Death Symbolizes Life Beginning
Dear Nancy: I woke up from this dream sobbing. I lay awake for several hours feeling lost and confused. It’s been nearly a year since my fiance and I broke our engagement, but I have not been able to completely get over the loss. - Steve
I’m traveling on roads from the 1950s through small towns, staying in mixed-up motels where they never get the rooms right, the phones and TVs never work and the bill is always wrong. Everything is black and white like an old TV program. I have an urgent purpose but I don’t know what it is. I finally reach a hospital. Hurrying, I enter, knowing someone is very ill.
In the waiting room, I’m suddenly face to face with my ex-fiance. She says,“I’m so glad you’re here. He’s dying.” I look down and see a package in my hands that I apparently brought to the hospital, a gift for the dying man. I open it and inside is a tiny black suit with a white shirt and a red tie. My former fiance hugs me and disappears.
Dear Steve: Even though this was a difficult dream, I think it shows that you are healing from your emotional loss.
With your dream set in the 1950s, it suggests that you have been living in the past, moving through a black-and-white landscape, like an old movie.
Has life felt colorless and gray since you and your fiance broke up? The series of mixed-up motels indicates that this is a time of transition for you, and that this colorless, problematic stage in your life is not permanent.
Characters and symbols in dreams usually represent various parts of ourselves. The hospital represents a healing place inside yourself; the urgent need is to see (or be conscious of) the part of you that is dying.
Remember, death in dreams is usually very positive because in the cycle of life, the old ways of thinking, believing and behaving must die so new ways can be born.
Undersized images sometimes point out issues or problems we try to avoid.
Is your small suit a wedding suit or a burial suit? Either way, this dream implies you are getting ready to let this relationship die and get on with your life - and you’re already in the waiting room.
“I’m so glad you’re here, he’s dying,” as your ex-fiance says, is assurance from your inner being that you are ready.
Remember, healing is a process that moves through stages. When you are once again able to put the past behind you, I know your life - and your dreams - will take on color and meaning again. I wish you all the best, Steve.
Reader tip: Our psyches often present us with dreams which include symbols that are either very small or oversized. We need to pay particular attention to these images because their unusual size is a signal that they are important.
When we are confronted with larger-than-life figures or elements in our dreams, the message is usually, “Pay attention. See me.” Whatever the figure represents it’s something that’s “in your face” and can no longer be ignored.
Are you shying away from something or someone? According to Freud, smaller-than-life symbols can be representative of something from your remote past. It may also indicate something you would like to be distanced from.