This was a dream question sent to me for answer: If you’d like a chance for your dream question to be answered find out more about the The Dream Download™ here. Topics like this feature in my book Answers In The Dark: Grief, Sleep and How Dreams Can Help You Heal.
⚠️ This post has been updated in response to the Coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak. It discusses the subject of death and dying, including death of a child, ‘visitation dreams’, as well as feeling responsible for / causing the death of someone in a dream. If you suffer with death anxiety (fear of death – thanatophobia) please speak to your doctor or healthcare team for support.
“I dreamt that my child dies. Does this mean it’s going to happen?”
The events surrounding COVID-19 meant the subject of death and dying became a sharp focus in our awareness, with heartbreaking daily updates of who has died in our region, country and across the world.
Dream recall was also up 35% during the pandemic, according to the Lyon Neuroscience Centre, and people seem to be having more negative dreams. If you’ve been having dreams about you or someone you love dying since then, this might explain why. You may have also experienced dreams like this before the crisis started, so I’ve offered some additional thoughts below.
Usually, death in dreams is not about physical death or dying, but more likely represents change: recognising that we – and those we care about – transform as individuals as time passes by. It may represent an acknowledgement of our mortality, but may more likely be recognising how rapidly things can evolve in our lives.
Our priorities change, our focus shifts, life adapts: house moves, children leaving home, redundancy or retirement, and, as we get older, we begin to notice physical changes in the body.
This extends to the changes we are seeing around the world since 2020. In the midst of a global crisis, everything around us was transforming – from the reduced number of cars on the roads and aeroplanes in our skies, to the focus for a time being on how much toilet roll was on the shelves. The emphasis has been on lack, loss (including freedom of movement) and literally through the media, on death itself.
It makes sense that we process this awareness of change as an ending, and symbolically (and perhaps subconsciously) plays out as death in a dream.
Death in dreams can also represent noticing change in other people, including our children and parents as they get older.
When the level of care we provide to a child changes as they grow up, we can process this as our part in their lives is ‘over’ (even though our love for them isn’t), and when they leave home we might translate that on a subconscious level in metaphor as the child “isn’t there anymore” – even though they’re probably available at the other end of a phone or other technology.
In the same way, a fear of something happening to our child, or if they (or a parent or loved) is sick this can be a constant thought at the front of your mind.
All these things can have an impact on why we dream about death itself.
Your dream may be trying to help you process what’s happening and search for ways to cope with the news, especially if you feel you can’t talk about it during the day.
To hopefully reassure you, if you have a death dream (whether about yourself or someone else) it doesn’t mean your dream is predicting it, it’s more likely an echo of a fear or worry.
Death dreams can be distressing but they are common dream, especially at a time when death has been in the daily conversation. It’s natural to dream about losing things or people we love; the most likely reason is because we care. I talk in some detail about these types of dreams and more in my book Answers in the Dark: Grief, Sleep and How Dreams Can Help You Heal.
Delphi is the author of Answers In The Dark: Grief, Sleep and How Dreams Can Help You Heal, out now on Amazon and Hive. The Dreams Maven™ is part of the Helping You Sparkle™ portfolio. You might also like Monday Mojo™.
© Delphi Ellis 2023 – please note this content may also appear elsewhere as promotional material for Answers In The Dark.
The Dreams Maven ™ 
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