I dream of dead people

I had this dream about a friend of mine.  His name was Craig.  I’d heard recently that he’d died.  I hadn’t seen him since 1995.  But I was still sad for the news; I’d always thought I’d run into him on Facebook or something.

So, I had this dream, and he was sitting on the floor, talking to me.

He told me he was an atheist (I’d thought he’d been a Catholic, but in the dream he tells me he really didn’t believe in anything).  Now that he was dead, he was afraid and needed to believe in something.  He tried to allow himself to cross over, but he just couldn’t quite manage it.  He was afraid to let go.  So I hugged him and held him, and told him to breathe deeply (I know, ghosts don’t breathe).  He’d start to fade, but then it would scare him, and he’d come back.  He tried many times to relax and let go, but he couldn’t.

Then I woke up.

All morning I had the strangest feeling I wasn’t alone.  I could sense a presence around me, and it seemed so frustrated.  So finally I said “look, you’re dead.  You have no body now, right?  There is obviously something after the physical body dies or you would have already ceased to exist, you wouldn’t be here with me, right?”

There was no reply.  I hadn’t expected one.

I let myself see him in my mind’s eye.

I tried asking him how he’d died, and he pointed to his heart.  “Was it a heart attack?”  He shook his head.  “Was it a stroke?”  He shook his head and held his heart.

I wish I was better at this.

Later that day I found out from a mutual friend that Craig may have committed suicide; his wife had left him, and his heart was broken.

Hmmm…. Maybe I do okay.

Craig appeared to me later in a dream.  He looked great.  He said “I just wanted you to know I was okay now.”  Then he gave me a high-five.  His hand felt warm.

Deanna Joseph © July 21, 2010