Why Do We Dream of Acquaintances in Spirit?

by Julia Melges-Brenner. Copyright Sabrina Scott, Inc. All rights reserved. Written for and originally published in Kajama.

Dear Julia:

I had a friend who was dear to me, but I moved out of state and didn't see him often or even talk to him much. Strangely, every time I would go to visit, I would always run into him somewhere. A couple of years later, I found out that he had died in an accident. What was strange was I had thought about him for the first time in a while two days before I was told of his death. I then had a dream about him several weeks later. I saw him walking and smiling and I ran to him and said, "I thought you were dead!" He said no and just smiled. I have now had several dreams of him. In one he confirmed that he was in fact dead. In another he came to me and said to remember him. I have dreams every now and again of him, and I'm wondering why. My three-year-old son came to me one day and said "Mama, D.C is here." (That was his name.) I had never talked about him to my son and am wondering what is going on with all of this.

M.

Dear M.:

When loved ones cross over, they tend to visit people with whom they have a strong loving bond like the two of you have. The amount of time you spent together doesn't matter; the important thing is the quality of your connection. This psychic bond brought you together when you visited his city when he was alive, and it's continuing to bring you together now that he's in another dimension.

Spirits also reach out to people who are receptive and able to perceive them. They may also try to come through to other surviving loved ones, but if those people can't perceive them, they'll focus on someone who can. People who are open and sensitive to spirit contact glow with a certain light in the astral; they're like beacons that attract spirits looking for contact with this world.

My first spirit dream is a great example. This was many years ago, when I was in my early twenties. A friend from high school named Jennifer had tragically died in a car accident just after graduation. Jennifer and I had known each other since kindergarten, and while we ran in the same circles, we weren't especially close. After she died, her mother told me that it had meant a great deal to her that I had offered to loan her a dress for prom.

Jennifer had been a really good cross country runner in high school. At the time I dreamed about her, I had been running for less than a year and had developed an injury that had me really frustrated. The night I had the dream, I remember lying in bed, thinking about the injury and wondering if I would have to give up running forever. This had me really down, so I sent out a vague prayer to the Universe for help with this problem.

That night I had a striking dream. In the dream, I was walking down a crowded sidewalk when I twisted my ankle and fell off the curb. I was sitting in the gutter, holding my ankle and worrying about never being able to run again, when the crowd parted and through it came Jennifer. She looked absolutely radiant and was wearing an angelic white dress. She looked more grown up and beautiful than I'd ever seen her look before. She walked directly up to me, looked me in the eye, and said, "Don't worry; you'll run again."

When I awoke, I was perplexed and amazed by this dream. Of all the people in Spirit to come to me in a dream, why her? I now believe she came to bring me comfort because she wanted to return the favor I'd done her years before, and also because her own passion for running made her empathetic to my plight. (For the record, I did run again, and have been running ever since.)

A couple of years after that, I dreamed that I met her in this vague, misty place. I was startled to see her there, and said, "Hey, aren't you Jennifer?" She indicated that she was. I said, "But aren't you...dead?" She indicated that she was dead in this world, but that didn't mean she no longer existed. Soon after that the dream ended.

Let's turn now to your dreams about your friend. I believe that whenever we dream about someone who has died, and in the dream we are aware that they are dead, we are visiting with their spirits on another plane. I've now had many such dreams, and they always have a special quality about them; they're especially moving, vivid, real and memorable.

Sometimes I dream that I see my departed father in a crowded public place. In these dreams, I know he's dead and I'm very excited to see him. I am hugging him and talking to him while the other people in the dream can't see or perceive him at all. I'll say, "He's right here in front of you!" but they still can't perceive him. Sometimes they look at me like I'm crazy because I seem to be talking to empty space, but I don't care: I'm too excited to see him to worry about what other people think.

It sounds like you and D.C. had a very loving connection. Further, you are obviously open to spirit contact and sensitive enough to both perceive spirits while in an altered stae of consciousness and remember those events after the fact. I'm sure that with some development, you could learn to do the same thing from an altered but awake state of consciousness.

The fact that your friend popped into your head two days before you learned of his death further validates your psychic sensitivity. I'm assuming that he was already dead at that point and was trying to get your attention. Since he couldn't fully dialogue with you when you were awake, he began to try to reach you via the dream state. This is when it is easiest for us to visit with loved ones in other dimensions.

Regarding why our friends in Spirit come to us this way, there are lots of possibilities.

First, this sort of thing just happens naturally. Just as you would run into him when visiting his city, you run into him while you're both in the dream world. Imagine that the cords between us and those we love are like rubber bands. Wherever we go, whether in this world or other worlds, the tension of being apart will draw us toward each other. This is how we find each other via <q>destiny</q> when we reincarnate together, and how we are naturally draw together again when we leave this world. The same thing is happening all the time whether we're on the same plane or not. When we dream and visit the astral/other planes, the walls between us are removed, and this force can pull us toward the people we love on that plane.

Spirits also visit us to deliver love, comfort and messages like my friend Jennifer did. If they resonate with what we are going through, they may feel called to try to help. This is the same motivation for visits from spirits when we are grieving for them.

Finally, spirits sometimes visit us because they need something from us. Since your son perceived your friend, he's clearly visiting you both when you're awake and asleep, but you haven't yet developed the ability to perceive him when you're awake. Most of us are born with psychic skills that we lose over time as we're taught what is "real" and "imaginary" and as we shift from the high vibration of the spirit world to focus on physical reality. When spirits do want our help, it's often because they need an intermediary who can perceive them to relay some message to another loved one in this world.

I don't feel that this is the case here because your interactions with him have been so casual and he hasn't mentioned anything like this. Instead, I feel that your love for each other simply draws you into orbit of each other, and when you're in a certain state of mind, you are able to interact and later consciously remember that interaction.

- Julia



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