🕷️ Crawler Inspector

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Raw Queries and Responses

1. Shard Calculation

Query:

Response:

Calculated Shard: 110 (from laksa186)

2. Crawled Status Check

Query:

curl -X POST \
  'http://laksa110.int.ahrefs:8124/' \
  -H 'Content-Type: text/plain' \
  -H 'X-ClickHouse-Database: crawler3' \
  -H 'Authorization: Basic YXBpOg==' \
  -d 'SELECT getAhrefsURLFromUnparsed(src_unparsed) AS found_url, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(download_stamp), 0) AS crawl_time, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(props_url_first_seen), 0) AS first_indexed_time, download_http_code AS http_code, src_unparsed AS src_unparsed, src_root_hash AS src_root_hash, history_drop_reason AS history_drop_reason, meta_title AS meta_title, meta_descriptions AS meta_descriptions, attrs_boilerpipe_text AS attrs_boilerpipe_text, attrs_markdown AS attrs_markdown, attrs_readable_markdown AS attrs_readable_markdown, meta_canonical AS meta_canonical FROM crawler3.page_info_local FINAL PREWHERE (src_root_hash, src_unparsed) IN ((getAhrefsRootHashFromUnparsed(getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/\')), getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/\'))) FORMAT JSONEachRow'

Response:

{"found_url":"https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/","crawl_time":1775013627,"first_indexed_time":1527066753,"http_code":200,"src_unparsed":"com,realdreaminterpretation!\/dreams-about-death\/ s443","src_root_hash":"15935530332346143110","history_drop_reason":null,"meta_title":"Dreams about death: what they mean and how to interpret them","meta_descriptions":["Death dreams are typically not premonitions; they are symbolic. Dreams about death are a signal that something in you is dying. The question to ask about your death dream is: is it time for this aspect of yourself to die, or, are you killing some crucial aspect of yourself?","Death dreams are typically not premonitions; they are symbolic. Dreams about death are a signal that something in you is dying. The question to ask about your death dream is: is it time for this aspect of yourself to die, or, are you killing some crucial aspect of yourself?"],"attrs_boilerpipe_text":"Table of Contents - Jump to Section\nDreams About Death\nDreams about death: synopsis:\nDreams about death and life transitions\nDreams about death: a message from your inner guide:\nDreams about Death: Psychic Processes\nDreams about death:  psychic death and changing our worldview\nDreams about death: questions for your consideration:\nDeath dreams: ego death versus psychic death\nDeath dreams: what does psychic death mean to the ego?\nDeath dreams and ego-complexes\nAn example of a negative mother complex\nDreams of mother dying\nWant to learn more about working with dreams or Jungian Psychology?\nDreams About Death\nDreams about death can really freak some people out, so let’s go ahead address what death dreams typically mean. Most dreams about death are symbolic.  They are usually not warnings or premonitions about your own death or the death of someone you love. In opposition to what we talked about in the\nDreams of Pregnancy\nand\nDreams About Babies\nposts, death dreams symbolize the end of of a cycle.\nDreams about death: synopsis:\nDeath dreams are similar to drawing the death card in the Tarot deck.  They are a signal that\nsome part of you\n is dying or\nsome phase of your life\nis coming to an end.  Whoever or whatever is dying in your dream is a symbolic aspect of yourself.  The questions to ask yourself about your death dream is:\nIs it time for this aspect of yourself to die, or, are you killing some crucial aspect of yourself?\nI am not saying that death dreams are\nnever\nabout someone’s actual death because people do have premonitions of death, but in general, this is not the meaning of a death dream. \nMore often, death dreams symbolize a psychic death in the dreamer, the deeper meaning of which I will talk about throughout this post. \nAs I said in the post on the\nSymbolism of the Snake\n,\nDeath\n, whether we are speaking literally or symbolically, is a part of the life cycle: birth, death, and rebirth. Rejecting death, hating it, and fearing it only causes you to shrink back from life. Accepting it means having a mature perspective on life.\nDreams about death and life transitions\nDeath dreams are very common during periods of psychological transformation or major transition in your life.\nSometimes psychological transformation is a conscious process, for example, when you are working through deep issues in psychotherapy, or, when you are going through a divorce.\nOther times psychological transformation is unconscious; it’s just a natural process happening beneath the surface of consciousness, for example as in maturation or the slow mending of a broken heart.\nThe aim of\ndream interpretation\nis to make your psychological processes as conscious as possible. This helps you in every aspect of your life, but most especially in the face of suffering.\nFor many, any kind of change is hard to face, especially when it comes to \nendings.\n  People have an abject aversion to endings,\n \nwhether we are talking about the end of life or the end of some aspect of life.  Because of this aversion to endings, people sometimes desperately cling to anything they don’t want to let go of.\nDreams about death: a message from your inner guide:\nIf you are clinging to something and you have a death dream, this is psyche’s way of saying, “It’s okay. You are ready to let go.”\nDreams about Death: Psychic Processes\nBefore I talk about particular dreams about death, I want to say something about the dynamics of the human mind\n. \n If you want to\ndo your own dream interpretations\n, it’s important for you to understand the theory behind it. Don’t blindly trust inadequate dream dictionaries or the many dream websites which regurgitate the same thing about dreams and symbols.\nReal dream interpretation\nis about gaining a deeper knowledge of yourself through open and honest self-reflection. So, don’t let dreams about death scare you. Treat every dream as\na guide from beyond\n, telling you that you are ready to transform something in your life.\nDreams about death:  psychic death and changing our worldview\nIn Jungian psychology, when we speak of \npsychic death\n, we are referring to the dissolution of a particular \npsychic factor\n in you. By\npsychic factor\nI mean an observable pattern in your personality. A really extreme example of this pattern would be someone who has a bonafide phobia of spiders. Every time that person sees a spider, he\nuncontrollably\nhas the same reaction.\nSome of our psychic patterns are more difficult for us to recognize because they are so deeply merged with our identity.  It’s a pattern that we don’t even consider questioning.\nWhen something is unquestionably merged with our identity, it’s unconscious. Take for example our general outlook on life – the lens through which we see the world, such as a tendency to see our experiences only through a negative light. This is something you can change. It is not \nwho you are\n.\nOther examples would be mistrust in the world, fear of change, self-loathing, generalized anxiety, or self-doubt. All of these are psychic patterns that can be transformed. You are not trapped by anything.\nDreams about death can signal that it is time for you to change your outlook or attitude\nDreams about death: questions for your consideration:\nReflect on the symbolism of whatever or whoever died in your death dreams.\nWhat are your associations?\nHow do these associations relate to your current attitude or state of mind?\nIs there any connection you can make?\nEverything we see, feel, or think is a psychic pattern. Even our relationships with others have an underlying psychic pattern. Some of our psychic patterns are healthy and others are not. Many psychic patterns were seeded in our childhoods and are still blossoming well into in adulthood. Dreams about death involving children can be an indication of an infantile pattern that needs to die.\nOther psychic patterns established themselves through repeated life experiences, for example repeatedly engaging in destructive relationships. Dreams about death involving former lovers or friends can be an indication that you need to put an end to this pattern.\nAnd still others are archetypal patterns of human existence, such as puberty, birth, and death. Any of these psychic patterns can image themselves in dreams.\nWhat is important to remember about all of your dreams is that they are images of the unconscious aspects of your psychic patterns.\nDeath dreams: ego death versus psychic death\nThough many people try to equate them, psychic death and ego death are not synonymous in the lexicon of Jung’s psychology.\nPeople also like to associate psychic death with ego death in Buddhism. In terms of defining \nego\n, you can’t compare Jungian psychology and Buddhism because their operational definitions of ego are very different.\nIn Buddhism, ego death is the dissolution of subjective identity into non-being, which amounts to a of revelation of no-self. The death of \nthe ego\n in Jungian terms would not be a revelation; it would be a \npsychosis\n. A psychosis is the dissolution of the ego into the unconscious.  When this happens, the person you once were or once knew is gone, lost in a sea of primordial experience. You can also see this death of the ego in Alzheimer’s and dementia.\nHowever, certain aspects of our ego can die without destroying the personality and, when those aspects die, we say that it is a psychic death. And, as I have already said, dreams about death symbolize psychic death.\nDeath dreams: what does psychic death mean to the ego?\nPsychologically speaking, our ego is the subject of our awareness. The ego is an important\npart\nof a person’s psychic structure\n, \nwhich is why we do not want to dissolve it. However, when the ego believes it is \nthe only thing \nin the psychic structure, then we have problems.\nI like to differentiate between the\nego\nand the\nlimited ego\n. The limited ego is the one who clings to everything: narrow perspectives, old relationships, bad childhoods, good childhoods, money, power, and whatever else.  This kind of gripping attitude triggers a response in the unconscious, a response which often comes in the form of a disturbing dream.  Dreams about death signal that something in you needs to change.\nIn order to find out what that necessary change is, you have to establish the whole context of your death dream: who is dying and under what conditions; what does this person, plant, or animal mean to you; what is your current situation?\nWe’ll explore how to work with death dreams about particular people in the next part of this article. As a sort of introduction to the next piece, I want to talk a little bit about psychological complexes because it is often the case that your dream about death is about psychologically breaking free from a particular complex. You can\nread more about psychological complexes here\n, on my other site, Unfolding the Universe Within.\nDeath dreams and ego-complexes\nAll of us have unconscious \npsychic factors \nwhich act on us autonomously. By autonomous, I mean that these unknown psychic factors can overtake us, despite even the most tremendous efforts to subdue them. You know how it is when you wake up and you’re in \na mood\n.\nThese unknown psychic factors can make us think things or say things when we don’t want to.  They can also induce unwanted moods or flood us with difficult emotions. We call some of these autonomous factors \ncomplexes\n. Complexes are psychic constellations that can act like other personalities. Certain complexes are also behind some states of anxiety or depression. You can read more about this\nhere\non my other site,\nUnfolding the Universe Within\n.\nAs long as we are unaware of these autonomous factors in our psyche, we identify with them. We \nare \nthose anxious thoughts or the depressed moods. We believe all of those negative perceptions and attitudes associated with those moods.\nComplexes are also associated with too-positive thoughts and emotions about a person. In particular, I am thinking of adults who are still far too psychologically attached to their parents.  In fact, dreams of parents dying are very often related to the need to break this infantile psychological attachment. I’ll go more into that when I talk about dreams of parents dying.\nAn example of a negative mother complex\nLet me give you an example of a negative mother complex: a woman who has had a terrible relationship with an unloving mother will often suffer from a recognizable set of psychological signs and symptoms.\nFor example, many of these women suffer from extreme feelings of worthlessness and self-loathing.  Very often they are attacked by terrible inner dialogues in the  middle of the night. Women with a negative mother complex tend to attract destructive women into their lives – women who repeat the abusive patterns of their mother.\nAll of these recognizable signs and symptoms make up the autonomous negative mother complex.\nA terrible mother leaves her destructive imprint in her child. That imprinted negative mother-image links up with all all kinds of associations and psychological triggers.\nThe negative mother-image is an inner figure in a woman’s psyche, and she will appear in terrorizing dreams as the mother herself or other female images who fit the profile.\nA woman with a negative mother complex will come across women in the external world who immediately constellate her mother complex. For example, a boss who reminds you of your horrible mother will trigger that mother complex. This boss may have some of your mother’s qualities, but any hyper-emotional reaction you have to her is your complex.\nIn order to break free from such a complex and free yourself from autonomous triggers, you have to learn to separate yourself (the ego) from the complex and its effects on you. I speak about \nseparation techniques \nhere\nin my post on complexes.\nDreams of mother dying\nthe melting witch as an example of the dissolution of a negative mother complex\nAfter a woman has thoroughly worked with this negative mother complex and its associated effects on her personality, she will often have a dream where the mother dies. This is psychic death. When we speak of psychic death, we are often referring to the death of one’s psychological identification with the complex.\nPsychic death is a powerful signal that you have psychologically broken free from something with which you were once completely identified. The effect this has on a person’s attitude and personality can be transformative, hence the idea of rebirth after death.\nThis is just one example of psychic death, but you can get the general drift of the idea.\nI’ll follow up this general post on dreams about death with specific examples of death dreams. Until then….\nAuthor\nRecent Posts\nLiked it? Take a second to support Real Dream Interpretation on Patreon","attrs_markdown":"- [Nightmare Meaning and Nightmare Disorder: A Jungian Perspective Jesamine Mello Dream meaning January 22, 2020](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/nightmares-meaning-mightmare-disorder\/)\n- [How to Remember Dreams Jesamine Mello Dream meaning October 22, 2023](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/how-to-remember-dreams\/)\n- [The Symbolism of the Snake Jesamine Mello Symbols February 13, 2018](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/symbolism-of-the-snake\/)\n- [Dreams about strangers: Unknown lovers, friends, and foes in our dreams Jesamine Dream meaning April 15, 2018](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-strangers\/)\n- [Dreams About Kissing: The symbolic integration of our personality Jesamine Mello Dreams about people September 5, 2018](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-kissing-symbolic-meaning\/)\n- [The Symbolic Meaning of Dreams About Killing Someone Jesamine Mello Dreams about people September 9, 2018](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/the-symbolic-meaning-of-dreams-about-killing-someone\/)\n- [What your dreams are telling you about your life Jesamine Dream meaning October 27, 2023](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/what-your-dreams-are-telling-you-about-your-life\/)\n- [What Do Dreams Mean? Jesamine Dream meaning October 7, 2023](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/what-do-dreams-mean-personality-development\/)\n- [Sex Dreams: Getting down, and sometimes very dirty, in our dreams Jesamine Mello Dreams about people January 20, 2019](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/sex-dreams\/)\n- [Dreams About Snakes: Symbols of Darkness and Light, Warning and Wisdom Jesamine Mello Snake Dreams November 15, 2018](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-snakes\/)\n- [Dreams about cars: a symbol for how you move through life Jesamine Dream meaning April 11, 2018](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-cars\/)\n- [Dreams About Being Lost Jesamine Mello Personality Development October 27, 2018](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-being-lost\/)\n- [Hidden Meaning in Dreams About Flying: A Jungian Analysis Jesamine Dream meaning December 17, 2023](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/hidden-meaning-in-dreams-about-flying-a-jungian-analysis\/)\n- [What does it mean when a man dreams that he is pregnant? Jesamine Mello Dream meaning September 8, 2018](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/pregnant-man-dreams\/)\n- [Snake bite dreams Jesamine Snake Dreams May 27, 2018](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/snake-bite-dreams\/)\n- [Houses in Dreams: Images of conscious and unconscious psyche Jesamine Mello Places in Dreams December 31, 2018](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/houses-in-dreams\/)\n- [Dreams About Fathers: Free your mind from unconscious influence Jesamine Dreams about people January 27, 2020](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-fathers\/)\n- [Dreams about death: Symbolic Ending and Personal Transformation Jesamine Mello Dream meaning March 14, 2018](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/)\n- [Lion Symbolism and Lion Dreams Jesamine Mello Animals October 10, 2023](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/lion-symbolism-lion-dreams\/)\n- [Dreams of Father Dying: A Symbolic Rite of Passage Jesamine Mello Dreams About Family February 15, 2020](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-father-dying\/)\n\n[![Real Dream Interpretation](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/TRANSPARENT-BG.png)](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/)\n\n[Navigation](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/)\n\n- [Posts on Dream Interpretation & Symbols](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/blog\/)\n- [Dream Interpretation Sessions](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dream-interpretation-sessions-skype\/)\n- [Jung Blog](https:\/\/counselinginzurich.com\/blog-page\/)\n- [Contact\/About](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/about\/)\n- [Disclosure & Ethics](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/non-licensure-disclosure\/)\n\n- [Posts on Dream Interpretation & Symbols](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/blog\/)\n- [Dream Interpretation Sessions](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dream-interpretation-sessions-skype\/)\n- [Jung Blog](https:\/\/counselinginzurich.com\/blog-page\/)\n- [Contact\/About](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/about\/)\n- [Disclosure & Ethics](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/non-licensure-disclosure\/)\n\n![](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/shutterstock_587310263.jpg)\n\n# Dreams about death: Symbolic Ending and Personal Transformation\nIn  [Dream meaning](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/category\/dream-meaning\/ \"View all posts in: “Dream meaning”\") by Jesamine MelloMarch 14, 2018[4 Comments](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#comments \"Post a comment on: “Dreams about death: Symbolic Ending and Personal Transformation”\")\n\n![Dreams about Death - By Aceross Lord Royalty-free stock illustration ID: 587310263](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/shutterstock_587310263.jpg)\n\nTable of Contents - Jump to Section\n\nToggle\n\n- [Dreams About Death](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Dreams_About_Death)\n  - [Dreams about death: synopsis:](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Dreams_about_death_synopsis)\n  - [Dreams about death and life transitions](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Dreams_about_death_and_life_transitions)\n  - [Dreams about death: a message from your inner guide:](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Dreams_about_death_a_message_from_your_inner_guide)\n- [Dreams about Death: Psychic Processes](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Dreams_about_Death_Psychic_Processes)\n- [Dreams about death: psychic death and changing our worldview](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Dreams_about_death_psychic_death_and_changing_our_worldview)\n  - [Dreams about death: questions for your consideration:](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Dreams_about_death_questions_for_your_consideration)\n- [Death dreams: ego death versus psychic death](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Death_dreams_ego_death_versus_psychic_death)\n- [Death dreams: what does psychic death mean to the ego?](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Death_dreams_what_does_psychic_death_mean_to_the_ego)\n- [Death dreams and ego-complexes](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Death_dreams_and_ego-complexes)\n- [An example of a negative mother complex](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#An_example_of_a_negative_mother_complex)\n- [Dreams of mother dying](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Dreams_of_mother_dying)\n  - [Want to learn more about working with dreams or Jungian Psychology?](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Want_to_learn_more_about_working_with_dreams_or_Jungian_Psychology)\n### Dreams About Death\nDreams about death can really freak some people out, so let’s go ahead address what death dreams typically mean. Most dreams about death are symbolic. They are usually not warnings or premonitions about your own death or the death of someone you love. In opposition to what we talked about in the [Dreams of Pregnancy](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/pregnancy-dreams\/) and [Dreams About Babies](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-babies\/) posts, death dreams symbolize the end of of a cycle.\n\n#### Dreams about death: synopsis:\n**Death dreams are similar to drawing the death card in the Tarot deck. They are a signal that *some part of you* is dying or *some phase of your life* is coming to an end. Whoever or whatever is dying in your dream is a symbolic aspect of yourself. The questions to ask yourself about your death dream is:**\n\n**Is it time for this aspect of yourself to die, or, are you killing some crucial aspect of yourself?**\n\n![Dreams about Death - Morgan Greer Tarot deck Death Card](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/death-card.jpg)I am not saying that death dreams are *never* about someone’s actual death because people do have premonitions of death, but in general, this is not the meaning of a death dream. **More often, death dreams symbolize a psychic death in the dreamer, the deeper meaning of which I will talk about throughout this post.**\n\nAs I said in the post on the [Symbolism of the Snake](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/symbolism-of-the-snake\/), *Death*, whether we are speaking literally or symbolically, is a part of the life cycle: birth, death, and rebirth. Rejecting death, hating it, and fearing it only causes you to shrink back from life. Accepting it means having a mature perspective on life.\n\n#### Dreams about death and life transitions\nDeath dreams are very common during periods of psychological transformation or major transition in your life.\n\nSometimes psychological transformation is a conscious process, for example, when you are working through deep issues in psychotherapy, or, when you are going through a divorce.\n\nOther times psychological transformation is unconscious; it’s just a natural process happening beneath the surface of consciousness, for example as in maturation or the slow mending of a broken heart.\n\nThe aim of [dream interpretation](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/) is to make your psychological processes as conscious as possible. This helps you in every aspect of your life, but most especially in the face of suffering.\n\nFor many, any kind of change is hard to face, especially when it comes to *endings.* People have an abject aversion to endings,whether we are talking about the end of life or the end of some aspect of life. Because of this aversion to endings, people sometimes desperately cling to anything they don’t want to let go of.\n\n#### Dreams about death: a message from your inner guide:\n**If you are clinging to something and you have a death dream, this is psyche’s way of saying, “It’s okay. You are ready to let go.”**\n### Dreams about Death: Psychic Processes\nBefore I talk about particular dreams about death, I want to say something about the dynamics of the human mind*.*  If you want to [do your own dream interpretations](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/#How_to_Decipher_Dream_Meaning), it’s important for you to understand the theory behind it. Don’t blindly trust inadequate dream dictionaries or the many dream websites which regurgitate the same thing about dreams and symbols.\n\n[Real dream interpretation](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/) is about gaining a deeper knowledge of yourself through open and honest self-reflection. So, don’t let dreams about death scare you. Treat every dream as [a guide from beyond](https:\/\/unfoldingtheuniversewithin.com\/anxiety-depression-jungian-perspective\/), telling you that you are ready to transform something in your life.\n\n### Dreams about death: psychic death and changing our worldview\nIn Jungian psychology, when we speak of *psychic death*, we are referring to the dissolution of a particular *psychic factor* in you. By *psychic factor* I mean an observable pattern in your personality. A really extreme example of this pattern would be someone who has a bonafide phobia of spiders. Every time that person sees a spider, he *uncontrollably* has the same reaction.\n\n![Dreams about death and perception: LANA Photography Royalty-free stock photo ID: 702710299](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/shutterstock_702710299.jpg)Some of our psychic patterns are more difficult for us to recognize because they are so deeply merged with our identity. It’s a pattern that we don’t even consider questioning.\n\nWhen something is unquestionably merged with our identity, it’s unconscious. Take for example our general outlook on life – the lens through which we see the world, such as a tendency to see our experiences only through a negative light. This is something you can change. It is not *who you are*.\n\nOther examples would be mistrust in the world, fear of change, self-loathing, generalized anxiety, or self-doubt. All of these are psychic patterns that can be transformed. You are not trapped by anything.\n\n**Dreams about death can signal that it is time for you to change your outlook or attitude**\n\n#### Dreams about death: questions for your consideration:\n**Reflect on the symbolism of whatever or whoever died in your death dreams.**\n\n**What are your associations?**\n\n**How do these associations relate to your current attitude or state of mind?**\n\n**Is there any connection you can make?**\n\nEverything we see, feel, or think is a psychic pattern. Even our relationships with others have an underlying psychic pattern. Some of our psychic patterns are healthy and others are not. Many psychic patterns were seeded in our childhoods and are still blossoming well into in adulthood. Dreams about death involving children can be an indication of an infantile pattern that needs to die.\n\n![Dreams about death - By BackgroundStore Royalty-free stock photo ID: 392885260](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/shutterstock_392885260.jpg)Other psychic patterns established themselves through repeated life experiences, for example repeatedly engaging in destructive relationships. Dreams about death involving former lovers or friends can be an indication that you need to put an end to this pattern.\n\nAnd still others are archetypal patterns of human existence, such as puberty, birth, and death. Any of these psychic patterns can image themselves in dreams.\n\nWhat is important to remember about all of your dreams is that they are images of the unconscious aspects of your psychic patterns.\n\n### Death dreams: ego death versus psychic death\n![Death Dreams: ego death By GoodStudio Royalty-free stock vector ID: 752177950](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Webp.net-resizeimage-31.jpg)Though many people try to equate them, psychic death and ego death are not synonymous in the lexicon of Jung’s psychology.\n\nPeople also like to associate psychic death with ego death in Buddhism. In terms of defining *ego*, you can’t compare Jungian psychology and Buddhism because their operational definitions of ego are very different.\n\nIn Buddhism, ego death is the dissolution of subjective identity into non-being, which amounts to a of revelation of no-self. The death of *the ego* in Jungian terms would not be a revelation; it would be a *psychosis*. A psychosis is the dissolution of the ego into the unconscious. When this happens, the person you once were or once knew is gone, lost in a sea of primordial experience. You can also see this death of the ego in Alzheimer’s and dementia.\n\nHowever, certain aspects of our ego can die without destroying the personality and, when those aspects die, we say that it is a psychic death. And, as I have already said, dreams about death symbolize psychic death.\n\n### Death dreams: what does psychic death mean to the ego?\n![Dreams about Death - Skull image By Stokkete Royalty-free stock photo ID: 313461806](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/death-skull.jpg)Psychologically speaking, our ego is the subject of our awareness. The ego is an important *part* of a person’s psychic structure*,* which is why we do not want to dissolve it. However, when the ego believes it is *the only thing* in the psychic structure, then we have problems.\n\nI like to differentiate between the *ego* and the *limited ego*. The limited ego is the one who clings to everything: narrow perspectives, old relationships, bad childhoods, good childhoods, money, power, and whatever else. This kind of gripping attitude triggers a response in the unconscious, a response which often comes in the form of a disturbing dream. Dreams about death signal that something in you needs to change.\n\n**In order to find out what that necessary change is, you have to establish the whole context of your death dream: who is dying and under what conditions; what does this person, plant, or animal mean to you; what is your current situation?**\n\nWe’ll explore how to work with death dreams about particular people in the next part of this article. As a sort of introduction to the next piece, I want to talk a little bit about psychological complexes because it is often the case that your dream about death is about psychologically breaking free from a particular complex. You can [read more about psychological complexes here](https:\/\/unfoldingtheuniversewithin.com\/anxiety-depression-jungian-perspective\/#complexes), on my other site, Unfolding the Universe Within.\n\n### Death dreams and ego-complexes\n![Dreams about death and ego complexes - By Oleg Golovnev Royalty-free stock photo ID: 382121578](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/shutterstock_382121578.jpg)All of us have unconscious *psychic factors* which act on us autonomously. By autonomous, I mean that these unknown psychic factors can overtake us, despite even the most tremendous efforts to subdue them. You know how it is when you wake up and you’re in *a mood*.\n\nThese unknown psychic factors can make us think things or say things when we don’t want to. They can also induce unwanted moods or flood us with difficult emotions. We call some of these autonomous factors *complexes*. Complexes are psychic constellations that can act like other personalities. Certain complexes are also behind some states of anxiety or depression. You can read more about this [here](https:\/\/unfoldingtheuniversewithin.com\/anxiety-depression-jungian-perspective\/) on my other site, [Unfolding the Universe Within](https:\/\/unfoldingtheuniversewithin.com\/).\n\nAs long as we are unaware of these autonomous factors in our psyche, we identify with them. We *are* those anxious thoughts or the depressed moods. We believe all of those negative perceptions and attitudes associated with those moods.\n\nComplexes are also associated with too-positive thoughts and emotions about a person. In particular, I am thinking of adults who are still far too psychologically attached to their parents. In fact, dreams of parents dying are very often related to the need to break this infantile psychological attachment. I’ll go more into that when I talk about dreams of parents dying.\n\n### An example of a negative mother complex\n![Dreams about Death - Wicked witch of the West as negative mother](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/wicked-witch.png)Let me give you an example of a negative mother complex: a woman who has had a terrible relationship with an unloving mother will often suffer from a recognizable set of psychological signs and symptoms.\n\nFor example, many of these women suffer from extreme feelings of worthlessness and self-loathing. Very often they are attacked by terrible inner dialogues in the middle of the night. Women with a negative mother complex tend to attract destructive women into their lives – women who repeat the abusive patterns of their mother.\n\nAll of these recognizable signs and symptoms make up the autonomous negative mother complex.\n\nA terrible mother leaves her destructive imprint in her child. That imprinted negative mother-image links up with all all kinds of associations and psychological triggers.\n\n**The negative mother-image is an inner figure in a woman’s psyche, and she will appear in terrorizing dreams as the mother herself or other female images who fit the profile.**\n\nA woman with a negative mother complex will come across women in the external world who immediately constellate her mother complex. For example, a boss who reminds you of your horrible mother will trigger that mother complex. This boss may have some of your mother’s qualities, but any hyper-emotional reaction you have to her is your complex.\n\nIn order to break free from such a complex and free yourself from autonomous triggers, you have to learn to separate yourself (the ego) from the complex and its effects on you. I speak about *separation techniques* [here](https:\/\/unfoldingtheuniversewithin.com\/anxiety-depression-jungian-perspective\/#complexes) in my post on complexes.\n\n### Dreams of mother dying\n![Death dreams - Wicked witch of the West as negative mother](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/witch-melt.jpg)\n\nthe melting witch as an example of the dissolution of a negative mother complex\n\nAfter a woman has thoroughly worked with this negative mother complex and its associated effects on her personality, she will often have a dream where the mother dies. This is psychic death. When we speak of psychic death, we are often referring to the death of one’s psychological identification with the complex.\n\nPsychic death is a powerful signal that you have psychologically broken free from something with which you were once completely identified. The effect this has on a person’s attitude and personality can be transformative, hence the idea of rebirth after death.\n\nThis is just one example of psychic death, but you can get the general drift of the idea.\n\nI’ll follow up this general post on dreams about death with specific examples of death dreams. Until then….\n\n#### Want to learn more about working with dreams or Jungian Psychology?\n- [Author](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#abh_about)\n- [Recent Posts](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#abh_posts)\n\n[![Jesamine Mello](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/gravatar\/mojime.jpg)](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/author\/jesamine-mellogmail-com\/ \"Jesamine Mello\")\n\n[Jesamine Mello](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/author\/jesamine-mellogmail-com\/)\n\n[![Jesamine Mello](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/gravatar\/mojime.jpg)](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/author\/jesamine-mellogmail-com\/ \"Jesamine Mello\")\n\nLatest posts by Jesamine Mello ([see all](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/author\/jesamine-mellogmail-com\/))\n\n- [How to Remember Dreams](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/how-to-remember-dreams\/) - October 22, 2023\n- [The Power and Mystique of Hand Symbolism](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/hands-symbolism-meaning\/) - October 14, 2023\n- [Lion Symbolism and Lion Dreams](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/lion-symbolism-lion-dreams\/) - October 10, 2023\n\nLiked it? Take a second to support Real Dream Interpretation on Patreon\n\n[![Become a patron at Patreon\\!](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/patron-button-and-widgets-by-codebard\/images\/become_a_patron_button.png)](https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/realdreaminterpretation?fan_landing=true&utm_content=post_button&utm_medium=patron_button_and_widgets_plugin&utm_campaign=4999630&utm_term=&utm_source=https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/)\n\nShare this Post\n\nSubscribe\n\n[Login](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-login.php?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Frealdreaminterpretation.com%2Fdreams-about-death%2F)\n\n4 Comments\n\nNewest\n\nOldest Most Voted\n\nInline Feedbacks\n\nView all comments\n\n![M -](https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c70168f450437e939a2282e024b7d2f7acce17abda9c985ac4f1c1cacc9a9117?s=64&d=mm&r=pg)\n\n[M -](https:\/\/m2labs.wordpress.com\/)\n\nGuest\n\n5 years ago\n\nLast night’s dream was not the first time I was preparing to be executed, but this time it was by someone I knew. Right before he pulled the trigger I was telling my cat (was he to be executed as well????) that I’d “meet him on the other side.” I was also telling Diego and Ortoloni (two beloved cats I had lost) that I’d “see them soon.” I awoke before the trigger was pulled and, of course, was feeling heartbroken. Tears welling up. Am I worried about losing others that I love dearly? The relationship involving the assassin was a… Read more »\n\n0\n\nReply\n\n![Wesley](https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/920e1d3da91b1b0b103db03b8e265c6171dc55047d7e8a10da9b7b39e02ce963?s=64&d=mm&r=pg)\n\nWesley\n\nGuest\n\n6 years ago\n\nI come to the comment section on this page in a somewhat desperate state, after reading through many of the incredible, insightful articles on your site. First I want to thank you for putting Jung’s theories in such clear, beautiful language, which resonates with me deeply. I am an avid reader of Jung, but your particular phrasing of his ideas has taught me so much in a relatively short time. I’m a young woman, a college grad still living at home with her parents four years after graduating, currently unemployed and with dreams of being a writer. I have struggled… Read more »\n\n0\n\nReply\n\n[![Jesamine Mello](https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c3df7e90afb02d3b25f0556a5514c6c219cd894f4d74b6dde656131be4e2b172?s=64&d=mm&r=pg)](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/author\/jesamine-mellogmail-com\/)\n\n[Jesamine Mello](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/author\/jesamine-mellogmail-com\/)\n\nAuthor\n\nReply to  [Wesley](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#comment-209)\n\n6 years ago\n\nHi there, thanks for your comment and dream. It’s always good to hear that someone can appreciate the work I have put into this site. First, I think the initial addiction to feedback about your writing is understandable, but as you can see already, it eventually contaminates the passion. To dream of being shot in the head is actually common. I see these dreams often. The question of meaning always revolves around what is happening in the dreamer’s life at the time of the dream. What stands out for me in your dream is the “gentle nature” of your assassin. … Read more »\n\n0\n\nReply\n\n![Wesley](https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/920e1d3da91b1b0b103db03b8e265c6171dc55047d7e8a10da9b7b39e02ce963?s=64&d=mm&r=pg)\n\nWesley\n\nGuest\n\nReply to  [Jesamine Mello](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#comment-210)\n\n6 years ago\n\nHi Jesamine,\n\nThank you so much for your swift, thoughtful response. My immediate reaction to the association between Nurse Jackie and functional addiction was like an “a-ha” moment. I am going to spend some more time exploring these dreams with your comments in mind. I already feel clearer about which direction to take with my research, thanks to your associations.\n\nIt is inspiring to see how you have turned your passion into a wonderful healing resource for others. I wish you all the best with your work. Thank you again for your time\\!\n\n0\n\nReply\n\n#### Privacy and Legal\n- [Privacy Policy](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/privacy-policy\/)\n\nAll Rights Reserved © Real Dream Interpretation & Jesamine Mello\n\nPowered with ♥♥♥ by JsM\n\n[contact@realdreaminterpretation.com](<mailto: contact@realdreaminterpretation.com>)\n\nWE ARE A PARTICIPANT IN THE AMAZON SERVICES LLC ASSOCIATES PROGRAM, AN AFFILIATE ADVERTISING PROGRAM DESIGNED TO PROVIDE A MEANS FOR US TO EARN FEES BY LINKING TO AMAZON.COM AND AFFILIATED SITES.\n\n- [Privacy Policy](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/privacy-policy\/)\n\nwpDiscuz\n\n4\n\n0\n\nWould love your thoughts, please comment.[x](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/)\n\n()\n\n[x](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/)\n\n\\| [Reply](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/)\n\nInsert","attrs_readable_markdown":"![Dreams about Death - By Aceross Lord Royalty-free stock illustration ID: 587310263](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/shutterstock_587310263.jpg)\n\nTable of Contents - Jump to Section\n\n- [Dreams About Death](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Dreams_About_Death)\n  - [Dreams about death: synopsis:](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Dreams_about_death_synopsis)\n  - [Dreams about death and life transitions](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Dreams_about_death_and_life_transitions)\n  - [Dreams about death: a message from your inner guide:](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Dreams_about_death_a_message_from_your_inner_guide)\n- [Dreams about Death: Psychic Processes](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Dreams_about_Death_Psychic_Processes)\n- [Dreams about death: psychic death and changing our worldview](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Dreams_about_death_psychic_death_and_changing_our_worldview)\n  - [Dreams about death: questions for your consideration:](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Dreams_about_death_questions_for_your_consideration)\n- [Death dreams: ego death versus psychic death](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Death_dreams_ego_death_versus_psychic_death)\n- [Death dreams: what does psychic death mean to the ego?](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Death_dreams_what_does_psychic_death_mean_to_the_ego)\n- [Death dreams and ego-complexes](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Death_dreams_and_ego-complexes)\n- [An example of a negative mother complex](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#An_example_of_a_negative_mother_complex)\n- [Dreams of mother dying](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Dreams_of_mother_dying)\n  - [Want to learn more about working with dreams or Jungian Psychology?](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#Want_to_learn_more_about_working_with_dreams_or_Jungian_Psychology)\n### Dreams About Death\nDreams about death can really freak some people out, so let’s go ahead address what death dreams typically mean. Most dreams about death are symbolic. They are usually not warnings or premonitions about your own death or the death of someone you love. In opposition to what we talked about in the [Dreams of Pregnancy](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/pregnancy-dreams\/) and [Dreams About Babies](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-babies\/) posts, death dreams symbolize the end of of a cycle.\n\n#### Dreams about death: synopsis:\n**Death dreams are similar to drawing the death card in the Tarot deck. They are a signal that *some part of you* is dying or *some phase of your life* is coming to an end. Whoever or whatever is dying in your dream is a symbolic aspect of yourself. The questions to ask yourself about your death dream is:**\n\n**Is it time for this aspect of yourself to die, or, are you killing some crucial aspect of yourself?**\n\n![Dreams about Death - Morgan Greer Tarot deck Death Card](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/death-card.jpg)I am not saying that death dreams are *never* about someone’s actual death because people do have premonitions of death, but in general, this is not the meaning of a death dream. **More often, death dreams symbolize a psychic death in the dreamer, the deeper meaning of which I will talk about throughout this post.**\n\nAs I said in the post on the [Symbolism of the Snake](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/symbolism-of-the-snake\/), *Death*, whether we are speaking literally or symbolically, is a part of the life cycle: birth, death, and rebirth. Rejecting death, hating it, and fearing it only causes you to shrink back from life. Accepting it means having a mature perspective on life.\n\n#### Dreams about death and life transitions\nDeath dreams are very common during periods of psychological transformation or major transition in your life.\n\nSometimes psychological transformation is a conscious process, for example, when you are working through deep issues in psychotherapy, or, when you are going through a divorce.\n\nOther times psychological transformation is unconscious; it’s just a natural process happening beneath the surface of consciousness, for example as in maturation or the slow mending of a broken heart.\n\nThe aim of [dream interpretation](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/) is to make your psychological processes as conscious as possible. This helps you in every aspect of your life, but most especially in the face of suffering.\n\nFor many, any kind of change is hard to face, especially when it comes to *endings.* People have an abject aversion to endings,whether we are talking about the end of life or the end of some aspect of life. Because of this aversion to endings, people sometimes desperately cling to anything they don’t want to let go of.\n\n#### Dreams about death: a message from your inner guide:\n**If you are clinging to something and you have a death dream, this is psyche’s way of saying, “It’s okay. You are ready to let go.”**\n### Dreams about Death: Psychic Processes\nBefore I talk about particular dreams about death, I want to say something about the dynamics of the human mind*.*  If you want to [do your own dream interpretations](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/#How_to_Decipher_Dream_Meaning), it’s important for you to understand the theory behind it. Don’t blindly trust inadequate dream dictionaries or the many dream websites which regurgitate the same thing about dreams and symbols.\n\n[Real dream interpretation](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/) is about gaining a deeper knowledge of yourself through open and honest self-reflection. So, don’t let dreams about death scare you. Treat every dream as [a guide from beyond](https:\/\/unfoldingtheuniversewithin.com\/anxiety-depression-jungian-perspective\/), telling you that you are ready to transform something in your life.\n\n### Dreams about death: psychic death and changing our worldview\nIn Jungian psychology, when we speak of *psychic death*, we are referring to the dissolution of a particular *psychic factor* in you. By *psychic factor* I mean an observable pattern in your personality. A really extreme example of this pattern would be someone who has a bonafide phobia of spiders. Every time that person sees a spider, he *uncontrollably* has the same reaction.\n\n![Dreams about death and perception: LANA Photography Royalty-free stock photo ID: 702710299](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/shutterstock_702710299.jpg)Some of our psychic patterns are more difficult for us to recognize because they are so deeply merged with our identity. It’s a pattern that we don’t even consider questioning.\n\nWhen something is unquestionably merged with our identity, it’s unconscious. Take for example our general outlook on life – the lens through which we see the world, such as a tendency to see our experiences only through a negative light. This is something you can change. It is not *who you are*.\n\nOther examples would be mistrust in the world, fear of change, self-loathing, generalized anxiety, or self-doubt. All of these are psychic patterns that can be transformed. You are not trapped by anything.\n\n**Dreams about death can signal that it is time for you to change your outlook or attitude**\n\n#### Dreams about death: questions for your consideration:\n**Reflect on the symbolism of whatever or whoever died in your death dreams.**\n\n**What are your associations?**\n\n**How do these associations relate to your current attitude or state of mind?**\n\n**Is there any connection you can make?**\n\nEverything we see, feel, or think is a psychic pattern. Even our relationships with others have an underlying psychic pattern. Some of our psychic patterns are healthy and others are not. Many psychic patterns were seeded in our childhoods and are still blossoming well into in adulthood. Dreams about death involving children can be an indication of an infantile pattern that needs to die.\n\n![Dreams about death - By BackgroundStore Royalty-free stock photo ID: 392885260](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/shutterstock_392885260.jpg)Other psychic patterns established themselves through repeated life experiences, for example repeatedly engaging in destructive relationships. Dreams about death involving former lovers or friends can be an indication that you need to put an end to this pattern.\n\nAnd still others are archetypal patterns of human existence, such as puberty, birth, and death. Any of these psychic patterns can image themselves in dreams.\n\nWhat is important to remember about all of your dreams is that they are images of the unconscious aspects of your psychic patterns.\n\n### Death dreams: ego death versus psychic death\n![Death Dreams: ego death By GoodStudio Royalty-free stock vector ID: 752177950](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Webp.net-resizeimage-31.jpg)Though many people try to equate them, psychic death and ego death are not synonymous in the lexicon of Jung’s psychology.\n\nPeople also like to associate psychic death with ego death in Buddhism. In terms of defining *ego*, you can’t compare Jungian psychology and Buddhism because their operational definitions of ego are very different.\n\nIn Buddhism, ego death is the dissolution of subjective identity into non-being, which amounts to a of revelation of no-self. The death of *the ego* in Jungian terms would not be a revelation; it would be a *psychosis*. A psychosis is the dissolution of the ego into the unconscious. When this happens, the person you once were or once knew is gone, lost in a sea of primordial experience. You can also see this death of the ego in Alzheimer’s and dementia.\n\nHowever, certain aspects of our ego can die without destroying the personality and, when those aspects die, we say that it is a psychic death. And, as I have already said, dreams about death symbolize psychic death.\n\n### Death dreams: what does psychic death mean to the ego?\n![Dreams about Death - Skull image By Stokkete Royalty-free stock photo ID: 313461806](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/death-skull.jpg)Psychologically speaking, our ego is the subject of our awareness. The ego is an important *part* of a person’s psychic structure*,* which is why we do not want to dissolve it. However, when the ego believes it is *the only thing* in the psychic structure, then we have problems.\n\nI like to differentiate between the *ego* and the *limited ego*. The limited ego is the one who clings to everything: narrow perspectives, old relationships, bad childhoods, good childhoods, money, power, and whatever else. This kind of gripping attitude triggers a response in the unconscious, a response which often comes in the form of a disturbing dream. Dreams about death signal that something in you needs to change.\n\n**In order to find out what that necessary change is, you have to establish the whole context of your death dream: who is dying and under what conditions; what does this person, plant, or animal mean to you; what is your current situation?**\n\nWe’ll explore how to work with death dreams about particular people in the next part of this article. As a sort of introduction to the next piece, I want to talk a little bit about psychological complexes because it is often the case that your dream about death is about psychologically breaking free from a particular complex. You can [read more about psychological complexes here](https:\/\/unfoldingtheuniversewithin.com\/anxiety-depression-jungian-perspective\/#complexes), on my other site, Unfolding the Universe Within.\n\n### Death dreams and ego-complexes\n![Dreams about death and ego complexes - By Oleg Golovnev Royalty-free stock photo ID: 382121578](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/shutterstock_382121578.jpg)All of us have unconscious *psychic factors* which act on us autonomously. By autonomous, I mean that these unknown psychic factors can overtake us, despite even the most tremendous efforts to subdue them. You know how it is when you wake up and you’re in *a mood*.\n\nThese unknown psychic factors can make us think things or say things when we don’t want to. They can also induce unwanted moods or flood us with difficult emotions. We call some of these autonomous factors *complexes*. Complexes are psychic constellations that can act like other personalities. Certain complexes are also behind some states of anxiety or depression. You can read more about this [here](https:\/\/unfoldingtheuniversewithin.com\/anxiety-depression-jungian-perspective\/) on my other site, [Unfolding the Universe Within](https:\/\/unfoldingtheuniversewithin.com\/).\n\nAs long as we are unaware of these autonomous factors in our psyche, we identify with them. We *are* those anxious thoughts or the depressed moods. We believe all of those negative perceptions and attitudes associated with those moods.\n\nComplexes are also associated with too-positive thoughts and emotions about a person. In particular, I am thinking of adults who are still far too psychologically attached to their parents. In fact, dreams of parents dying are very often related to the need to break this infantile psychological attachment. I’ll go more into that when I talk about dreams of parents dying.\n\n### An example of a negative mother complex\n![Dreams about Death - Wicked witch of the West as negative mother](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/wicked-witch.png)Let me give you an example of a negative mother complex: a woman who has had a terrible relationship with an unloving mother will often suffer from a recognizable set of psychological signs and symptoms.\n\nFor example, many of these women suffer from extreme feelings of worthlessness and self-loathing. Very often they are attacked by terrible inner dialogues in the middle of the night. Women with a negative mother complex tend to attract destructive women into their lives – women who repeat the abusive patterns of their mother.\n\nAll of these recognizable signs and symptoms make up the autonomous negative mother complex.\n\nA terrible mother leaves her destructive imprint in her child. That imprinted negative mother-image links up with all all kinds of associations and psychological triggers.\n\n**The negative mother-image is an inner figure in a woman’s psyche, and she will appear in terrorizing dreams as the mother herself or other female images who fit the profile.**\n\nA woman with a negative mother complex will come across women in the external world who immediately constellate her mother complex. For example, a boss who reminds you of your horrible mother will trigger that mother complex. This boss may have some of your mother’s qualities, but any hyper-emotional reaction you have to her is your complex.\n\nIn order to break free from such a complex and free yourself from autonomous triggers, you have to learn to separate yourself (the ego) from the complex and its effects on you. I speak about *separation techniques* [here](https:\/\/unfoldingtheuniversewithin.com\/anxiety-depression-jungian-perspective\/#complexes) in my post on complexes.\n\n### Dreams of mother dying\n![Death dreams - Wicked witch of the West as negative mother](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/witch-melt.jpg)\n\nthe melting witch as an example of the dissolution of a negative mother complex\n\nAfter a woman has thoroughly worked with this negative mother complex and its associated effects on her personality, she will often have a dream where the mother dies. This is psychic death. When we speak of psychic death, we are often referring to the death of one’s psychological identification with the complex.\n\nPsychic death is a powerful signal that you have psychologically broken free from something with which you were once completely identified. The effect this has on a person’s attitude and personality can be transformative, hence the idea of rebirth after death.\n\nThis is just one example of psychic death, but you can get the general drift of the idea.\n\nI’ll follow up this general post on dreams about death with specific examples of death dreams. Until then….\n\n- [Author](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#abh_about)\n- [Recent Posts](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/#abh_posts)\n\n[![Jesamine Mello](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/gravatar\/mojime.jpg)](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/author\/jesamine-mellogmail-com\/ \"Jesamine Mello\")\n\n[![Jesamine Mello](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/gravatar\/mojime.jpg)](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/author\/jesamine-mellogmail-com\/ \"Jesamine Mello\")\n\nLiked it? Take a second to support Real Dream Interpretation on Patreon\n\n[![Become a patron at Patreon\\!](https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/patron-button-and-widgets-by-codebard\/images\/become_a_patron_button.png)](https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/realdreaminterpretation?fan_landing=true&utm_content=post_button&utm_medium=patron_button_and_widgets_plugin&utm_campaign=4999630&utm_term=&utm_source=https:\/\/realdreaminterpretation.com\/dreams-about-death\/)","meta_canonical":null}

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Meta Title	Dreams about death: what they mean and how to interpret them
Meta Description	Death dreams are typically not premonitions; they are symbolic. Dreams about death are a signal that something in you is dying. The question to ask about your death dream is: is it time for this aspect of yourself to die, or, are you killing some crucial aspect of yourself?, Death dreams are typically not premonitions; they are symbolic. Dreams about death are a signal that something in you is dying. The question to ask about your death dream is: is it time for this aspect of yourself to die, or, are you killing some crucial aspect of yourself?
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Boilerpipe Text	Table of Contents - Jump to Section Dreams About Death Dreams about death: synopsis: Dreams about death and life transitions Dreams about death: a message from your inner guide: Dreams about Death: Psychic Processes Dreams about death: psychic death and changing our worldview Dreams about death: questions for your consideration: Death dreams: ego death versus psychic death Death dreams: what does psychic death mean to the ego? Death dreams and ego-complexes An example of a negative mother complex Dreams of mother dying Want to learn more about working with dreams or Jungian Psychology? Dreams About Death Dreams about death can really freak some people out, so let’s go ahead address what death dreams typically mean. Most dreams about death are symbolic. They are usually not warnings or premonitions about your own death or the death of someone you love. In opposition to what we talked about in the Dreams of Pregnancy and Dreams About Babies posts, death dreams symbolize the end of of a cycle. Dreams about death: synopsis: Death dreams are similar to drawing the death card in the Tarot deck. They are a signal that some part of you is dying or some phase of your life is coming to an end. Whoever or whatever is dying in your dream is a symbolic aspect of yourself. The questions to ask yourself about your death dream is: Is it time for this aspect of yourself to die, or, are you killing some crucial aspect of yourself? I am not saying that death dreams are never about someone’s actual death because people do have premonitions of death, but in general, this is not the meaning of a death dream. More often, death dreams symbolize a psychic death in the dreamer, the deeper meaning of which I will talk about throughout this post. As I said in the post on the Symbolism of the Snake , Death , whether we are speaking literally or symbolically, is a part of the life cycle: birth, death, and rebirth. Rejecting death, hating it, and fearing it only causes you to shrink back from life. Accepting it means having a mature perspective on life. Dreams about death and life transitions Death dreams are very common during periods of psychological transformation or major transition in your life. Sometimes psychological transformation is a conscious process, for example, when you are working through deep issues in psychotherapy, or, when you are going through a divorce. Other times psychological transformation is unconscious; it’s just a natural process happening beneath the surface of consciousness, for example as in maturation or the slow mending of a broken heart. The aim of dream interpretation is to make your psychological processes as conscious as possible. This helps you in every aspect of your life, but most especially in the face of suffering. For many, any kind of change is hard to face, especially when it comes to endings. People have an abject aversion to endings, whether we are talking about the end of life or the end of some aspect of life. Because of this aversion to endings, people sometimes desperately cling to anything they don’t want to let go of. Dreams about death: a message from your inner guide: If you are clinging to something and you have a death dream, this is psyche’s way of saying, “It’s okay. You are ready to let go.” Dreams about Death: Psychic Processes Before I talk about particular dreams about death, I want to say something about the dynamics of the human mind . If you want to do your own dream interpretations , it’s important for you to understand the theory behind it. Don’t blindly trust inadequate dream dictionaries or the many dream websites which regurgitate the same thing about dreams and symbols. Real dream interpretation is about gaining a deeper knowledge of yourself through open and honest self-reflection. So, don’t let dreams about death scare you. Treat every dream as a guide from beyond , telling you that you are ready to transform something in your life. Dreams about death: psychic death and changing our worldview In Jungian psychology, when we speak of psychic death , we are referring to the dissolution of a particular psychic factor in you. By psychic factor I mean an observable pattern in your personality. A really extreme example of this pattern would be someone who has a bonafide phobia of spiders. Every time that person sees a spider, he uncontrollably has the same reaction. Some of our psychic patterns are more difficult for us to recognize because they are so deeply merged with our identity. It’s a pattern that we don’t even consider questioning. When something is unquestionably merged with our identity, it’s unconscious. Take for example our general outlook on life – the lens through which we see the world, such as a tendency to see our experiences only through a negative light. This is something you can change. It is not who you are . Other examples would be mistrust in the world, fear of change, self-loathing, generalized anxiety, or self-doubt. All of these are psychic patterns that can be transformed. You are not trapped by anything. Dreams about death can signal that it is time for you to change your outlook or attitude Dreams about death: questions for your consideration: Reflect on the symbolism of whatever or whoever died in your death dreams. What are your associations? How do these associations relate to your current attitude or state of mind? Is there any connection you can make? Everything we see, feel, or think is a psychic pattern. Even our relationships with others have an underlying psychic pattern. Some of our psychic patterns are healthy and others are not. Many psychic patterns were seeded in our childhoods and are still blossoming well into in adulthood. Dreams about death involving children can be an indication of an infantile pattern that needs to die. Other psychic patterns established themselves through repeated life experiences, for example repeatedly engaging in destructive relationships. Dreams about death involving former lovers or friends can be an indication that you need to put an end to this pattern. And still others are archetypal patterns of human existence, such as puberty, birth, and death. Any of these psychic patterns can image themselves in dreams. What is important to remember about all of your dreams is that they are images of the unconscious aspects of your psychic patterns. Death dreams: ego death versus psychic death Though many people try to equate them, psychic death and ego death are not synonymous in the lexicon of Jung’s psychology. People also like to associate psychic death with ego death in Buddhism. In terms of defining ego , you can’t compare Jungian psychology and Buddhism because their operational definitions of ego are very different. In Buddhism, ego death is the dissolution of subjective identity into non-being, which amounts to a of revelation of no-self. The death of the ego in Jungian terms would not be a revelation; it would be a psychosis . A psychosis is the dissolution of the ego into the unconscious. When this happens, the person you once were or once knew is gone, lost in a sea of primordial experience. You can also see this death of the ego in Alzheimer’s and dementia. However, certain aspects of our ego can die without destroying the personality and, when those aspects die, we say that it is a psychic death. And, as I have already said, dreams about death symbolize psychic death. Death dreams: what does psychic death mean to the ego? Psychologically speaking, our ego is the subject of our awareness. The ego is an important part of a person’s psychic structure , which is why we do not want to dissolve it. However, when the ego believes it is the only thing in the psychic structure, then we have problems. I like to differentiate between the ego and the limited ego . The limited ego is the one who clings to everything: narrow perspectives, old relationships, bad childhoods, good childhoods, money, power, and whatever else. This kind of gripping attitude triggers a response in the unconscious, a response which often comes in the form of a disturbing dream. Dreams about death signal that something in you needs to change. In order to find out what that necessary change is, you have to establish the whole context of your death dream: who is dying and under what conditions; what does this person, plant, or animal mean to you; what is your current situation? We’ll explore how to work with death dreams about particular people in the next part of this article. As a sort of introduction to the next piece, I want to talk a little bit about psychological complexes because it is often the case that your dream about death is about psychologically breaking free from a particular complex. You can read more about psychological complexes here , on my other site, Unfolding the Universe Within. Death dreams and ego-complexes All of us have unconscious psychic factors which act on us autonomously. By autonomous, I mean that these unknown psychic factors can overtake us, despite even the most tremendous efforts to subdue them. You know how it is when you wake up and you’re in a mood . These unknown psychic factors can make us think things or say things when we don’t want to. They can also induce unwanted moods or flood us with difficult emotions. We call some of these autonomous factors complexes . Complexes are psychic constellations that can act like other personalities. Certain complexes are also behind some states of anxiety or depression. You can read more about this here on my other site, Unfolding the Universe Within . As long as we are unaware of these autonomous factors in our psyche, we identify with them. We are those anxious thoughts or the depressed moods. We believe all of those negative perceptions and attitudes associated with those moods. Complexes are also associated with too-positive thoughts and emotions about a person. In particular, I am thinking of adults who are still far too psychologically attached to their parents. In fact, dreams of parents dying are very often related to the need to break this infantile psychological attachment. I’ll go more into that when I talk about dreams of parents dying. An example of a negative mother complex Let me give you an example of a negative mother complex: a woman who has had a terrible relationship with an unloving mother will often suffer from a recognizable set of psychological signs and symptoms. For example, many of these women suffer from extreme feelings of worthlessness and self-loathing. Very often they are attacked by terrible inner dialogues in the middle of the night. Women with a negative mother complex tend to attract destructive women into their lives – women who repeat the abusive patterns of their mother. All of these recognizable signs and symptoms make up the autonomous negative mother complex. A terrible mother leaves her destructive imprint in her child. That imprinted negative mother-image links up with all all kinds of associations and psychological triggers. The negative mother-image is an inner figure in a woman’s psyche, and she will appear in terrorizing dreams as the mother herself or other female images who fit the profile. A woman with a negative mother complex will come across women in the external world who immediately constellate her mother complex. For example, a boss who reminds you of your horrible mother will trigger that mother complex. This boss may have some of your mother’s qualities, but any hyper-emotional reaction you have to her is your complex. In order to break free from such a complex and free yourself from autonomous triggers, you have to learn to separate yourself (the ego) from the complex and its effects on you. I speak about separation techniques here in my post on complexes. Dreams of mother dying the melting witch as an example of the dissolution of a negative mother complex After a woman has thoroughly worked with this negative mother complex and its associated effects on her personality, she will often have a dream where the mother dies. This is psychic death. When we speak of psychic death, we are often referring to the death of one’s psychological identification with the complex. Psychic death is a powerful signal that you have psychologically broken free from something with which you were once completely identified. The effect this has on a person’s attitude and personality can be transformative, hence the idea of rebirth after death. This is just one example of psychic death, but you can get the general drift of the idea. I’ll follow up this general post on dreams about death with specific examples of death dreams. Until then…. Author Recent Posts Liked it? Take a second to support Real Dream Interpretation on Patreon
Markdown	- [Nightmare Meaning and Nightmare Disorder: A Jungian Perspective Jesamine Mello Dream meaning January 22, 2020](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/nightmares-meaning-mightmare-disorder/) - [How to Remember Dreams Jesamine Mello Dream meaning October 22, 2023](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/how-to-remember-dreams/) - [The Symbolism of the Snake Jesamine Mello Symbols February 13, 2018](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/symbolism-of-the-snake/) - [Dreams about strangers: Unknown lovers, friends, and foes in our dreams Jesamine Dream meaning April 15, 2018](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-strangers/) - [Dreams About Kissing: The symbolic integration of our personality Jesamine Mello Dreams about people September 5, 2018](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-kissing-symbolic-meaning/) - [The Symbolic Meaning of Dreams About Killing Someone Jesamine Mello Dreams about people September 9, 2018](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/the-symbolic-meaning-of-dreams-about-killing-someone/) - [What your dreams are telling you about your life Jesamine Dream meaning October 27, 2023](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/what-your-dreams-are-telling-you-about-your-life/) - [What Do Dreams Mean? 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Most dreams about death are symbolic. They are usually not warnings or premonitions about your own death or the death of someone you love. In opposition to what we talked about in the [Dreams of Pregnancy](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/pregnancy-dreams/) and [Dreams About Babies](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-babies/) posts, death dreams symbolize the end of of a cycle. #### Dreams about death: synopsis: *Death dreams are similar to drawing the death card in the Tarot deck. They are a signal that some part of you* is dying or some phase of your life is coming to an end. Whoever or whatever is dying in your dream is a symbolic aspect of yourself. The questions to ask yourself about your death dream is: Is it time for this aspect of yourself to die, or, are you killing some crucial aspect of yourself?** ![Dreams about Death - Morgan Greer Tarot deck Death Card](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/death-card.jpg)I am not saying that death dreams are never about someone’s actual death because people do have premonitions of death, but in general, this is not the meaning of a death dream. More often, death dreams symbolize a psychic death in the dreamer, the deeper meaning of which I will talk about throughout this post. As I said in the post on the [Symbolism of the Snake](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/symbolism-of-the-snake/), Death, whether we are speaking literally or symbolically, is a part of the life cycle: birth, death, and rebirth. Rejecting death, hating it, and fearing it only causes you to shrink back from life. Accepting it means having a mature perspective on life. #### Dreams about death and life transitions Death dreams are very common during periods of psychological transformation or major transition in your life. Sometimes psychological transformation is a conscious process, for example, when you are working through deep issues in psychotherapy, or, when you are going through a divorce. Other times psychological transformation is unconscious; it’s just a natural process happening beneath the surface of consciousness, for example as in maturation or the slow mending of a broken heart. The aim of [dream interpretation](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/) is to make your psychological processes as conscious as possible. This helps you in every aspect of your life, but most especially in the face of suffering. For many, any kind of change is hard to face, especially when it comes to endings. People have an abject aversion to endings,whether we are talking about the end of life or the end of some aspect of life. Because of this aversion to endings, people sometimes desperately cling to anything they don’t want to let go of. #### Dreams about death: a message from your inner guide: If you are clinging to something and you have a death dream, this is psyche’s way of saying, “It’s okay. You are ready to let go.” ### Dreams about Death: Psychic Processes Before I talk about particular dreams about death, I want to say something about the dynamics of the human mind. If you want to [do your own dream interpretations](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/#How_to_Decipher_Dream_Meaning), it’s important for you to understand the theory behind it. Don’t blindly trust inadequate dream dictionaries or the many dream websites which regurgitate the same thing about dreams and symbols. [Real dream interpretation](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/) is about gaining a deeper knowledge of yourself through open and honest self-reflection. So, don’t let dreams about death scare you. Treat every dream as [a guide from beyond](https://unfoldingtheuniversewithin.com/anxiety-depression-jungian-perspective/), telling you that you are ready to transform something in your life. ### Dreams about death: psychic death and changing our worldview In Jungian psychology, when we speak of psychic death, we are referring to the dissolution of a particular psychic factor in you. By psychic factor I mean an observable pattern in your personality. A really extreme example of this pattern would be someone who has a bonafide phobia of spiders. Every time that person sees a spider, he uncontrollably has the same reaction. ![Dreams about death and perception: LANA Photography Royalty-free stock photo ID: 702710299](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/shutterstock_702710299.jpg)Some of our psychic patterns are more difficult for us to recognize because they are so deeply merged with our identity. It’s a pattern that we don’t even consider questioning. When something is unquestionably merged with our identity, it’s unconscious. Take for example our general outlook on life – the lens through which we see the world, such as a tendency to see our experiences only through a negative light. This is something you can change. It is not who you are. Other examples would be mistrust in the world, fear of change, self-loathing, generalized anxiety, or self-doubt. All of these are psychic patterns that can be transformed. You are not trapped by anything. Dreams about death can signal that it is time for you to change your outlook or attitude #### Dreams about death: questions for your consideration: Reflect on the symbolism of whatever or whoever died in your death dreams. What are your associations? How do these associations relate to your current attitude or state of mind? Is there any connection you can make? Everything we see, feel, or think is a psychic pattern. Even our relationships with others have an underlying psychic pattern. Some of our psychic patterns are healthy and others are not. Many psychic patterns were seeded in our childhoods and are still blossoming well into in adulthood. Dreams about death involving children can be an indication of an infantile pattern that needs to die. ![Dreams about death - By BackgroundStore Royalty-free stock photo ID: 392885260](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/shutterstock_392885260.jpg)Other psychic patterns established themselves through repeated life experiences, for example repeatedly engaging in destructive relationships. Dreams about death involving former lovers or friends can be an indication that you need to put an end to this pattern. And still others are archetypal patterns of human existence, such as puberty, birth, and death. Any of these psychic patterns can image themselves in dreams. What is important to remember about all of your dreams is that they are images of the unconscious aspects of your psychic patterns. ### Death dreams: ego death versus psychic death ![Death Dreams: ego death By GoodStudio Royalty-free stock vector ID: 752177950](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Webp.net-resizeimage-31.jpg)Though many people try to equate them, psychic death and ego death are not synonymous in the lexicon of Jung’s psychology. People also like to associate psychic death with ego death in Buddhism. In terms of defining ego, you can’t compare Jungian psychology and Buddhism because their operational definitions of ego are very different. In Buddhism, ego death is the dissolution of subjective identity into non-being, which amounts to a of revelation of no-self. The death of the ego in Jungian terms would not be a revelation; it would be a psychosis. A psychosis is the dissolution of the ego into the unconscious. When this happens, the person you once were or once knew is gone, lost in a sea of primordial experience. You can also see this death of the ego in Alzheimer’s and dementia. However, certain aspects of our ego can die without destroying the personality and, when those aspects die, we say that it is a psychic death. And, as I have already said, dreams about death symbolize psychic death. ### Death dreams: what does psychic death mean to the ego? ![Dreams about Death - Skull image By Stokkete Royalty-free stock photo ID: 313461806](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/death-skull.jpg)Psychologically speaking, our ego is the subject of our awareness. The ego is an important part of a person’s psychic structure, which is why we do not want to dissolve it. However, when the ego believes it is the only thing in the psychic structure, then we have problems. I like to differentiate between the ego and the limited ego. The limited ego is the one who clings to everything: narrow perspectives, old relationships, bad childhoods, good childhoods, money, power, and whatever else. This kind of gripping attitude triggers a response in the unconscious, a response which often comes in the form of a disturbing dream. Dreams about death signal that something in you needs to change. In order to find out what that necessary change is, you have to establish the whole context of your death dream: who is dying and under what conditions; what does this person, plant, or animal mean to you; what is your current situation? We’ll explore how to work with death dreams about particular people in the next part of this article. As a sort of introduction to the next piece, I want to talk a little bit about psychological complexes because it is often the case that your dream about death is about psychologically breaking free from a particular complex. You can [read more about psychological complexes here](https://unfoldingtheuniversewithin.com/anxiety-depression-jungian-perspective/#complexes), on my other site, Unfolding the Universe Within. ### Death dreams and ego-complexes ![Dreams about death and ego complexes - By Oleg Golovnev Royalty-free stock photo ID: 382121578](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/shutterstock_382121578.jpg)All of us have unconscious psychic factors which act on us autonomously. By autonomous, I mean that these unknown psychic factors can overtake us, despite even the most tremendous efforts to subdue them. You know how it is when you wake up and you’re in a mood. These unknown psychic factors can make us think things or say things when we don’t want to. They can also induce unwanted moods or flood us with difficult emotions. We call some of these autonomous factors complexes. Complexes are psychic constellations that can act like other personalities. Certain complexes are also behind some states of anxiety or depression. You can read more about this [here](https://unfoldingtheuniversewithin.com/anxiety-depression-jungian-perspective/) on my other site, [Unfolding the Universe Within](https://unfoldingtheuniversewithin.com/). As long as we are unaware of these autonomous factors in our psyche, we identify with them. We are those anxious thoughts or the depressed moods. We believe all of those negative perceptions and attitudes associated with those moods. Complexes are also associated with too-positive thoughts and emotions about a person. In particular, I am thinking of adults who are still far too psychologically attached to their parents. In fact, dreams of parents dying are very often related to the need to break this infantile psychological attachment. I’ll go more into that when I talk about dreams of parents dying. ### An example of a negative mother complex ![Dreams about Death - Wicked witch of the West as negative mother](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wicked-witch.png)Let me give you an example of a negative mother complex: a woman who has had a terrible relationship with an unloving mother will often suffer from a recognizable set of psychological signs and symptoms. For example, many of these women suffer from extreme feelings of worthlessness and self-loathing. Very often they are attacked by terrible inner dialogues in the middle of the night. Women with a negative mother complex tend to attract destructive women into their lives – women who repeat the abusive patterns of their mother. All of these recognizable signs and symptoms make up the autonomous negative mother complex. A terrible mother leaves her destructive imprint in her child. That imprinted negative mother-image links up with all all kinds of associations and psychological triggers. The negative mother-image is an inner figure in a woman’s psyche, and she will appear in terrorizing dreams as the mother herself or other female images who fit the profile. A woman with a negative mother complex will come across women in the external world who immediately constellate her mother complex. For example, a boss who reminds you of your horrible mother will trigger that mother complex. This boss may have some of your mother’s qualities, but any hyper-emotional reaction you have to her is your complex. In order to break free from such a complex and free yourself from autonomous triggers, you have to learn to separate yourself (the ego) from the complex and its effects on you. I speak about separation techniques [here](https://unfoldingtheuniversewithin.com/anxiety-depression-jungian-perspective/#complexes) in my post on complexes. ### Dreams of mother dying ![Death dreams - Wicked witch of the West as negative mother](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/witch-melt.jpg) the melting witch as an example of the dissolution of a negative mother complex After a woman has thoroughly worked with this negative mother complex and its associated effects on her personality, she will often have a dream where the mother dies. This is psychic death. When we speak of psychic death, we are often referring to the death of one’s psychological identification with the complex. Psychic death is a powerful signal that you have psychologically broken free from something with which you were once completely identified. The effect this has on a person’s attitude and personality can be transformative, hence the idea of rebirth after death. This is just one example of psychic death, but you can get the general drift of the idea. I’ll follow up this general post on dreams about death with specific examples of death dreams. Until then…. #### Want to learn more about working with dreams or Jungian Psychology? - [Author](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/#abh_about) - [Recent Posts](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/#abh_posts) [![Jesamine Mello](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/wp-content/uploads/gravatar/mojime.jpg)](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/author/jesamine-mellogmail-com/ "Jesamine Mello") [Jesamine Mello](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/author/jesamine-mellogmail-com/) [![Jesamine Mello](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/wp-content/uploads/gravatar/mojime.jpg)](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/author/jesamine-mellogmail-com/ "Jesamine Mello") Latest posts by Jesamine Mello ([see all](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/author/jesamine-mellogmail-com/)) - [How to Remember Dreams](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/how-to-remember-dreams/) - October 22, 2023 - [The Power and Mystique of Hand Symbolism](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/hands-symbolism-meaning/) - October 14, 2023 - [Lion Symbolism and Lion Dreams](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/lion-symbolism-lion-dreams/) - October 10, 2023 Liked it? Take a second to support Real Dream Interpretation on Patreon [![Become a patron at Patreon\!](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/wp-content/plugins/patron-button-and-widgets-by-codebard/images/become_a_patron_button.png)](https://www.patreon.com/realdreaminterpretation?fan_landing=true&utm_content=post_button&utm_medium=patron_button_and_widgets_plugin&utm_campaign=4999630&utm_term=&utm_source=https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/) Share this Post Subscribe [Login](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/wp-login.php?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Frealdreaminterpretation.com%2Fdreams-about-death%2F) 4 Comments Newest Oldest Most Voted Inline Feedbacks View all comments ![M -](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/c70168f450437e939a2282e024b7d2f7acce17abda9c985ac4f1c1cacc9a9117?s=64&d=mm&r=pg) [M -](https://m2labs.wordpress.com/) Guest 5 years ago Last night’s dream was not the first time I was preparing to be executed, but this time it was by someone I knew. Right before he pulled the trigger I was telling my cat (was he to be executed as well????) that I’d “meet him on the other side.” I was also telling Diego and Ortoloni (two beloved cats I had lost) that I’d “see them soon.” I awoke before the trigger was pulled and, of course, was feeling heartbroken. Tears welling up. Am I worried about losing others that I love dearly? The relationship involving the assassin was a… Read more » 0 Reply ![Wesley](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/920e1d3da91b1b0b103db03b8e265c6171dc55047d7e8a10da9b7b39e02ce963?s=64&d=mm&r=pg) Wesley Guest 6 years ago I come to the comment section on this page in a somewhat desperate state, after reading through many of the incredible, insightful articles on your site. First I want to thank you for putting Jung’s theories in such clear, beautiful language, which resonates with me deeply. I am an avid reader of Jung, but your particular phrasing of his ideas has taught me so much in a relatively short time. I’m a young woman, a college grad still living at home with her parents four years after graduating, currently unemployed and with dreams of being a writer. I have struggled… Read more » 0 Reply [![Jesamine Mello](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/c3df7e90afb02d3b25f0556a5514c6c219cd894f4d74b6dde656131be4e2b172?s=64&d=mm&r=pg)](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/author/jesamine-mellogmail-com/) [Jesamine Mello](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/author/jesamine-mellogmail-com/) Author Reply to [Wesley](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/#comment-209) 6 years ago Hi there, thanks for your comment and dream. It’s always good to hear that someone can appreciate the work I have put into this site. First, I think the initial addiction to feedback about your writing is understandable, but as you can see already, it eventually contaminates the passion. To dream of being shot in the head is actually common. I see these dreams often. The question of meaning always revolves around what is happening in the dreamer’s life at the time of the dream. What stands out for me in your dream is the “gentle nature” of your assassin. … Read more » 0 Reply ![Wesley](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/920e1d3da91b1b0b103db03b8e265c6171dc55047d7e8a10da9b7b39e02ce963?s=64&d=mm&r=pg) Wesley Guest Reply to [Jesamine Mello](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/#comment-210) 6 years ago Hi Jesamine, Thank you so much for your swift, thoughtful response. My immediate reaction to the association between Nurse Jackie and functional addiction was like an “a-ha” moment. I am going to spend some more time exploring these dreams with your comments in mind. I already feel clearer about which direction to take with my research, thanks to your associations. It is inspiring to see how you have turned your passion into a wonderful healing resource for others. I wish you all the best with your work. Thank you again for your time\! 0 Reply #### Privacy and Legal - [Privacy Policy](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/privacy-policy/) All Rights Reserved © Real Dream Interpretation & Jesamine Mello Powered with ♥♥♥ by JsM [contact@realdreaminterpretation.com](<mailto: contact@realdreaminterpretation.com>) WE ARE A PARTICIPANT IN THE AMAZON SERVICES LLC ASSOCIATES PROGRAM, AN AFFILIATE ADVERTISING PROGRAM DESIGNED TO PROVIDE A MEANS FOR US TO EARN FEES BY LINKING TO AMAZON.COM AND AFFILIATED SITES. - [Privacy Policy](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/privacy-policy/) wpDiscuz 4 0 Would love your thoughts, please comment.[x](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/) () [x](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/) \\| [Reply](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/) Insert
Readable Markdown	![Dreams about Death - By Aceross Lord Royalty-free stock illustration ID: 587310263](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/shutterstock_587310263.jpg) Table of Contents - Jump to Section - [Dreams About Death](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/#Dreams_About_Death) - [Dreams about death: synopsis:](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/#Dreams_about_death_synopsis) - [Dreams about death and life transitions](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/#Dreams_about_death_and_life_transitions) - [Dreams about death: a message from your inner guide:](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/#Dreams_about_death_a_message_from_your_inner_guide) - [Dreams about Death: Psychic Processes](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/#Dreams_about_Death_Psychic_Processes) - [Dreams about death: psychic death and changing our worldview](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/#Dreams_about_death_psychic_death_and_changing_our_worldview) - [Dreams about death: questions for your consideration:](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/#Dreams_about_death_questions_for_your_consideration) - [Death dreams: ego death versus psychic death](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/#Death_dreams_ego_death_versus_psychic_death) - [Death dreams: what does psychic death mean to the ego?](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/#Death_dreams_what_does_psychic_death_mean_to_the_ego) - [Death dreams and ego-complexes](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/#Death_dreams_and_ego-complexes) - [An example of a negative mother complex](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/#An_example_of_a_negative_mother_complex) - [Dreams of mother dying](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/#Dreams_of_mother_dying) - [Want to learn more about working with dreams or Jungian Psychology?](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/#Want_to_learn_more_about_working_with_dreams_or_Jungian_Psychology) ### Dreams About Death Dreams about death can really freak some people out, so let’s go ahead address what death dreams typically mean. Most dreams about death are symbolic. They are usually not warnings or premonitions about your own death or the death of someone you love. In opposition to what we talked about in the [Dreams of Pregnancy](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/pregnancy-dreams/) and [Dreams About Babies](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-babies/) posts, death dreams symbolize the end of of a cycle. #### Dreams about death: synopsis: *Death dreams are similar to drawing the death card in the Tarot deck. They are a signal that some part of you* is dying or some phase of your life is coming to an end. Whoever or whatever is dying in your dream is a symbolic aspect of yourself. The questions to ask yourself about your death dream is: Is it time for this aspect of yourself to die, or, are you killing some crucial aspect of yourself?** ![Dreams about Death - Morgan Greer Tarot deck Death Card](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/death-card.jpg)I am not saying that death dreams are never about someone’s actual death because people do have premonitions of death, but in general, this is not the meaning of a death dream. More often, death dreams symbolize a psychic death in the dreamer, the deeper meaning of which I will talk about throughout this post. As I said in the post on the [Symbolism of the Snake](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/symbolism-of-the-snake/), Death, whether we are speaking literally or symbolically, is a part of the life cycle: birth, death, and rebirth. Rejecting death, hating it, and fearing it only causes you to shrink back from life. Accepting it means having a mature perspective on life. #### Dreams about death and life transitions Death dreams are very common during periods of psychological transformation or major transition in your life. Sometimes psychological transformation is a conscious process, for example, when you are working through deep issues in psychotherapy, or, when you are going through a divorce. Other times psychological transformation is unconscious; it’s just a natural process happening beneath the surface of consciousness, for example as in maturation or the slow mending of a broken heart. The aim of [dream interpretation](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/) is to make your psychological processes as conscious as possible. This helps you in every aspect of your life, but most especially in the face of suffering. For many, any kind of change is hard to face, especially when it comes to endings. People have an abject aversion to endings,whether we are talking about the end of life or the end of some aspect of life. Because of this aversion to endings, people sometimes desperately cling to anything they don’t want to let go of. #### Dreams about death: a message from your inner guide: If you are clinging to something and you have a death dream, this is psyche’s way of saying, “It’s okay. You are ready to let go.” ### Dreams about Death: Psychic Processes Before I talk about particular dreams about death, I want to say something about the dynamics of the human mind. If you want to [do your own dream interpretations](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/#How_to_Decipher_Dream_Meaning), it’s important for you to understand the theory behind it. Don’t blindly trust inadequate dream dictionaries or the many dream websites which regurgitate the same thing about dreams and symbols. [Real dream interpretation](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/) is about gaining a deeper knowledge of yourself through open and honest self-reflection. So, don’t let dreams about death scare you. Treat every dream as [a guide from beyond](https://unfoldingtheuniversewithin.com/anxiety-depression-jungian-perspective/), telling you that you are ready to transform something in your life. ### Dreams about death: psychic death and changing our worldview In Jungian psychology, when we speak of psychic death, we are referring to the dissolution of a particular psychic factor in you. By psychic factor I mean an observable pattern in your personality. A really extreme example of this pattern would be someone who has a bonafide phobia of spiders. Every time that person sees a spider, he uncontrollably has the same reaction. ![Dreams about death and perception: LANA Photography Royalty-free stock photo ID: 702710299](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/shutterstock_702710299.jpg)Some of our psychic patterns are more difficult for us to recognize because they are so deeply merged with our identity. It’s a pattern that we don’t even consider questioning. When something is unquestionably merged with our identity, it’s unconscious. Take for example our general outlook on life – the lens through which we see the world, such as a tendency to see our experiences only through a negative light. This is something you can change. It is not who you are. Other examples would be mistrust in the world, fear of change, self-loathing, generalized anxiety, or self-doubt. All of these are psychic patterns that can be transformed. You are not trapped by anything. Dreams about death can signal that it is time for you to change your outlook or attitude #### Dreams about death: questions for your consideration: Reflect on the symbolism of whatever or whoever died in your death dreams. What are your associations? How do these associations relate to your current attitude or state of mind? Is there any connection you can make? Everything we see, feel, or think is a psychic pattern. Even our relationships with others have an underlying psychic pattern. Some of our psychic patterns are healthy and others are not. Many psychic patterns were seeded in our childhoods and are still blossoming well into in adulthood. Dreams about death involving children can be an indication of an infantile pattern that needs to die. ![Dreams about death - By BackgroundStore Royalty-free stock photo ID: 392885260](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/shutterstock_392885260.jpg)Other psychic patterns established themselves through repeated life experiences, for example repeatedly engaging in destructive relationships. Dreams about death involving former lovers or friends can be an indication that you need to put an end to this pattern. And still others are archetypal patterns of human existence, such as puberty, birth, and death. Any of these psychic patterns can image themselves in dreams. What is important to remember about all of your dreams is that they are images of the unconscious aspects of your psychic patterns. ### Death dreams: ego death versus psychic death ![Death Dreams: ego death By GoodStudio Royalty-free stock vector ID: 752177950](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Webp.net-resizeimage-31.jpg)Though many people try to equate them, psychic death and ego death are not synonymous in the lexicon of Jung’s psychology. People also like to associate psychic death with ego death in Buddhism. In terms of defining ego, you can’t compare Jungian psychology and Buddhism because their operational definitions of ego are very different. In Buddhism, ego death is the dissolution of subjective identity into non-being, which amounts to a of revelation of no-self. The death of the ego in Jungian terms would not be a revelation; it would be a psychosis. A psychosis is the dissolution of the ego into the unconscious. When this happens, the person you once were or once knew is gone, lost in a sea of primordial experience. You can also see this death of the ego in Alzheimer’s and dementia. However, certain aspects of our ego can die without destroying the personality and, when those aspects die, we say that it is a psychic death. And, as I have already said, dreams about death symbolize psychic death. ### Death dreams: what does psychic death mean to the ego? ![Dreams about Death - Skull image By Stokkete Royalty-free stock photo ID: 313461806](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/death-skull.jpg)Psychologically speaking, our ego is the subject of our awareness. The ego is an important part of a person’s psychic structure, which is why we do not want to dissolve it. However, when the ego believes it is the only thing in the psychic structure, then we have problems. I like to differentiate between the ego and the limited ego. The limited ego is the one who clings to everything: narrow perspectives, old relationships, bad childhoods, good childhoods, money, power, and whatever else. This kind of gripping attitude triggers a response in the unconscious, a response which often comes in the form of a disturbing dream. Dreams about death signal that something in you needs to change. In order to find out what that necessary change is, you have to establish the whole context of your death dream: who is dying and under what conditions; what does this person, plant, or animal mean to you; what is your current situation? We’ll explore how to work with death dreams about particular people in the next part of this article. As a sort of introduction to the next piece, I want to talk a little bit about psychological complexes because it is often the case that your dream about death is about psychologically breaking free from a particular complex. You can [read more about psychological complexes here](https://unfoldingtheuniversewithin.com/anxiety-depression-jungian-perspective/#complexes), on my other site, Unfolding the Universe Within. ### Death dreams and ego-complexes ![Dreams about death and ego complexes - By Oleg Golovnev Royalty-free stock photo ID: 382121578](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/shutterstock_382121578.jpg)All of us have unconscious psychic factors which act on us autonomously. By autonomous, I mean that these unknown psychic factors can overtake us, despite even the most tremendous efforts to subdue them. You know how it is when you wake up and you’re in a mood. These unknown psychic factors can make us think things or say things when we don’t want to. They can also induce unwanted moods or flood us with difficult emotions. We call some of these autonomous factors complexes. Complexes are psychic constellations that can act like other personalities. Certain complexes are also behind some states of anxiety or depression. You can read more about this [here](https://unfoldingtheuniversewithin.com/anxiety-depression-jungian-perspective/) on my other site, [Unfolding the Universe Within](https://unfoldingtheuniversewithin.com/). As long as we are unaware of these autonomous factors in our psyche, we identify with them. We are those anxious thoughts or the depressed moods. We believe all of those negative perceptions and attitudes associated with those moods. Complexes are also associated with too-positive thoughts and emotions about a person. In particular, I am thinking of adults who are still far too psychologically attached to their parents. In fact, dreams of parents dying are very often related to the need to break this infantile psychological attachment. I’ll go more into that when I talk about dreams of parents dying. ### An example of a negative mother complex ![Dreams about Death - Wicked witch of the West as negative mother](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wicked-witch.png)Let me give you an example of a negative mother complex: a woman who has had a terrible relationship with an unloving mother will often suffer from a recognizable set of psychological signs and symptoms. For example, many of these women suffer from extreme feelings of worthlessness and self-loathing. Very often they are attacked by terrible inner dialogues in the middle of the night. Women with a negative mother complex tend to attract destructive women into their lives – women who repeat the abusive patterns of their mother. All of these recognizable signs and symptoms make up the autonomous negative mother complex. A terrible mother leaves her destructive imprint in her child. That imprinted negative mother-image links up with all all kinds of associations and psychological triggers. The negative mother-image is an inner figure in a woman’s psyche, and she will appear in terrorizing dreams as the mother herself or other female images who fit the profile. A woman with a negative mother complex will come across women in the external world who immediately constellate her mother complex. For example, a boss who reminds you of your horrible mother will trigger that mother complex. This boss may have some of your mother’s qualities, but any hyper-emotional reaction you have to her is your complex. In order to break free from such a complex and free yourself from autonomous triggers, you have to learn to separate yourself (the ego) from the complex and its effects on you. I speak about separation techniques [here](https://unfoldingtheuniversewithin.com/anxiety-depression-jungian-perspective/#complexes) in my post on complexes. ### Dreams of mother dying ![Death dreams - Wicked witch of the West as negative mother](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/witch-melt.jpg) the melting witch as an example of the dissolution of a negative mother complex After a woman has thoroughly worked with this negative mother complex and its associated effects on her personality, she will often have a dream where the mother dies. This is psychic death. When we speak of psychic death, we are often referring to the death of one’s psychological identification with the complex. Psychic death is a powerful signal that you have psychologically broken free from something with which you were once completely identified. The effect this has on a person’s attitude and personality can be transformative, hence the idea of rebirth after death. This is just one example of psychic death, but you can get the general drift of the idea. I’ll follow up this general post on dreams about death with specific examples of death dreams. Until then…. - [Author](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/#abh_about) - [Recent Posts](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/dreams-about-death/#abh_posts) [![Jesamine Mello](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/wp-content/uploads/gravatar/mojime.jpg)](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/author/jesamine-mellogmail-com/ "Jesamine Mello") [![Jesamine Mello](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/wp-content/uploads/gravatar/mojime.jpg)](https://realdreaminterpretation.com/author/jesamine-mellogmail-com/ "Jesamine Mello") Liked it? 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