Also See Dream Motifs-Death

Death or dying in a dream seldom refers to an actual death. Death refers to changes in one's life, or attitudes toward certain persons, or fears of dying. Here are some possibilities of what death, dying or a dead person may represent in a dream. Death is a motif and may be the central motif of the dream.

Basic meaning: The old is dying; make way for new beginnings.

(1) The dead person may be you, even though its image within the dream takes on characteristics of other persons or other things. The message may be that your old self needs to be left behind. This may mean you must stop carrying around with you the crippling burden of your past (irrational guilt-feelings or other negative self programming); and, instead, you must open yourself to what the present moment is offering. Alternatively, the "old self" may be old attachments, habits, ambitions, values, goals; in which case the dream is telling you that the only way forward for you lies through giving these up and looking deeper within yourself for better values, etc. (where better means more in tune with your real self).

(2) What is being expressed in the dream may be your own anxiety about dying. Death is inevitable, and facing up to that fact may bring great rewards: self-acceptance; new values; a broadening of one's personality, compensating for past omissions or lopsidedness and utilizing hitherto neglected personal resources. This would be especially applicable if you are in the second half of life.

(3) If the dead person in the dream is actually a living person - and especially if that person is your partner or parent or sibling - the dream may be expressing unconscious resentment towards that person, or a desire to be independent of that person. Feelings toward someone close are often ambivalent (conflicting): love or respect mixed with fear or hatred or resentment or jealousy.

(4) Does the dream contain a dead person you actually knew? If so, the dream may mean you should take notice of what he or she said or did, or of what happened to him or her. The dead person is "coming back", not to haunt you but to advise and help you (the dead person actually represents parts of your unconscious self that is wiser than your waking ego).

There's really nothing 'spooky" about meeting dead people in dreams. Such encounters may help you fulfill a long-desired deep relationship, or to put something right. For example, you may learn to forgive the person and as a consequence get peace and healing for yourself.

(5) If the gender of the dead person is stressed, the meaning may be that your masculinity/femininity or your anima/animus needs reviving.

(6) A dead animal in a dream almost certainly refers to some part of you - an instinctive force, perhaps - and the dream will be telling you either that this part of you (e.g. guilt-feelings or inferiority complex) ought to die, because its effects are wholly negative; or that it is a valuable but repressed part of yourself that you must now bring to life, to rectify an imbalance in your personality.

Reference: Eric Ackroyd

May symbolize death. Not an actual death but a death to some aspect in your life. Perhaps you need to lay to rest some emotional aspect that has outlived its usefulness. May also mean sadness and unresolved grief.

A fear of something coming to and end with dire consequences as a result. Experiencing extreme stress and lots of tensions in your life. Fear of death, or an end to something in your life. Overly religious attitudes.

A death to old attitudes and/or habits. Putting to rest a part of yourself. You are finally letting go of something.

An end to some phase, event in your life. Also see death. This is a symbol representing fear and evil. What is in your life that gives you fear or makes you want to do evil?

may represent sexuality, passion, anger, danger. As the color of blood, red is a symbol of life, but also may be death (an end to something in your life).

Dreaming that you commit suicide indicates that conditions in your life is so frustrating that you are no longer willing to cope with a situation or relationship in the same way as you did in the past. Alternatively, you may be unable to overcome feelings of guilt and thus turning the aggression on yourself. On a more positive note, it may suggest that you are saying good-bye to one aspect of yourself or character that your have been carrying around. Seeing someone commit suicide in you dream, highlights your concerns for that person. Also consider what characteristics and qualities in that person you may be trying to "kill" and annihilate in your own self. Perhaps you hope that you are not like that person in some way and are making attempts to get rid of those traits within your own self.

A dream of committing suicide doesn't necessarily mean that you are suicidal. It could be pointing out a major change that you are about to undertake, or that you feel as if things have gotten out of hand.

If you commit suicide in a dream, it probably means you feel unable to cope any longer with a problem that has obessed and flustrated you for a long time. Perhaps you need professional help to sort this out.

Do you witness someone else's suicide" Perhaps some part of you that has been repressed and neglected is now getting desperate in which case you need to give it urgent attention with a view to meeting its legitimate demands.

If the person committing suicide is close to you inreal life, it may be that you harbor {unconscious} negative feelings toward that person.

White may symbolize purity and innocence, peace, happiness, joy; in the East it is associated with death and mourning.

This dream symbol most likely evokes fear, but before making quick interpretations, carefully consider all of the details in this dream. The coffin could symbolize a lack of energy or vitality in the dreamer. It could represent the death of one stage of life and movement into another. (Not necessarily physical death! In fact, some cultures believe that if you see a person dead and in a coffin, he will most likely live a long and healthy life!) When dreaming about coffins, we may be contemplating the nature of the death experience and may access the state of consciousness that is attuned to the spiritual world. Most simply, and most likely, the coffin in your dreams may represent feelings of confinement and lack of freedom

(1) A Horse - particularly a stallion - may symbolize sexuality

(2) It may symbolize animality; instinctive dynamism that may "carry you away".

(3) A galloping horse may symbolize ecstasy; or a need not to get bogged down in sensuality/ material ambitions; being in 'the world" but not of it.

(4) Horse may symbolize emotion(s). If the horse is rampaging, either your emotions are threatening riot if you do not seriously attend to their requests or you are allowing your emotions to rule you. Tightly reigned or tethered horses probably mean your emotions are too much repressed.

(5) The horse may symbolize your unconscious or your whole psyche. In myths and folktales, horses sometimes speak. If the horse in your dream speaks, it is either the voice of your unconscious, or some part of it, or the voice of your true self, your inner being.

(6) If the horse is threatening, look into your unconscious to see what is threatening you there. Is it your sexuality, attachments to mother or father, the unconscious itself, or some other repressed desire?

(7) If a horse or horses are pulling you in a carriage, they are your emotions. Are you in control or are they?

(8) Black horses are associated with funerals. What part of you is dead or dying? Should it be allowed to die? Or what should be dead in you - for example, something from the past that prevents you from living freely in the present?

(9) A horse's hoof may symbolize fertility or sexuality. Fertility is, psychologically speaking, the power to expand as a person.

Reference: Eric Ackroyd

anxiety over your health; thoughts of approaching death. Planning for the end of something in your life.

From SpiritCommunity

Funeral

Dreaming about funerals does not necessarily symbolize physical death for you or anyone else. It could instead symbolize an ending of a different kind. You may be burying relationships, conditions or even emotions that you no longer need and that are no longer conducive to your personal growth. On the other hand, this dream may symbolize the burying of sensitivities and emotions that are too difficult to cope with. It may reflect numbness or a feeling that is the opposite of aliveness, such as depression and emptiness. Either way, burying a person that is alive suggests some emotional turmoil. Please consider all of the details in this dream to find the appropriate message. Old dream interpretation books say that dreaming about funerals is a dream of the contrary. Instead of sadness, the dreamer will experience happiness and go to celebrations, such as weddings

More on Dead/Death

If the dead person is someone you actually knew it may mean you should take notice of what he or she said or did, or what happened to him or her. The person is not coming back to "haunt" you but to advise you or to help you. In actuality, this person is a part of your own psyche, taking the form of the dead person. Such encounters may help you to fulfil a long desired relationship, or put something right. For example, you may learn to forgive the person {or yourself}and as a consequence get peace and healing for yourself.

 If a deceased partner or parent appears in dreams, the above may apply. Bear in mind that the dead do live - inside us; and that it is important to realize when this is a healthy and life-enhancing thing and when it is purely negative, stunting your own personal growth. If it is the latter, resolve to have it out with the dead person the next time he or she appears in a dream

 If the dead person in the dream is actually a living person - and especially if that person is your partner or sibling - the dream may be expressing unconscious resentment towards that person, or a desire to be independent. Feelings toward someone close are often ambivalent {simultaneous conflicting feelings toward that person}: love or respect mixed with fear or hatred or resentment or jealousy. The usual conscious response to such a dream will be anxiety, and you will feel anxiety in the dream itself.

The dead person may be you. If so consider the following possibilities:What is being expressed in the dream may be your own anxiety about dying. Death is inevitable {an old Islamic proverb: when the angel of death approaches it is horrific, when it reaches you it is bliss}, and facing up to the fact may bring great rewards: self-acceptance; new values; a broadening of one's personality, compensating for past omissions or lopsidedness and utilizing hitherto neglected personal resources. This would be especially applicable if you are in the second half of life.

The message may be that your old self needs to be left behind. This may mean that you must stop carrying around with you the crippling burden of your past {irrational guilt-feelings and martyrdom complex, or any other negative self-programming}; and, instead, you must open yourself to what the present moment is offering. Alternatively, the "old self" may be old attachments, habits, ambitions, values, goals; in which case the dream is telling you that the only way forward for you lies through giving these up and looking deeper within yourself for better values, etc. {where "better" means more in tune with your real self}.

{Primitive rites of passage, as described in mythological symbolism as well as in dreams, which mark transitional stages in a person's life - birth, initiation into adulthood, marriage and career, death - all contain death-and-rebirth symbolism and express a recognition that the development of new attitudes more appropriate to one's new stage in life {the death and resurrection of Jesus is a metaphor for such death and resurrection stages in the individual life}. The symbolic death of the initiate in these rites may also be seen as a descent of the conscious ego into the unconscious: it is the unconscious {and the compensating knowledge that it holds} that provides the means for new growth - rebirth.

It is just possible that, if your own death features repeatedly in dreams, it is an expression of an unconscious wish for death. Freud speculated in "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" that there might be, in everyone, just two controlling basic drives: one towards life and love and pleasure {Eros}, and the other towards death {'thanatos"}. This is highly controversial {as is much of Freud's theories}, but it is indisputable that many people display strong masochistic tendency.

Are you compelled to repeat painful experiences? Do you tend to interpret what other people say as a criticism of yourself? If so, you may be suffering from repressed guilt-feelings and an unconscious urge to punish yourself - which sometimes take the form of a fate-neurosis and/or a wish {unconscious, as in your dream} to see yourself dead. If you feel this applies to you, talk to a friend about it or consult a psychotherapist. See Suicide

A wish for death may be a retreat from life's problems and pains, or a response to a sense of failure. If this applies to you, bear in mind, first, that a very sensitive person may also be burdened with an over-severe conscience {the product perhaps, of having a stern father or a sin-and-guilt religious upbringing}. In that case, see the previous paragraph. Secondly, what makes a thing a problem is usually one's attitude towards it. For example, suppose you have been made redundant {repeat mistakes over and over}. If your reaction is to see this as a punishment, see previous paragraph. If you see it as a failure, try to change your attitude or perspective by asking what creative purpose may be being served by your redundancy; perhaps, for instance, the demolishing of an inadequate or false self-image in order to make way for the construction of one that corresponds more closely to your individual ground-plan or "destiny".

 If the gender of the dead person is stressed, the meaning may be that your masculinity/femininity or your animus/anima needs reviving.

 a dead animal in a dream almost certainly refers to some part of you - an instinctive force, perhaps - and the dream will be telling you either that this part of you {e.g. guilt-feelings or inferiority complex} ought to die, because its effects are wholly negative; or that it is a valuable but repressed part of you that you must now bring to life, to rectify an imbalance in your personality.

From dream moods

Death To dream about the death of a loved one, suggests that you are lacking a certain aspect or quality that the loved one embodies. Ask yourself what makes this person special or what do you like about him. It is that very quality that you are lacking in your own relationship or circumstances. Alternatively, it indicates that whatever that person represents has no part i