Dreams before Death Interesting Article.

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MSNBC.com

A Dream Before Dying

Life's profound problems often get resolved in the sleep that comes

before the final rest, these authors say.

By Anne Underwood

Newsweek

 

July 25 issue - As a hospice chaplain for 10 years, the Rev. Patricia

Bulkley confronted the raw emotions of the dying—their terror at the

approaching end, their unresolved family problems, their crises of

faith. They were people like Charles Rasmussen, a retired

merchant-marine captain in his mid-80s who was dying of cancer. He was

consumed by fear until, in a dream one night, he saw himself sailing

in uncharted waters. Once again, he felt the thrill of adventure as he

pushed through a vast, dark, empty sea, knowing he was on course.

" Strangely enough, I'm not afraid to die anymore, " he told Bulkley

after that dream. Death was no longer an end, but a journey.

 

As Bulkley reveals in a slender but powerful new book, " Dreaming

Beyond Death, " many people have extraordinary dreams in their final

days and weeks. These dreams can help the dying grapple with their

fears, find the larger meaning in their lives, even mend fences with

relatives. Yet all too often, caregivers dismiss them as delusional or

unworthy of attention. Not Bulkley, who often discussed dreams with

patients at the Hospice of Marin in California. Her experiences were

the inspiration for the book, which she coauthored with her son Kelly

Bulkeley, a past president of the International Association for the

Study of Dreams. It is the first volume devoted to the (paradoxically)

life-affirming power of pre-death dreams. And though the research is

still preliminary, the authors inject level-headed analysis into an

arena often dominated by seekers of the paranormal.

 

Accounts of prescient or meaningful pre-death dreams span religions

and cultures, from China and India to ancient Greece. The last dream

that psychologist Carl Jung was able to communicate to his followers,

a few days before his death, was of a great round stone engraved with

the words " And this shall be a sign unto you of Wholeness and

Oneness. " To Jung, it showed that his work in this life was complete.

Socrates and Confucius also spoke of significant dreams they had

shortly before their deaths.

 

Yet there has been little systematic study of such dreams in modern

times. The inherent difficulties are obvious. You can't enroll people

with a week or two to live in formal studies—and they're hardly going

to walk into a sleep clinic and volunteer. By default, hospice workers

and family members have collected more of these stories than dream

researchers. No one even knows what percentage of people ultimately

experience such dreams. Still, scientists recognize that they can be

deeply meaningful.

 

There are certain overarching themes that emerge—going on journeys,

reuniting with deceased loved ones, seeing stopped clocks. Often the

imagery is straightforward. In one woman's dream, a candle on her

hospital windowsill is snuffed out, engulfing her in darkness—a symbol

of death that scares her, until the candle spontaneously relights

outside the window. A man struggling to find meaning in his life

dreams of a square dance in which the partners leave visible traces of

their movements, like ribbons weaving a pattern. " There really is a

plan after all, isn't there? " the man asked Bulkley after that dream.

" Somehow we all belong to one another. "

 

But not all pre-death dreams are comforting. They can also frighten

the dreamer, who imagines being chased through crumbling cityscapes or

hurtling in a driverless car toward a freshly dug ditch or entering

the sanctuary of a cathedral, only to have a tornado break through the

roof and suck the visitor up into the whirlwind. " I've had patients

who woke up pounding on the mattress, very agitated, struggling with

the idea that they're going to lose this battle, " says Rosalind

Cartwright, chair of behavioral sciences at Rush University Medical

Center. These dreams are warnings of unresolved issues. But by forcing

attention to the underlying problems, nightmares may ultimately help

the dreamer find peace. " Ignore them at your peril, " says Cartwright.

 

It is hardly surprising that pre-death dreams are more urgent, more

vivid and more memorable than the run-of-the mill patchwork of dreams.

" Throughout life, at acute stages of crisis and transition, the need

to dream is intensified, " says psychologist Alan Siegel of the

University of California, Berkeley. The more dramatic the event, the

more the dreams cluster around solving related emotional issues.

Pre-death dreams can be so intense that the dying mistake them for

waking reality—especially when the dreams feature dead relatives.

 

Yet despite the power of these dreams, caregivers often miss the

opportunity to explore their meaning. It's a loss on both sides,

according to Bulkley. Talking about end-of-life dreams can give family

members a way to broach the uncomfortable topic of death, she says.

For the dying, discussing such a dream can provide a simple way to

articulate complex emotions—or, if the meaning of the dream is

unclear, to fathom its purpose. And to the extent the dying person

finds comfort in any such dream, so do surviving relatives. " These are

the stories that get repeated at funerals, " says Bulkley. " They become

part of the family lore. "

 

The authors resist the notion that pre-death dreams prove the

existence of God. Yet the dying often interpret them as affirmations

of faith. On her deathbed, a female cancer patient of Bulkley's was

stricken with doubts about the nature of God. For three nights in a

row, she dreamed of huge boulders that pulsated with an eerie blue

light. To her, they represented a divine being that was

unidentifiable, but very real. " I don't need to know anything more

than that, " she told Bulkley. " God is God. " But she had one final

dream. In it, the boulders morphed into steppingstones. In the

distance a golden light glowed. " It's calling me now, and I want to

go, " she told Bulkley that morning. She died the next day—at peace.

© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.

 

© 2005 MSNBC.com

 

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8598959/site/newsweek/