For those of you who believe in ghosts, you might be interested in this one; experts reckon they have figured out the reason why our deceased loved ones come back and visit us in our dreams, giving us all a bit of solace.
It has happened to most of us at some point in our lives, we have some sort of supernatural experience that freaks us out. For many of us, it happens during those moments between being awake and being asleep, and leaves you in a cold sweat and wide awake in your bed, and wondering what has just happened. The dreams are often pretty realistic and vivid, and feel as if you’ve actually spent a moment in that person’s company, despite them being deceased and leaving no evidence of ever being in your room.
These are known as visitation dreams, and are a common occurrence when you are in a state of mourning over a deceased loved one. While I’m the type of person who brushes them off as simply my mind playing tricks on me, plenty of people do believes in ghosts and believe that, despite the fact that some of our loved ones are no longer living on Earth, they never really leave our sides.
Writing in Psychology Today, Dr. Patrick McNamara says: “My father and mother died over a decade ago and about one year apart. Approximately, six months after each death, I had at least one vivid dream with one or both of them in it. In both cases, the dream did not feel like the typical run-of-the-mill dream.”
“Instead the dream had a kind of hyper-real intensity to it. I felt that I had been touched or visited or communicated with. I could not easily shake the conviction that my father and my mother had communicated with me from beyond the grave.”
According the McNamara, visitation dreams tend to have common themes throughout them, which are as follows:
- The deceased appear as they did in life, although often healthier.
- They usually convey a message of reassurance, such as: “It’s okay, I’m still with you”.
- Messages tend to be conveyed telepathically rather than verbally.
- Dreams tend to be organized, and structured, rather than bizzare.
- They will be remembered by the dreamer when they wake up.
- The dreamer will often be changed by the experience.
- The dream is followed by a resolution of the grieving process or wider spiritual view.
- McNamara continues, saying: “For traditional peoples who accorded equal or greater ontological weight to dreams as compared to waking reality, a visitation dream must have been utterly convincing evidence that a spirit world and life beyond the grave existed,” he writes.
“Even in modernized societies, visitation dreams exert a considerable impact on the bereaved. Many bereaved people report that these sorts of dreams allowed for successful resolution of the grieving process.”
According to the OMTimes, there’s a number of reasons that your deceased loved ones might show up in your dreams, and luckily none of them are horrible or frightening:
- They want to seek forgiveness or resolve an issue that occurred during their lifetime.
- To offer guidance, protection, or a warning.
- To comfort you and let you know that they are OK and made it to the other side.
- To offer you a message.To show you that there is life after death.
So, fortunately, if you’re visited by someone dear to you that has passed away, they’re not coming to scare the living daylights out of your or kill you, they’re coming to help you. Whether its a word of advice, to let you know they’re okay or seeking resolution, it’s all positive.
