Dying," "A Summary of Methods," and "Resources for Caregiving

This excellent title helps people to understand the types of dreams that people have prior to dying- and how to honor and use the messages that come with these dreams. It will be particularly useful for family and friend caregivers who may not understand the importance of dreams in preparing a person for death and how dreams can bring meaning and peace to the process. It provides also a very short, yet incredibly useful, introduction on how to interpret dreams in general. This title is highly recommended.

While, I have heard the contention that dreams serve a purpose of helping a person deal with events in their life, I cannot recall any that have accomplished that in my life. The book mentions that category and I wish some time had been spent on that subject. As far as the book went, I found the various experiences of case histories fascinating. Especially the one of Socrates, in which the dream was actually prophetic.