Death in Dreams and What it really Means

Dreams that involve violence, dying and death are nightmarish for many people, especially when they repeat. Many people wonder if dreaming about their own death means they will die soon. People do have precognitive dreams about impending deaths of others, but those are in a different class of dreams.

The so-called ordinary dreams about death and dying are not about physical death- but often they point to serious and distressing circumstances in a person's life. The dream uses the strong imagery of death to get the dreamer's attention. Notes dream expert Gayle Delany, "A dreamer who is being killed, killing himself, or dying from disease is usually someone who is involved in self-destructive behavior or thought patterns or relationships. The people I know who have had those dreams, upon interviewing themselves, conclude that their dreams are red flags pointing to some area in their lives that is going terribly wrong."

Most dreams in general call our attention to something that needs to be changed. The more dramatic the image, such as violence, dying, and death, the greater the need for attention and change. We may think that we can ignore or withstand a detrimental situation. In fact, we may be in danger of dying emotionally and spiritually. Our dreams tell us so.This may be an exaggeration, but stress plays an important role on the subconscious mind.

Environmental, habitual, and situational aspects play a role in how our mental state of being is affected. The mind is a very perplexing organ. Your body can be affected in many ways when your mind is feeling stressed or overwhelmed as well.

What can Occur, besides bad dreams, when the mind is stressed?

• Migraines
• Bowel Disfunction
• Nerve Pain
• Spinal inflammation
• Muscle Aches
• Bone Pain
• Bouts of Depression
• Excessive Anger

Environmental Stress
By definition Environmental stress is the pressure on the environment caused by human influence such as Pollution, or the 911 disaster, or by natural events such as weather occurrences i.e... a flood, earthquake, or Tsunami.

Oil pollution caused by an oil rig could affect the local fisherman that depend on their catch to feed and support their families. This would decrease the supply of food as it could kill the aquatic population in the area, and force the fish that survive to seek out further waters. This type of situation would be quite stressful for the fisherman.

Habitual Stress
Habitual stress is caused by the personal choices made that affect everyday life, health, and well being.
Here are some examples:

• Procrastination
• Fearful thinking patterns
• Poor time management
• Regular use of Narcotics or Illegal drugs

A person that chooses to use illegal drugs, or abuse prescribed narcotics would be left with an array of problems.

• Memory loss
• Sleepless-ness
• Unhealthy Weight-loss
• Relationship problems
  
  Every choice that is made affects our mental health. Which in turn will affect our dreams. Which leads us to the next factor.
  
  

Situational Stress

Situational Stress occurs after choices have already been made; whether by one person or another person entirely. This is considered the aftermath, or repercussion stress state.

A woman who is faced with a cheating husband begins to stress out, and question herself of her self-worth. She was not the one who decided to cheat but she is left with the mental repercussions due to another person's choice. Then she is faced with depression, regret, defeat and a multitude of other emotions that ultimately affect her mental state and her health.

For the most part dreams are merely our subconsious conveying messages to us that otherwise in our waking world we are unable to view or analyze adequately.

On a more personal note I've had dreams that Raptors were chasing me. As soon as the Raptors caught up to me, I immediately regained consciousness into the waking world. When I awoke I came to the conclusion that I had this dream for one of two reasons: One) Perhaps I had watched "Jurassic Park" too many times, or Two) Could it be that I was unhappy with some of my current life changes or more so rather overwhelmed by the choices that were chasing me in my life at the time?

During the time of my nocturnal "Jurassic Park" venture, I had been going through a divorce. One that seemed to be dragging on forever. I returned to the courthouse several times only to return once again to correct or file a new paper. My soon to be ex-husband was military and otherwise made the transition quite difficult. The monsters chasing me; was just my mind letting me know that it was being stressed out. It was my brain's way of "crying for help."

It is for this reason I can summarize that, since I am still alive and breathing well, my impending death dreams were related to real life stresses at the time.
Besides, other than the theatrical Dinosaurs I've viewed on television, I think it is pretty safe to say that I will not be plagued by any pre-historic creatures anytime soon.

However, long time stress does cause damage on the body and mind and professional help should be sought out. We can't fight out demons on our own and we all need a little help sometimes.