Dream of the Month (September 2010)
Dr. Holloway's Comments:
Striking Characteristics: Visitation dreams were once considered products of the human wish for consolation during grief. Current research suggests they may be something much more. Since 2005, I have been collecting dreams such as this one, in which the dreamer is left with the sense of having been visited by someone on the other side. I began the research in part out of fascination that something in this experience is so compelling that people from around the world, and in all walks of life report that they believe the experience was real. Five years, and 3400 dreams later, I have come to believe that once again, we have underestimated our own spirits, the power of love, and the enduring nature of our connection to those we know and love in life.
This dreamer provides a moving portrait of her own experience, which while unique, also bears some hallmark traits of this phenomenon. The experience seems to come about unexpectedly – it is set in her bedroom, it occurs in association with sleep-time, but does not feel like a dream. There is an absence of normal dream activity, such as plot, color, visual stimulation, variety. Most important of all: the dreamer has an immediate, and lasting sense of reality about the experience. This to me is the most telling feature of the visitation dream or the after-death-communication dream: the sense of another's presence and the lasting belief in some communication. Just as the dreamer is always the final authority on the meaning of a typical dream, so it falls to the individual who has the experience to have the final say on whether it was real, and what it means to them. If we are telepathic in life, and I believe we are, why couldn not we remain connected in spirit as well? |