She had this dream where her husband came back and sat down by her bed and said, "I've
been to the end of time and back and you know what?
I still love you."
And for me, it's just like, how beautiful that is.
She carried that dream with her as she moved forward in life.
Well, some of the things that we don't talk about with loss is the fact that some of the
people who die, they were the ones that told us that we were good enough, right?
They were loved.
And how important these dreams are to continue to fulfill that mission, we're allowing that
that love still sits inside you.
And this is a reminder of that, even though they're not physically present, they're still
there and the love still there.
And these dreams can really help people embrace that.
[Music]
Hi there, grief growers.
I am so honored to be here with you this week to talk about a topic that is so, so close
to my heart.
I've been growing alongside me for a while, welcome back.
And if you are new to me and my work, hello, my name is Shelby for Scythia.
I am a grief coach, two time soon to be three time author, and the founder of Life After
Loss Academy, which is an online course in community that has helped dozens of grieving
people stop feeling lost, stuck, broken and alone in their grief, and start building
lives that they genuinely love from the ones lost, forced them to live.
In Life After Loss Academy, we do not exclusively talk about loss due to death, but also losses
like divorce and breakup, major diagnosis, and every other loss or life transition that
changes the way he exists in the world.
Here on grief grower, we believe that grief is not something to get over as society would
have you think.
It is something that we grow with and alongside for the rest of our lives, and that when we
stop treating grief as a problem or an obstacle or something to get over, and instead
approach grief as an invitation to live more deeply and feel connected to our memories
and our loved ones who have died, that we get to live lives that are richer.
And honestly, in my humble opinion, a little bit better for the wear, as opposed to worse,
for the wear.
I don't know if that's a phrase, better for the wear.
I'm going to make it one.
We will make it one right now.
Today on the show, I am so thrilled to introduce you to Dr. Joshua Black.
He is one of my personal friends, one of the first people in the grief space that I
ever consumed media from.
His podcast, "Greef Dreams," was one of the very first things I listened to after my mother
died.
And we're going to be talking all about grief dreams.
We are covering the three types of grief dreams.
So you can see which type of grief dream you're having.
How to have a grief dream or a dream of somebody or someone who died if you're longing to
have one and have not had one yet.
Why dream books and dictionaries that are like published to the masses may not be helpful
when it comes to interpreting your dreams?
The lessons grief dreams can teach us and how we can carry them forward into waking life.
And some of mine and Josh's favorite pop culture examples of dreaming about someone who
died.
Here is Josh's formal bio.
Joshua Black PhD is a grief and bereavement researcher, speaker, educator and host of the
grief dreams podcast.
Joshua holds a master's degree in psychology from Trent University and a PhD in psychology
from Brock University.
His research is focused on dreams and waking experience of the deceased, continuing bonds,
bereavement during the COVID-19 pandemic and bereavement in the context of homelessness.
He is dedicated to raising awareness of those who are bereaved who are not being provided
with the necessary bereavement support.
Here's our conversation together.
Josh, thank you so much for joining us here on grief grower.
Today I am so honored to be talking about the concept of grief dreams because I know
for so many of my clients and students inside my after-loss academy they talk about dreams
where they're visited by a loved one or dreams where they're haunted by a loved one's
final moments or wanting to have grief dreams but not being able to access them.
So as like the world's foremost grief dreams expert, I would love to know first, why did
you start studying grief dreams?
Like what's the story that led to that?
And then if you could just define like what is a grief dream for everybody who's listening?
Yeah, so my journey really started like I think many others in the field where it was from
a loss.
I didn't, wasn't planning on doing research in this area or even talking about this subject.
And so for me it was after my father died when I was in undergrad, probably a year before
graduating I wanted to be an elementary school teacher so that was kind of my pathway.
And then he died and it kind of changed everything and changed like what I wanted to do moving
forward based on what I've been learning from just grieving in itself.
And so when he died my world like came apart in many ways and I was feeling like a deep
sad deep grief that I never experienced before honestly.
And so I didn't really know how to process that and so I kind of, you know, I didn't kind
I definitely suppressed my emotions.
So I could get back to school and go back to work to sort of portray that I was doing
okay.
And then inside I was, I would say the world was colorless and so it was just black and gray
and I was just like really walking through the world for those first three months after
he died.
And then I wasn't asking for a dream.
I didn't know you could really have one.
And then I had a dream of my father where I was able to say goodbye and tell him that I
loved him.
And it was such a beautiful dream.
The energy of it was very peaceful and loving.
He looked very light.
Usually when I saw him in waking life he was very heavy like with trauma and he was dealing
with alcohol issues.
And so I always saw him as like this kind of like bolder walking around, you know, like
this heaviness.
But it was very light and happy and joyful in the dream and just to see him.
And when I woke up from that dream, the color was back into my life.
Like I felt completely different and it wasn't because I interpreted the dream.
I think people need to understand that.
The dream itself changed me.
And I still don't fully understand like how to interpret that dream.
All I know is it changed me and I wouldn't be here without it.
I probably may be in that same spot based on where my trajectory was going.
And so that dream was the first thing that allowed me to realize the impactfulness of a dream
can have in someone's life.
And then from there I have had dreams of my father probably every three months after that
where I got to hang out with them, talk to them.
And that was really part of my grieving journey and processing his loss.
And so when I graduated, I still didn't, I wanted, I thought I wanted to be elementary school
teacher.
I went back.
I went to just like apply.
I got, I got in for the interview and then it just didn't feel right.
And I was learning at that time to trust my intuition.
And if it didn't feel right, it didn't feel right.
And there's no point like pushing it.
And so I decided to just take time off to sort of see what I wanted to do.
And I started to volunteer at a hospice to do breathing support.
And what was interesting is life tends to provide you sometimes a pathway on where it kind
of wants you to go.
And so people were asking me the dreams, which I never told them about mine.
I didn't tell a lot of people about mine actually when I first had mine.
And so they were asking questions like why am I not having a dream?
Was this dream mean?
Is it common to have these dreams?
It's like, what's normal?
What's not normal?
And when I went to the research, I couldn't really find much for them.
And so I was like, I don't really know.
These are very interesting questions.
I've only had mine, they're very positive.
And so I was like, I wonder if I can go back to school.
And like that question, I thought about it and I was like, no, I didn't do any.
I didn't want to do stats.
I didn't do the research methods.
I didn't want to do that.
I wasn't my goal.
But that thought kept like, I guess haunting me.
It's not in the way.
It's like it wouldn't leave me alone.
And so I'm like, OK, you know, why don't I just try and see if I can even do it?
If there's someone who would want to even supervise me.
And after having that courage, and I found people along the way that were able to supervise
me for my masters in psychology, then my PhD in psychology.
And through that journey, I learned so much more than I ever knew when it came to this
field.
And I just love the topic now.
And for so many reasons.
But I think there's just so much beauty and dreams, even the negative ones, being open to talk
about it.
Because some people are when it comes to these, especially these negative dreams, they feel
hopeless, they feel they can't control the dream itself.
And so they're afraid to go into bed.
And so there's a lot just by opening up conversation and realizing that there is a way to support
people through these negative dreams.
Like, you don't actually have to suffer through these dreams.
There's a lot of insights we can gain from that.
And there's ways to reduce the distress and these dreams from even occurring.
And so that's a beautiful thing for that.
And then for the positive dreams is like, these dreams are helping people in many ways throughout
their life, not just through the grief of the death, but also just the grief of just being
alive.
There's so many changes from divorce, job loss, pandemic I've seen where people are having
dreams of the sea that are helping them basically be the best version of themselves possible.
And then at end of life, they're having these dreams to help them to transition from life
to death.
And so these dreams are so unique that I'm always fascinated when I hear the stories that
people have with them, but also their impact in like how we are able to be, I think, as resilient
as we are as humans through the trajectories of this life.
Yeah, I love how you speak about that because I think that dreams society often chalks them
up to this like woo-woo thing that we're not really supposed to understand or it's just
unique to you or it's just nonsense that happens at nighttime or it's a reflection of your
mental health or mental state.
And so to have dreams that are violent or traumatic or negative as you say, like I'm really
the death of my mother who died, for instance, reflects like, you're not okay, something's wrong
with you, you're broken.
But I know for me, I have made a significant amount of waking life decisions based on things
that happened in dreams.
This is not necessarily a grief-related one, but I told actually recounted this to my therapist
a couple weeks ago.
It was like dreams mean a lot to me and they've always meant a lot to me, but I was in a job
that was very soul-sucking working for somebody I have later learned has a narcissistic personality
disorder and would apologize for terrible behavior by giving massive gifts to the office and
then expecting to be praised for them.
And I was in this job as like, I've never had a boss like this, but I really need the
money and I'm afraid to quit because I don't have anything lined up for what's next.
And I got pushed to like a breaking point.
And I remember having this dream where this bright orange scorpion just crawled up my chest
and stung me in the heart and I woke up gasping.
I was like, I have to get out of here.
And it was one of these vivid, almost like a messenger of like, there's something else,
but if you stay here, it will seriously hurt you if you do on some level.
So I'm like, it's not crazy or unheard of to change jobs, to ask a person out at a coffee shop,
to grow something in your garden, to look for signs from a loved one based on what you see
or what happens in a dream.
Yeah, I think that's so important to understand that like as much as like I study the dreams
with the disease, there's a lot of dreams out there that you know, a lot of people can
find guidance.
And I'm also sometimes the wake up call.
I've had those dreams too where I think everything's okay or I'm doing something and
I have this dream.
The really showcases that I'm not all right in the current position and I have to make
a change.
And it's just like it basically screams at you as if it's like a best friend saying, hey,
wake up, like you need to change this.
But I think it's for people in especially Western culture, there's not a lot of training
or understanding on like how to look at one's dreams because we all have a different dream
language.
And so people can also be guided through other people or through like the internet on
what their dream means when it doesn't maybe actually mean that at all.
But they're just like trying to look for some quick understanding on what would this
symbol may mean where your symbol is different.
You know, like that dream may mean something that you had for someone else differently if
they love scorpions, right?
Like, or they can't.
Yes, a scorpion is a blessing to one and a curse to another.
That's right.
Yeah.
So like it's just understanding that it takes time to understand your own dream language.
Like, don't not jump to conclusions, but really like look at it.
And I always like tell people when I first started looking at dreams and I still do, I really
start with the emotion in the dream.
Like, what is the emotion?
What's coming up in that imagery for you?
And then try to place it to an emotion and waking life from the day prior that you're
the probably experienced.
And then you'll have some kind of context of what this dream is directed towards trying
to either provide you guidance or even try to just digest some of those emotions.
And because you know, when we're sleeping, we're also processing our emotions.
And so it could just be your processing some of that, whatever that is, that fear or pain
or guilt or whatever that you've had in the waking life that you didn't get a chance
to fully process.
So it does that within the dream.
And then when you wake up, you can sort of see, is it's still there?
Right?
Then you can actually like talk to your therapist or talk to other people to try to digest
that a little bit more.
And you see that even with like with grief dreams in general.
Since I was, yeah, I remember the original question was like, what are these?
And so there's three different types.
So the first one is more symbolic of one's grief, which is kind of like what we're talking
about where the deceased isn't in the imagery and there's no mention of the deceased.
But a great example I like to use is someone's running by a mountain and the mountain collapse
is on them.
And so it can really reflect the heaviness of waking life for them and how difficult
it is to move forward and to even breathe.
And then so you have the, then there's another type of grief dream where the deceased isn't
in the imagery, but people are talking about them.
So I've seen a ton of dreams where it's like an angel or another character in the dream,
talking about the deceased in some way.
Sometimes the characters are helping them to try to cope or just like acknowledging the
loss.
Other times it'd be an object in the dream that represents the deceased in some way.
It could be the hospital where they died at, it could be the graveyard or something like
that.
And then the last one is what most people like to talk about is when the deceased is actually
in the imagery.
And they're usually physically present.
There are times where they're just the voice.
Maybe it's coming through a telephone.
I've seen new ones where because we want when we used to talk on telephones.
But now like I see like the younger generation are having like snapchads or zooms or stuff
like that.
We're like what they are, how they interact with someone.
So it could be like an Instagram or whatever.
So anyways, we're having those types of dreams rather than the telephone dreams because people
don't use those corded telephones anymore.
So it's very interesting how.
I would never think of that, but that's so cool.
It's like how do you communicate with them in life?
That's probably maybe how you're going to communicate with them in death as snapchat or
Tik Toker.
It's the great whatever the hell you're on.
So it's a media.
Oh my goodness.
I never put that together.
That's really cool.
I wanted to get to, I know you mentioned that like westernizer Eurocentric society has
its own like definitions of dreams.
I remember as a kid in the library saying like dream dictionary books would like look up
your symbol and what does it mean?
And it's just like one paragraph about apples and one paragraph about rocks or one paragraph
about I don't know pencils and they all have different dream meanings or what have you.
And I remember these were like big sellers kind of like astrology books and things like
that in the 80s and 90s and early aughts.
But I wonder what if anything you've uncovered in your research or dove into in your research
that is more rooted in non-American or non-Eurocentric dream culture and interpretation.
Because I feel like, and I'm not educated very much in this, but like the role of a dream
interpreter or a dream guide may have been significant in other cultures that we don't
necessarily appreciate here.
Oh, 1000%.
Even there's even some people in our in the culture that are pretty good at doing that,
but they found their own way through.
But yeah, most of the time people are going towards these dream dictionaries, which we
started just talked about how they're not really made for you to understand your dreams.
Like, they're just a selling point to the cause people are curious about their dreams.
They feel they may have meaning.
And so where can I go?
Well, this is the only book that's really out there, right?
So, and you think it's that simple, but no, like, as I said, like everyone has their own
dream language.
So when you buy that book, you're not getting your own dream language.
Now you're just confusing yourself because now is it, when I dream, is it my symbol or
is it their symbol that I'm dreaming of, right?
So very confusing.
And also, I don't know many dreams I've had, where it's just like a pencil, and that's it.
You know, like, you know, like, or an apple, like it's always a, there's usually a story
that goes along.
And it's about, for me, not, once you find that, that emotion is like, what are, how are
these all playing a part in the story to provide you a language of what's going on?
And so it's, it takes time and it takes energy to try to figure that out on those symbols
and how they interact.
And it's so important to get sort of the best understanding of what the dreams are.
Um, is they're trying to tell you or trying to digest in waking life?
But yeah, a lot of other cultures really, um, promote like indigenous cultures, one of them,
right?
They really promote the power of dreams and the importance of them.
And so I think when it comes to this topic in general, um, when it comes to the cease, what's
interesting is a lot of people can jump right to visitations.
And, um, and a lot of people don't want to share that they've had dreams for a couple of
reasons.
But they're not spiritual.
They don't want people telling them that it was a visitation if it was like positive dream.
They don't want that.
They just want it to be as beautiful as it is for them.
Um, they don't want to have to have that conversation with someone, right?
The lot of the jump to it.
Yeah, like don't make me believe in something I don't believe in just because I have a dream.
That's right.
Yeah.
And we're some people have negative dreams.
I don't want to say because they didn't want to, someone to say it's a visitation too.
And so there's a lot of like confounding variables and why people I think don't share the
dreams that they do have.
They don't want other people to maybe feel that jealousy.
They're also confused with what the meaning is for the dreams.
They're not ready yet.
I know certain cultures feel that if the, if you're dreaming of the cease, it means that
they're still around and that can be a negative thing.
So they haven't reincarnated or they haven't moved on to like whatever the next part of the
afterlife is.
So they can like harm you.
So it's like a, um, like a soul that's not, you know, settled in a way.
Yes.
And so it's just like understand there's so many different understandings and cultural
beliefs that have been put on what these dreams can represent.
Helpful or harmful.
And I'm continuing to learn like what these are for different people.
And so even with Christians, like some people feel it's a devil in disguise.
Other people feel it's, you know, God allows it.
And so like there's not, I don't think there's like one person that like or one group of people
that have the same kind of understanding.
I think we're all learning together what these dreams mean with our belief system and
try to figure out, you know, how to talk about them in the best way possible to provide
to people with a sense of peace of understanding that dream and also normalize it.
Like how like your beliefs do matter and how we interpret a dream and sometimes a dream
content.
But overall, it's nice to sort of see the, I've said that the Western research on just how
common it is and has really nothing to do with how spiritual you are.
It's really a human experience.
I think that's the most fascinating thing is that these things are coming because we're
human.
You know, when I went out, other animals at dream would also have the dreaming of the deceased
in their own way because one of the things we found because we asked like why are some
people dreaming of the seas and other people aren't because that is a cause for concern
for a lot of people who feel that maybe the deceased doesn't love me anymore.
Maybe they didn't make it to the afterlife.
Maybe they're, or they didn't get to heaven.
Or maybe they're mad at me.
So they're holding back their visits.
There's different things where people can try to justify why they're not having one.
Right?
And a lot of times it's just negative.
So they're just complicated.
They're grief in many ways.
And so what we found is that actually your dream recall was the most important predictor
and we replicated the research.
So what it's saying is that people who dream in general more often are more likely to remember
these types of dreams with the deceased, which makes a lot of sense.
So you're just the more you remember dreams, the more you're likely to remember one of these
types of dreams, which also is saying that if you don't remember your dreams that often,
you're probably still having dreams of the deceased.
You're just not remembering them.
And so it helps people connect the thoughts and like we're all made differently as humans
and sometimes remember dreams.
And other times we don't.
That's still an interesting aspect of just research is like why remembering certain dreams
over others.
And I always like to tell people too that as much as we want to remember the dreams,
we're probably also dreaming of the deceased in the very negative context at times too.
And so it may be best for one's grief if you're not, let's say, reliving their death, you
know, over and over again.
And that could be very helpful as you move forward.
But research says as you move forward and if you value dreams, you're probably going
to have a positive dreams in the future.
But I always sort of tell people like if you're concerned, ask other people around you because
they probably would have had a dream by now.
If you long for a dream for let's say six months a year, you haven't had one, I guarantee
someone around you.
If you ask if there's 10 people, one of them definitely or five of them probably have had
a dream of the deceased in some way that you can take as your own to if you're worried
about if they've crossed over or not or if they're okay or not.
And so like that's a very beautiful thing.
And I've even heard other people have had dreams for other people.
So they'll have a dream, like sometimes as a daughter, the father died, has a dream for
a message for the mother, which is very beautiful, which I like, it's very surprising to me how
this all works.
But when you asked a mother, has she dreamed?
No.
But the daughter dreamt almost for her with the message.
And I've even heard strangers had dreams for other people.
And they had the courage to basically approach them.
But they knew them slightly just enough to like be able to send a message, but like they
don't hang out or anything.
And then it goes to show that's what the person was needing at that time.
And they haven't had their own dream.
So it's very interesting like what's going on.
I don't know in the sense of like how this is all possible.
But all I can do is like give a validity to the fact that this is happening.
And there's a lot of unknowns.
But at the same time, we all make our own decision on how we interpret these dreams.
But I think the biggest thing is not to be afraid of them.
I think that's the biggest takeaway.
Totally.
And I'm so I cannot believe you just brought up having dreams on behalf of other people because
this just happened between my wife and I like within the last month.
And it's never happened to me before I've never had a dream with other that I can remember
of other people's dead people in them.
And I never got to meet my end-law as both of my wife's parents died before I came into
her life.
And my mom died before she came into my life.
So we have the shared experience of parent loss.
And it's one of the things that brought us together.
And I remember waking up and there were a lot of random factors in this dream.
Like there were a whole bunch of animals and we're petting for someone and then her brother
was involved and there was a lot of musicians all in the house together.
But I remember in the dream being approached by both of her parents and hugging one and
shaking the other's hand.
And I woke up and I was crying.
And I was like for the first time I was in the presence of your parents in a dream.
Like it actually felt like they were there and talking to me and I felt her dad shake
my hand.
And I was like out of curiosity what color was the shirt he was wearing the day he died.
Because I remember I saw so many colors in the stream too and she was it was yellow and
I was like it was yellow.
And so there was this really cool parallel of holy crap.
I think I met your parents as they wanted me to meet them when they wanted me to meet
them.
But in this way of like you guys are so cool we're glad you're together.
We're okay.
We're making music.
We're spending time with animals which was like some of their favorite things to do in life
that I have learned from her.
And so my brain was probably processing stories.
She's told me about them.
But I woke up and I was like they're they want you to know they're okay and that they're
happy for us and that they're still here.
And every time we're listening to music or every time there's animals near us which is 24/7
because we have our cat.
They are also here.
And we just both like immediately burst into tears like first thing in the morning which
is a great way to start the day.
But it was so neat.
It was one of the first times that had ever happened and I didn't know that you could dream on
behalf of other people and like what a cool blessing that is.
I will say I have the extraordinary ability to like recall dreams.
I've remembered my dreams for years and years and years and years and so I have very vivid
grief dreams.
But I do want to segue into if people want to have a dream, a positive dream of their
person who died or their pet who died but they haven't had one yet and they're kind of
there's almost like this desperation of please come to me please arrive.
I want to see you.
I want to know you're okay.
What if anything can we do to prompt their presence at nighttime which presumably when
we're sleeping is a thing we don't have a lot of control over.
Right.
I think there's like there's two approaches there.
So if someone's not dreaming at all of the deceased and wants a positive dream.
So as I started talking about before, they're first like understand your recall frequency
and so for just dreaming in general, if you're not having a lot of dreams, it may take a
while for you to have that dream experience that you're longing for.
So please ask other people like and use that as your dream to help you reduce sort of some
of the distress.
One of the things I always love to do when people don't have dreams is ask them what dream
would you want to have if you turn it.
And it's really a beautiful thing.
So a lot of people want things.
They haven't really named what they wanted and a lot of times they'll just see I'm no
no, like explain it to me like what would that look like.
And so on my website, griefdreams.ca, I have a little work like grief dream builder worksheet
where you can like really understand what it means to like build a dream that you want
and then create that and to sit with that.
And some people said by doing that exercise and like thinking about before bed that they
were able to have a dream of the deceased, which is kind of cool.
Haven't done the research in that yet.
But I think it just allows us to really look within a little bit more deeply on what kind
of dream you want because there's a billion different types of dreams you can have.
And I've seen so many.
And so like what dream would you want to have.
And I think that would be a really great exercise to just have and to think about before bed
as one sort of went to sleep and sort of see how that sort of works for you.
And there's ways to increase your dream recall if you want to.
So if you value just all dreams, if you listen to this podcast, that's great.
Your valuing dream flow bit more.
You write down your dreams that you have that even without the deceased and just any dream
that you have.
You start writing those down.
What's interesting is research has found that your recall for conceal increase.
So just by valuing dreams, you're telling your mind, I want to remember more of these.
And then it will.
Like it's very fascinating.
I remember.
Yes.
Like when I first started in my, or wasn't my masters, I didn't know anything about that.
And then I heard that.
I was like, oh, that's interesting.
So let me try it.
So I was having about two to three.
I was remembering two to three dreams a week.
And for people like you're dreaming for most of your, I would say 80% of your sleep in
REM and non REM.
So there's a lot of dreams going on in you that you're just not remembering when you're
waking up.
And so when I started writing down my dreams more, I was having within I think three months,
I was having about three dreams at night.
I was remembering.
Yeah.
Which was getting tiresome because I was waking up, writing them down and then trying to fall
back to sleep.
You're like, I now have another job.
I have another full time job at night time.
That's right.
And I was like, sleep deprived, trying to like do life.
And so what I decided to do is it actually can go the opposite way too.
So if you're having too many dreams, just and you're writing down your dreams, don't
write them down.
Don't talk about them.
Don't feel like certain ones are important.
And your frequency will go down in a sense of remembering it too.
So I can go both ways.
So that would probably be a bit one approach.
The other approaches you're having dreams with their negative dreams, well, I think it's
first understanding that that's what we would expect for someone who is grieving.
So what we know to through Western research is that one of the theories is called the
continuity hypothesis.
So what that says is that dreams represent our waking life.
So this could be in the sense of the things that we're processing our emotions, what we've
done during the day, all that sort of stuff.
So it'd be more passive in the sense of what's going on in your life.
Other times it'd be more active.
So it can actually help with problem solving in your life too.
But it relates to your waking life.
And so when we look at longitudinal research, what you find is as people's emotions, let's
say, become more sad, people have more negative type dreams.
It'd become happier, joyful, they'll have more positive dreams.
So you can sort of see the relationship there.
And then after trauma, what they find is that dreams are actually more become more consistently
negative.
So you're going to have more consistent nightmares over that journey that you're dealing
with that trauma.
And so when we're grieving, we would experience some of that trauma and some of the just the
sadness in general.
So we would actually expect people to have a lot of negative dreams as they're going through
their grieving process.
And so if you're having negative dreams of a ceased, that's what we'd probably expect.
So it's okay.
So a lot of people tend to say, that must be a visitation, they're distressed or something.
And I'm like, well, first let's work through your grief and see if those dreams don't
change because that's one of the things that we have found is that as people work through
their grief, those dreams will change into something more positive.
And we find that it's what's really interesting about this research is that we found that it's
actually more common to have these comforting dreams of the cease than the negative dreams,
which is very surprising.
Just in general.
Yeah, just in general, which is very fascinating to me because I honestly, I thought people would
have more negative dreams just based on the research.
So in general, for people who have had a dream, and this was in like multiple studies,
around 90% of people had a positive theme dream.
And then I did not expect that high of a percentage.
Yeah, incredible.
And then negative theme dream was around 40%.
And so it's still pretty high, 40% for a lot of people.
But what we're finding is that it usually happens in the beginning as you're trying to digest
the loss, the trauma, the pain of everything.
But if you're having a negative dream, it's very rare that you're just going to continue
to have negative dreams.
Like, a lot of people are having both negative and positive, like that 40%.
Most of those people are also having positive dreams at the same time.
So it's just really understanding that negative dream could be just,
like, telling you a little bit about where you are in your grieving process.
And what I'm finding is a lot of people who are continuing to have these negative dreams.
It is, let's say, trauma, let's say, finding the body of the deceased.
Or if you have like the what if questions.
And so you have the guilt or regret.
You're going to have dreams.
I kind of mimic that in some way.
Sometimes the deceased will talk about it in some way to almost induce greater guilt
or regret in you.
Like, they may blame you.
And that's not, I wouldn't say the soul blaming you.
I would say it's you blaming you.
And it's just a message that this is what's going on.
And to be able to find a pathway to work through that and work with that and find a new
perspective on how you're thinking about that situation.
And that's sort of the difficulty with like suicide and toxic drug overdoses that people
have, right?
Where it's like there's a sense of stigma that you're also being put on, even self-stigma.
Now that you're really taking in, but it also could be your environment, right?
That's also causing these emotions to be taken on as if they're real.
But you know, I don't think they, the real to the extent that you believe they are from
other people, right?
So other people will love to blame for, you know, if someone dies from something, suicide
or drug overdose or something like that.
They love to sort of look at who to blame for that.
And so I think it's just understanding that there's a lot going on within oneself.
And these dreams can be a really great avenue to go talk to someone like yourself, Shelby.
And just really process like what is that coming from?
And how can we process this in a way so you can start actually, I would say grieving in
a way where you're not complicating your loss when you can just honor the love that still
exists and the hardness of that and how difficult that is without adding on the, you know, I could
have saved them or if it was just a better person, you know, like XYZ, that, you know, there's,
that's just complicating you and stopping you from being able to actually honor them, I feel
in a way that's conducive to having more positive dreams where these dreams would then honor
that type of that side of you in some way.
It's really interesting though too, that some people will have the guilt and have the dreams
where the disease says it wasn't your fault.
And so I'm not sure why certain people are having, like they're both having guilt going
to bed, but some people are having the dreams where the disease is almost taken it away, where
other times the disease is almost inducing greater, like reinforcing that, right?
And that's kind of like what like PTSD kind of is too.
And people who have PTSD, they'll relive the trauma in a way and it actually is one of the
reasons why the trauma stays.
Like the dream is actually trying to process your grief and trauma, but when it's doing
it, it's actually causing you to increase the trauma when you wake up, so you don't actually
get out of the cycle.
And so what's interesting, just with PTSD, the little fun fact is that if you actually just
work on the dreams, like in not the waking life symptoms, studies have shown that you
can actually decrease the PTSD symptoms by around 50%.
And like some people, some people will actually get out of the label of PTSD just by working
through their dreams and reducing those because how strong they are at reinforcing one's
trauma.
And so if you're having those types of dreams, like it's important that you realize there
are ways to actually work with them to, so you don't have to be reliving that every day.
Yeah.
And I get a sense from a lot of this, a fair few of the students I work with inside my
life after a loss academy is like, sleep is supposed to be an escape.
And when it's not, or when it's not a source of rest or it's not a source of safety, it's
like, well, now no one, nowhere in the world is safe.
And no place in the world is safe, even my own bed, even the place where I used to find
rest and respite.
And so it makes a lot of sense that working through the emotions or the images that are
coming up in dreams, just the dreams alone, not what you're thinking about in daily life,
but just the dreams alone would reduce the sense of trauma of the world is not a safe place.
The world is fundamentally unsafe.
I really, really love that you brought that up.
I think that's new information.
Since the last time we spoke probably about six years ago, and that's really, really cool
to hear that like even dreams as offer their own sort of, not to get too woo about it,
but like a portal to healing, if like even if you just go in through the doorway of dreams.
And something else I was thinking about as you were speaking to going back to like westernized
Eurocentric world capitalism go back to work three days after somebody dies and you don't
even get those three days if it's not a family member, for instance, like a pet or a friend.
A lot of times I think dreams and sleeping and our nights are the only times when grave
really gets to come out or come up because so much of the rest of the day we're doing the
grocery shopping, we're working, we're tending to children or other family members or pets
or homes that we care for and for a lot of people I talk to.
It's like those two hours leading to going to bed and then being in bed or the only chance
as grave has to appear in our life.
And so it makes sense that hell yeah, it would come out and dream sometimes wonderful and
sometimes nightmareish.
Yeah.
I agree.
Yeah.
So it's such a great thought because we're so busy and we kind of, you know, a lot of this
our society kind of forces us to be to survive in many ways.
And we've also been trained that avoidance is a key strategy of coping.
Yes, absolutely.
Yeah.
And so these dreams can also help and remind us that, you know, grief isn't just because
you're not feeling it and waking life is mean you're not grieving.
And I think that's like one of the myths that like there's an endpoint to grief.
But like these dreams allow us to continue to feel and to process the stuff that's going
on even when we're not recognizing it.
And so I think a lot of dreams can do is help us with really emotional awareness.
I want to actually going on inside us, not basically what we're showcasing or what we're
saying is going on.
There's so much being processed every day.
And sometimes the anger or the outburst or the anxiety that you may be having in waking
life that you think is based on the boss or the driver in front of you is actually just
your grief coming out sideways because you're, you haven't acknowledged it.
And so it's like if you're dreaming of the stuff like well, it's a good start to maybe
start talking about it.
See what's in there.
And see like what it means to honor it and talk about grief in different ways.
And that's why kind of like dreams because sometimes people have like a spiel when they're
like people say, oh, how are you doing with your grief?
And they'll talk about it and like they kind of like end.
And so like there's like these certain questions that people can ask.
And so they've asked it like so many times and they've said the answer so many times.
It comes almost repetitive.
But when you asked about other things, like their dreams or you know, if you do this
worksheet, like what can come up?
It's just another tool you can use to sort of sort of see, you know, where someone is within
their grief and talk about different avenues of the individual that they probably haven't
talked about in a long time.
And I kind of, I love that aspect of that.
And you probably have that too.
It's just like asking the right questions can really bring out different sides of one's
grief and where they are, you know, with that.
And also the relationship that they continue to have in long and memories that they sort
of had from the past, but just asking the right questions is like the key to unlocking new,
I'd say, peace within oneself because they're able to like get more out that they never
thought that they could, right?
Like without that question.
Yeah.
Like even the question of what's a grief dream you would like to have and describe it in
great detail.
I'm thinking almost like a grief dream madlibs of like me and blank would go to blank.
Together we would blank blank and blank by the end of the dream we would blank.
And then just like fill in your grief dreams madlibs, but there it says something entirely
different about a person who wants to meet a loved one for a day at the theme park in a
dream than it does for somebody who one of my very favorite grief dreams of my mom was
shrinking down to the size I was as a child and getting to nap behind her legs on the couch
like I used to do when I was a very little kid.
And we were getting ready for a party.
And so we knew something wonderful was about to happen, but we got to take a nap before
that and it was one of my favorite grief from like getting to nap with my mom is a totally
different energy than you know ride and roll a coaster together.
But like what would be meaningful to one person is not the same thing that would be meaningful
to another.
So even asking that sort of question, if you're supporting a grieving person or especially
if you're grieving in a same household or in the same friend group as other people, these
are really cool ways to open up conversation besides how are you?
Yeah.
How are you doing?
What's your grief been like?
Yeah.
That can have you dreamed of insert person or pet's name here or what's a dream you would
like to have of them or I dreamed of them and here's what happened is a really cool kind
of sideways way to keep conversations about grief going when it seems like there can be
nothing and everything to talk about.
Yeah.
And it definitely is a skill set and as people ask more about people's dreams, I like honestly
the dream itself is just a doorway in to ask more questions like that's how I see it.
And like every dream is being created for its own reason, like I don't know what reason
is.
But like as you said, like what color was a t-shirt?
People don't ask me like in my dream of my father, what was he wearing?
Like people like, but I always ask people, what were they wearing?
Because that has a key story of like who they were in waking life usually.
Sometimes they're in all white, right?
Like they're in heaven or whatever in the afterlife.
But most of the time they're in something that they wore in waking life either their favorite
shirt or they're wearing like ball caps and like they not get to ask about the ball caps
and like, oh, there's a collection.
Oh, tell me more.
Would you do with the ball caps?
Would you do you everywhere?
Like there's a lot of like questions you can then like just move on from where it's like
the dream just is a catalyst for for the discussion on things you wouldn't think about.
Like the clothes they wore or like places like you've been, right?
Or even comments they say, like some of the word choices are very interesting on like
what the deceased says to the dreamer.
And I always like some of this like really wise stuff from like man, that is so cool.
Like let's digest that a little bit and like talk about that in your life.
Yeah, absolutely.
I want to know as we're wrapping up here, maybe if you could give some examples of the most
interesting or profound grief dreams that you have personally had.
And then maybe like one or two of the most profound are interesting from people that you've
talked to in your research.
Well, for me was that personal as my father.
Like after that, like I don't think I've really had many of that words like so profound
in that way because when I look back at that dream of my father, I got to say goodbye.
He died very suddenly, which is something I didn't really know I needed.
And telling them that I loved them was I remember sitting with that and thinking that's fascinating.
You know, like when was the last time I told them I loved them?
Right?
Like that's a question you can ask someone who has that dream.
Right?
Like when was the last time you did like an waking life that you said I love you to your
father?
I would say when I was a child.
That's how long I would say 20 years ago or 15 years ago was last time I actually said
those words to him.
We were like, we've actually been writing a card.
It was just like kind of like the guy thing where he didn't say it.
I didn't say it.
It was just like, you know, like what we felt that we cared about each other.
But how important those words are.
And I realized that made such a huge impact as I move forward once I made those connections
because I'm like, I don't want to have someone else die and have to need a dream to say I
love you.
I'm like, I should like what was then.
So I really looked at myself like what was holding me back from saying that to my father or
to and I looked around to my friends and like my siblings and my family.
And I was like, oh, there's like some kind of insecurity in me that avoids it because of
it maybe being not, you know, maybe masculine.
People make fun of me.
I was like, well, that's kind of stupid.
It's just like, yeah.
So I was like, well, I get to decide what I want to do.
And so like, let me say, and I remember saying it to my mom and I was very, I was kind of uncomfortable
which is interesting itself, but I still said it and she just started crying.
And I remember I was like, oh, mom, why don't you cry?
Didn't you know that I loved you?
She's like, yeah, but like life is hard and it's nice to be reminded of that.
And I said, oh, so it's not just for me to say it.
It's also for people to hear it.
How important it is.
And so I've been, it kind of helped me along my journey of like really valuing your emotions
and telling people how you feel.
People are mind readers and they also are going through a difficult journey and whatever it
is.
And so sometimes just by saying those positive things and saying how, you know, someone has made
you feel can like make the world of difference to how someone sees himself.
And I think, you know, that was probably the biggest thing because it had such a like a huge
momentum to how I sort of related to other people and how I've laid two emotions.
But yeah, and that's why there's a lot of things you can like talk about with dreams where
like you wouldn't like, oh, yeah, it's a cool dream that helps you heal.
But like it also helped with a lot of other things, which is just being human and valuing
being human in those emotions that we have.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, and then I wonder if there's any dreams from people you've spoken to or that you've
read about in the research that were like Holy Cow, I didn't know that was possible.
Oh my God.
That's a thing I haven't heard before.
Yeah, oh my God.
Yeah, there's a lot.
There's so many.
So this one came from my aunt actually because I asked her about her dreams, which is she's
recently died.
But one of the good conversations we had was just her husband died.
Must have been like 30 some years ago when I was a kid and she never got remarried.
And anyways, she had this dream where her husband came back and sat down by her bed and said,
I've been to the end of time and back and you know what, I still love you.
And for me, it's just like how beautiful that is and what's a beautiful reminder that someone
is still loved, right?
Like she carried that dream with her as she moved forward in life.
And I think there's part of loss that some of the things that we don't talk about with
loss is the fact that some of the people who die, they were the ones that told us that
we were good enough, right?
We were loved.
Yeah.
And how important these dreams are to continue to fulfill that mission.
We're allowing that that love still sits inside you.
And this is a reminder of that, even though they're not physically present, they're still
there and love still there.
And it's just like finding your way to it.
And these dreams can really, I think, help people embrace that.
I know a lot of people who say like this dream, whatever the dream was, they'll go back
to it anytime that they're needing that kind of boost or to remind themselves of that.
They keep that so secure to their heart that the feeling that never goes away.
They just have to remember that.
So it's like almost stored differently than other dreams because it has that peace and
that love within it.
So there's another dream that someone had where I always thought you needed to meet the
person to have a dream of them, right?
It seems reasonable.
Yeah.
You think so?
You want to think so.
Have some frame of reference for where the dream could go.
Yeah, right?
It's like memory.
So it's like more memory-based.
But it's not true.
People can dream of people as you serve, had today where you just never met them.
And so this individual came on my podcast and her father died when she was in womb.
So she never really had that father figure in her life.
And then so she started dreaming of her father throughout her life.
And she said that's how she actually managed to feel like she had a father.
And one of the dreams she had was my father tells me in the dream, "I love you.
I see you every day.
You're so beautiful."
And it was when she was I think in high school she had that dream.
And so it was just like, and she kept having these dreams.
So she maintained this like continuing bond with someone she's never met, but it was to
her dreams that she sort of feels that she has a father like watching out for her and
looking at her.
And given her advice, as a father would, if they were more or less alive, they could.
Anyway, not everyone has the same fathers.
And then lastly, this was one, Serena Dyer came on my podcast and her steps on died from
substance use related death.
And she had a lot of guilt.
She felt that she could have done more to be nicer to him, to help him with his substance
use.
And so she was having a hard time with her grief.
Anyway, so she had this dream.
In the dream Mason told me to hold his hands and his energy was so joyful and funny.
He then got very serious and told me that I needed to stop at the guilt.
He told me that the guilt was so sabotaging and pointless.
He then told me to be careful with the thoughts I was choosing and the decisions I was making
that were self-harming because as he explained, the purpose of living is to love and it must
start with the self.
He then laughed a little and unleashed my hands.
And then when she woke up, she said that guilt was gone and she knew the focus was about
self-love and to really understand that and work on that a little bit more.
And I think a lot of us are continuing to work on that.
I currently always am.
I'm not perfect and I have my doubts.
And I think this is why those people when they die or pets that die, it crushes us in
so many ways because now we're left alone to figure out how to love ourselves.
And so these dreams is a reminder, but it's not the answer.
It's the answer is for us to learn to love ourselves and to look in the mirror to be proud
of who we are and what we've been able to go through.
And I think there's a beauty in that.
And I think too, the dream of my dad was very interesting because I've had a lot of scary
nightmares, but I also had scary those types of emotions in waking life.
So I've been afraid for my life in waking life.
So those dreams mimic things I've experienced.
The dream of my father and that piece I felt and that love I felt within the imagery, never
experienced in waking life.
So in my mind, I'm like, well, that is kind of like if I can experience in a dream, that
emotional state, why can't I experience in waking life?
And so I think the hindrance of that is that lack of self-love for oneself.
And so it kind of gives me almost a lighthouse on where I am versus what it could be.
And it's a nice little goal to sort of have that it's possible.
But you have to really like focus and do the work to really undo some of the trainings and
the teachings that people have told you along the ways that told you that you were not
enough.
And so it's like that process, but there is a pathway forward.
And I think that's the beauty of life that if you understand that there's room to grow
in an area, you can grow in that area.
And just like understand that the world will find the right path for you to help you work
on ties on those knots that have been tied through your upbringing and to the people around
you through life.
And our current climate of where we're at, they're all tying knots within us.
And it's like there's a way forward that we can untie those at the same time so we can
so value who we are in the world.
I love that.
I love this idea and how you speak of it.
Like if I can experience this much connection or transcendence or joy in a dream, maybe
it is possible in real life.
Like dreams having the potential to show you that like what you see in waking life is not
all there is.
Whether that has a spiritual connotation or an emotional one or physical one or a mental
one, that's really, really cool and very profound.
The last thing I want to ask you about is something that I love that you do on your podcast
and on Instagram and on your website and that is like collecting pop culture examples of
dreams from TV shows, from movies, from all over the place of I saw you did the Sex and the
City of Reboot called and just like that had a grave dream in it and so you collected that
one.
There's like grave dreams in Finnland or on the roof.
There's grief dreams in other major and you know minor films and TV and it's really cool
and in music.
The Beatles find myself in times of trouble.
Mother Mary comes to me, presumably in a dream and Paul McCartney talking about his dreams.
Say more on your desire to find examples of grief dreams in the media because it's something
I've never seen anybody do it before but because you do it now I also do it.
So I'll just be listening to songs or the radio or watching a show and be like grief dream.
There it is.
It's like a grief dream I spy but just like out in the world.
Yeah, honestly I, it's not like I'm looking for them like I'm like, oh here's a good movie.
Maybe there's one in it.
It just happens and I was really surprised when I was doing the research just in general
on how often these dreams appeared in film and shows and in music and how people talked
about them in their creative arts on like how impactful they were.
And it's really interesting because one of my movies grown up as a child.
There's a couple movies as like remember I said I didn't realize you can have a dream but
one of my favorite films as a kid, Braveheart had like three dreams that he had of the deceased
wife.
And I was like, oh that's fascinating.
It was my dad's favorite movie.
So that's like kind of I watched it.
And but I'm like, so in the like in the movie I had these dream scenes that I wouldn't
consciously recognize that that was important.
But now I realize well that was a whole point of this grief journey in the dream to allow
them to do what he did was to have these sort of moments where it kind of saved them in
different ways.
And so I was like wow like how many other movies have I watched that just because I didn't
know about the topic or felt it was important.
It kind of just skipped over in my memory.
But now it like when it comes I'm like, oh this is cool because I know like they're not
looking at my research saying, oh like we should put one in because it's so common.
What they're doing is they had probably their own dream experience that had been influential
to them because the reality is most people after loss will have a dream of the deceased.
I would say around 75 80% of people.
And so they're using their own experience to sort of put that in to sort of highlight
the dream in itself, the importance of that in the grief journey.
And it's like their own creative way.
And they can be negative dreams that they put in or they have more positive dreams.
But yeah they're like everywhere.
Like I know we're viewing the Beast had one.
The Beast had one with his dream of his deceased parents in like the Disney film.
And yes.
One of my all-time favorites is Titanic where she gets to go marry Jack on the boat.
Very end of the movie.
But there's so many other sort of grief dreams in TV and movies and some of them are very funny
like almost absurdist and some of them have messages and some of them are re traumatizing
but kind of to your point point to something that could offer a portal to asking different
questions or a portal to healing.
But like you're the only person I know who like publicly is collecting.
And it's just really cool.
It's a grief dreams collection.
It's a library that keeps growing.
So grief growers as you're listening, if you can think of any grief dreams in music,
movies or television, please send them to Josh and help put them over on his website griefdreams.ca.
The collection just keeps going and going.
I like it.
Well I just don't want to forget about them either because like that's the big thing too.
It's like I just like have them up there.
I'll know like oh if I need to like reference something in the future it's like it's there.
Yeah it's an ever-expanding library.
Josh thank you so much for coming on and talking about grief dreams.
Tell us.
I know I just said to your website but tell us where people can find you.
Well they can listen to the grief dreams podcast which is still alive and well and I think I've
been on one or two episodes over there.
I want to listen to three.
I think you had a couple of updates.
Amazing.
Yeah so tell people where they can find you and learn more about grief dreams as a topic.
Yeah so I said griefdreams.ca.
I'm on Instagram where I post a lot of this stuff.
That's where I'm most active on it.
On Facebook there's a grief dreams group.
We can post your dreams and sort of like in a community.
But more importantly they said like the grief dreams podcast or bring guests on to talk about
their grief and then how their dreams impact that in some way.
There's over like 230 people that have come on to talk about their life and their journey
with grief and then also the dreams that they've had.
So if you're interested in these types of dreams they just want to learn more about dreams.
There's end of your episodes where I just clip the dreams of the people in the last year
have come on the podcast.
So you can really see a gambit of how different these dreams truly are for people and how they
understand them.
Those are my favorite episodes because you get a yeah okay yeah you really get the sense
of the gambit of what these dreams can be because we have our own or we want one but like
there's so many different varieties out there and how they influence people and in their
journey and where they are in their journey too.
So yeah so that's where you can find it.
Thank you so much Shelby for having me on.
I look forward to you coming on the podcast again to chat about your new book.
Yeah absolutely and I'll do another plug for Josh's work but I wonder if listening to
podcasts about grief dreams is another way to maybe make your brain.
I'll give you some grief dreams.
If you want to have them thank you so much for coming on grief grower it's been wonderful.
That's all for this episode of grief grower.
Thank you so very much for joining me today to talk about grief dreams.
If you're looking for grief support beyond the show you can find free workshops, blog
articles and my signature what's your grief supports dial quiz at shall be for citya.com/links.
And if you'd like to get support from me for your unique loss experience I hope you'll
join us in life after loss academy which is my online course in community.
As a student I will walk you through my five step grief method g-r-i-e-f for rebuilding
life after loss and you can get live coaching from me every single week to answer your questions
and replays are always available if you can't attend those calls live.
If this podcast felt validating comforting educational or otherwise helpful to you in your
grief please subscribe and leave a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify and be sure to
share this show with a friend because you never know what someone you love is dreaming about
or going through.
Grief grower is hosted by me shall be for citya and the theme music is composed by Addy Goldstein.
Until next time grief growers I see you I am so proud of you and the work that you're
doing in the world and I love you.
As even through grief we are growing.
[Music]