Legacy MattersFeatured in the current Newsweek is a new book, by the Rev Patricia Bulkley called Dreaming Beyond Death about the extraordinary dreams people have in their final weeks and days.
Bulkley, a hospice chaplain for ten years, says that many of these vivid dreams have themes of going on journeys or reuniting with deceased loved ones.
The last dream that psychologist Carl Jung was able to communicate to his followers, a few days before his death, was of a great round stone engraved with the words "And this shall be a sign unto you of Wholeness and Oneness." To Jung, it showed that his work in this life was complete. Socrates and Confucius also spoke of significant dreams they had shortly before their deaths.
Some can be frightening, warning the dreamer of unresolved issues. Others are so intense they can be mistaken for reality especially when they feature dead relatives.
Yet despite the power of these dreams, caregivers often miss the opportunity to explore their meaning. It's a loss on both sides, according to Bulkley. Talking about end-of-life dreams can give family members a way to broach the uncomfortable topic of death, she says. For the dying, discussing such a dream can provide a simple way to articulate complex emotions—or, if the meaning of the dream is unclear, to fathom its purpose. And to the extent the dying person finds comfort in any such dream, so do surviving relatives. "These are the stories that get repeated at funerals," says Bulkley. "They become part of the family lore."
Posted by Jill Fallon at July 22, 2005 11:37 AM | Permalink
Heh! I was just going to email this story to you. Glad I checked first. Isn't it fascinating.
Posted by: Ronni Bennett at July 22, 2005 6:41 PMI had a very interesting dream, age 56, father on his deathbed, i had normal night of interesting dreams about this and that, in usual color, fun interesting dreams, and then it happened. Suddenly, my dreamscape in my sleeping mind, but concious too, suddently my dreamscape went DARK, NO SOUND, and I could see nothing, but could "feel" a flat horizon like out on the sea viewed from shore, but everything completely utterly silent and dark, like the theater stage went completely dark in a second. and then i WOKE UP.
Posted by: david hume at August 4, 2005 2:37 AMWhy do the authors of that book spell their same last name differently, mother and son. One is Bulkely, the other is Bulkley? Anyone know why? Or am i dreaming?
Posted by: allen edwards at August 4, 2005 2:38 AMFYI
Bulkley and Bulkeley are variations of the same family name, that of the Rev. Peter Bulkeley, a Puritan who left England in 1635 and founded a new church community in what became Concord, Massachusetts. Patricia and her husband, Ned, are part of a family branch that dropped out the first "e." Kelly, their eldest son, now spells his last name with the additional "e."
Thanks Allen.
I was going dizzy rereading the post trying to find the extra "e".
I love it when people answer their own questions!