Dream Interpretation - Mother Dying

Dear Dr. Dave and Dr. Dee,

I've had several dreams that I'm dying. I've also dreamed that my mother has died. Can dreams predict the future? If my dream about my mother dying comes true, does that mean I'm psychic?

Signed,

Dreaming

Dear Dreaming,

Dreams can only predict the future if they involve decision-making on your part. If you dream a solution or decision, and decide to follow through on it, then in that respect, dreams can predict the future.

But no, if a dream comes true, you are not psychic. You probably have thousands of dreams, how many have come true? Most of the time, we don't even remember our dreams.

When interpreting dreams, always take the literal translation first. Your dreams of dying: are you worried about your own or your mother's health? Have you been, or are you, sick? If both of you are very healthy, and you keep having these dreams of dying, then you could look further into dream interpretation.

Different dream analysts may interpret dying in various ways. Some feel dreams of dying may mean then end of something in your life. Or, you need a drastic change in your life. Others will point to specifics such as a wedding or birth of a baby that will take place.

Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud believed, "dreams are the disguised fulfillment of unconscious wishes" (Freud cited in Chiriac, 2008). Psychoanalyst Carl Jung wrote, "though dreams contribute to the self-regulation of the psyche by automatically bringing up everything that is repressed or neglected or unknown, their compensatory significance is often not immediately apparent because we still have only a very incomplete knowledge of the nature and the needs of the human psyche" (Jung cited in Dream Interpretation at Freud and Jung, 2008).