This week I focused on why we see ghosts in our dreams and if it is just the subconscious or if like some believe, they really do appear.
So far in my very limited research, it’s thought that when you dream of a ghost it represents unresolved issues, or the manifestation of your grief.1 But what about all of the anecdotal stories where the dead communicate something important, urgent even, that a dream couldn’t predict?
Let’s ignore the completely reasonable possibilities that it’s the subconscious mind working over something and using the symbolism of a ghost. Or that the brain is acting out a play in which the dreamer accomplishes something by speaking with someone who has passed on. Instead, this is going to be focused on the stories that aren’t so easily explained. Starting with the common stories shared by people all throughout the world who have dreams of someone who was alive at the time they went to bed, dream of them saying goodbye, and awake to find out that the person has indeed died. These stories are adapted from various books and sources linked in references.
Mr. Hans Holzer pulled up outside an impeccably clean church. There was nothing at all about it to suggest a haunting, and yet that was why he was here. For the purpose of this week’s story though, I am not focused on why he is there, but instead one of the priests he meets. After being told by the oldest Father that he wasn’t going to speak on the subject of it’s resident ghost, Mr. Holzer has a conversation with the assistant priest that tells him a curious story of when he was studying theology in Croatia.
While there he made a friend, who like him, believed in the existence of ghosts, even when their peers scoffed at the idea. The friends made a pact that the first to die should come back and give a sign to the other. Not to long after the priest knew his friend had died after seeing him sit in a chair smiling and waving to him whilst he was asleep. He later learned that his friend had died in an accident at around the same time as his dream. (Holzer The Restless Ghost of the Parish Priest)2
This next story is about a woman who states she was having money problems at the time of her grandmother’s death. She began to dream of her grandmother repeatedly telling her that if she needed money to go look under her mattress. The woman ignored the dreams, but they persisted. So finally decided to see what she would find, she goes and looks under the mattress and finds $1,500 in Mexican Pesos.3
I am a huge fan of Nuke’s Top 5 and there is a clip where a woman who had recently lost her husband was in a sleep clinic being monitored for her breathing issues. As she is sleeping, her sleep apnea starts and in the clip you can see a pale hand reach out and nudge her.4 (go to about the time mark 1:00:00). I know this isn’t about dreaming, but I liked the story too much not to share.
- World of Dreams
- Holzer, Hans. “The Restless Ghost of the Parish Priest.” Real Hauntings: True American Ghost Stories.
- Money under the mattress
- Sleep Apnea