Grief Dreams - Tricks and Tips

 

Ah, togetherness xo!

That's me 'n Jess during one of the happiest times of my life, when we had a vacation in Oregon and went hiking with her. Oh it was so lovely! Redwood forests, her with her camera, me just surrounded by all the nature I love and my child right there with me.

Unfortunately, as we know, she died, and this post is about the dreams that most people grieving a beloved's transition experience. We all have that in common, though the details of the dreams might differ, there are some similarities that are now being studied in the hope that we can be helped to assuage that pain that happens while we sleep.

Our bodies and minds have many physical ways that they use to help us acclimate to the massive change in our lives when our beloved transitions. One of the things that most bereaved people experience is dreams related to their beloved.

There are several different types of "grief dreams." Some are true visitation dreams, where we get to join with our beloved in spirit and we have a conversation or they talk to us or we have some very close association where we KNOW we've connected. I will talk about that in another post.

The dreams I'm going to talk about now come before we're relaxed enough to be able to connect peacefully and in joy with our beloveds.

I'm talking about the dreams where we find ourselves in some activity "with" our beloved but we feel separated. We might be shopping "with them," or attending a music concert, or any number of activities where we know they're there, but we can't get to them. We can sometimes see them, but can't reach them. We sometimes know they're there but we can't find them and the dream feels like an unresolved search. And sometimes we dream of things that belong to them that we want to give them, but we can't reach them and get direct contact so we feel like they're missing something we have to give them. There are so many versions of this "I can't reach you" dream.

And when we wake, our hearts are pounding and we feel soooo bereft. We feel helpless.

But we're not.

There's a trick we can do to teach our bodies and minds that we're on the path to healing and learning to develop that softer, more spiritual relationship with the true essence of our beloved, which goes on after their transition. They've left the physical body, but the animating force, what some call spirit or soul, does not die, it is very much alive and well.

When we experience a dream in which we feel that separation, and we wake, totally unsettled and bereft, we can close our eyes, take several deep breaths, and rewrite the experience by bringing our authenticity into it. It's kind of like declaring "I see where you are now from where I am now and we are still connected." So lovely, but a bit of a trick to get there.

One of the ways to do this is to remember the dream, but with our eyes closed, rewrite the ending so that it feels satisfying. The brain itself cannot distinguish between reality and imagination, so when we rewrite the ending of an uncomfortable dream, we are teaching our bodies and minds that we are stepping firmly onto the path of healing and the body no longer needs to toss these dreams our way to keep reminding us to accept, accept, accept the change in our relationship. 

We can close our eyes and go into a relaxed sort of meditation in which we imagine not just looking for our beloved, but finding them and hugging them. We can imagine that if they are in distress, for example if they're being chased by those who would harm them, the ones chasing them shrink into tiny, disempowered beings whom we can make disappear. If our beloveds are in need of something, anything, during this "rewrite" time, we can give it to them, pure health, vitality, peace, love, serenity in their being. We can rewrite any ending to uncomfortable dreams through a little relaxed meditation.

In that process we are teaching our bodies, "I know you're helping me to acclimate to the massive changes in my life, but these dreams are traumatic to me and I am now adding to them what they need so that you, my sweet body, know that I am able to transcend the trauma and go to the place of connection and peace."

Once we do this a few times, our bodies/brains will stop creating these traumatic dreams because they understand that we are able to realign our thoughts and welcome the higher energies of health, happiness, love, peace, and healing for not only our beloveds but also ourselves. 

There is another level of connection and all we need to do to reach it is relax and use the gifts we were born with, which have a powerful ability to help our healing, one of which is the powerful and empowering use of imagination. Don't make the mistake of discounting it.

Healing happens when we rewrite our story based in love XO