Dear Grief Guide, I Keep Having Awful Grief Dreams

Hello and welcome to Dear Grief Guide,

A podcast where each week I answer one anonymous letter from a listener feeling lost,

Stuck,

Heartbroken,

Or overwhelmed in the midst of grief.

My name is Shelby Forsythia.

I'm a grief coach and author,

And I'm here to help you create a life you love from the life loss forced you to live.

Let's get to today's letter.

Dear Grief Guide,

I recently lost my dad to cancer.

For the last month or so,

I keep having different iterations of the same traumatizing dream.

The overarching concept of my dream is that I know my dad has passed,

But I am informed that he has come back to life,

Whether that be in the funeral home or back in his house where I was a caregiver for him.

He doesn't come back to life healthy.

In every dream,

He is in the final phases of his life,

Reliving his last days.

I am aware that he has died in real life,

But my dream self is forced to relive him struggling in his final hours.

A few times,

I've even heard him calling my name.

While some might think it's comforting to see their dead person come back to life in a dream,

I promise you it's not.

I feel sick when I wake up.

It also brings all the emotions to the surface again.

I keep having this awful grief dream.

It leaves me feeling disoriented and heartbroken and emotionally hungover,

As if I'm trapped in a never-ending night-time replay of his final days on earth.

What do these dreams mean,

And how do I stop them?

It's been heartbreaking to have to relive his final days on repeat when I'm trying so hard to just get some rest.

Do you have any advice on how to cope with these dreams and find some relief?

My bed has become a place that I dread.

Signed,

No More Nightmares.

Hi there No More Nightmares,

I so deeply resonate with your story of having nightmares over and over and over again of your person dying.

This was an experience that I had after the death of my mother.

I was not home when she died.

I was having lunch with my girlfriend at the time,

It was one of the few times I left the house.

I chose to be away from her as she was dying.

For my sanity,

For my mental and emotional health,

For my need as a 21-year-old newly queer out-in-the-world person to be seen and loved and validated and just companioned in the world for a second to feel quote-unquote normal,

And my girlfriend and I at the time were having sandwiches and french fries at my favorite childhood diner.

And after we paid the bill,

And as we were leaving the booth,

I got a call from my dad.

By the time I picked up the phone,

We were walking in the parking lot,

And he told me my mom died.

And my knees hit the pavement,

I was in the way of cars and people,

And I immediately started wailing that she was gone.

And for months and years,

I had similar recurring grief dreams over and over and over again that someone in my life,

Someone I knew,

Delivered the news to me that she had died.

And each time in the dream,

The news was fresh.

It was as if I was receiving it for the first time.

And I received this news from dream people who I did high school theater with,

I received it from family members,

I received it from old co-workers,

And it made sleeping and waking just awful experiences.

And I,

Like you,

Dreaded going to sleep every night because I didn't know what to expect on the other side of my closed eyes.

So I deeply resonate with this experience.

Many,

Many people have grief dreams.

Not a lot of people talk about it,

But many people have grief dreams,

Both dreams that they would consider positive,

And connecting,

And affirming,

And validating,

And loving,

And all of these wonderful things that you want to be associated with having a grief dream.

And many other people have grief dreams that are,

If I can put a very fine point on it,

Torture to endure.

One of the other people I'm thinking of in this moment is the author Cheryl Strait,

Whose book Wild made a great impact on me after my mother's death.

And she describes,

After the death of her own mother,

Having dreams where she was forced to kill her mother over and over and over again.

Different methods,

Different ways,

I will not go into graphic details here,

But imagine all the ways there are to die.

And that is what she had to do to her mother in dreams.

She later,

In a podcast episode of Dear Sugars,

Which is her advice podcast that inspired this one,

Said that she thought it was her brain's way of trying to make sense of the loss.

To make sense of something that should never make sense at all.

And this is what I wonder might be happening with you too.

No more nightmares.

Is your brain trying its damnedest to make any sort of sense,

Any sort of storyline,

Any sort of comprehension over or about the loss that has happened to you?

It's as if there is this logical half of you,

I know my dad has passed,

I know he's no longer here.

I lived through that reality in waking life.

And then there's this other half of you that's like,

But maybe he's still alive.

Maybe I need to watch him die one more time in order for it to sink in.

Maybe I need to receive the news again from a funeral home director or a hospice professional or somebody at the hospital or a relative or a friend or family member.

Maybe I need to relive this one more time in order for it to make sense.

But what I think might be important to you is not why it's happening.

You're like,

Yeah,

Sure,

My brain needs to make sense of the loss.

Do whatever you need to do,

Brain.

But oh my God,

Sleep is now a hellscape for me.

What do I do about that?

One of my very,

Very dear friends named Joshua Black hosts a podcast called Grave Dreams.

A lot of podcast recommendations on this one,

Y'all go listen to Dear Sugars,

Go listen to Grave Dreams.

He actually has a PhD in Grave Dreams.

And he is,

To my knowledge,

One of the only humans alive who has dedicated his entire life to studying the dreams we have after someone we know or someone we love dies.

Both beautiful connecting visitations and validations and nightmares.

One of my favorite pieces of advice that he offers,

Especially for people having grief nightmares in the aftermath of a loss is to,

For 30 days,

So you have to commit to this,

No more nightmares,

For 30 days,

Keep a journal by your bed or record audio messages.

I think you can get the same effect either way.

And before you go to sleep,

Set a timer for one to five minutes,

However long you feel you can write and concentrate in this season of your life and write a perfect dream that you would like to have with your dad.

This can involve a beautiful memory you shared while he was in life.

This can involve you going to visit him in the afterlife if that's something that you believe in.

This can involve you two having a healing conversation about something you didn't get to finish on earth.

This could be just the two of you in a beautiful place,

Hugging,

Sitting together,

Doing a shared activity,

No talking whatsoever.

Whatever it is,

Conjure up,

Write down,

Or record your voice speaking your ideal dream.

And he says,

Joshua Black says,

That doing this practice,

Storytelling your perfect dream,

Especially with the timing right before you go to bed,

It helps your brain associate that time with positive memories of your dad so that it is more likely that that is the experience you are going to have in a dream.

Now this doesn't erase nightmares entirely.

It can't.

I can guarantee that that's the outcome this is going to have,

But what it does is it starts to crowd out your brain's association with bed equals dreams equals nightmares equals sorrow equals pain with a different story.

It's bed equals remembering equals reminiscing equals loving equals connection equals dreaming equals hoping equals comforting.

Insert your own adjective here to describe the experience of what sort of dream you'd like to have with or about your dad in sleeping time,

And that is the dream that you can slowly make true for yourself.

Again,

You won't be 100 out of 100 on this.

You may still have grief dreams and nightmares,

Especially when big milestones or anniversaries death days,

Birthdays,

Things like that appear in your life,

Especially if something in your waking life activates your grief in a big or significant way.

Sometimes grief dreams are just unpredictable altogether,

And there is a great sense of powerlessness in that.

And also,

From what he has studied and from what I know to be true about grief dreams as well,

Is that if you want to have good ones,

You have to put in just a little bit of work to imagine what a good grief dream might look like,

Because especially right now,

So much of what you might perceive grief dreams to be is all sad,

All bad,

All terror.

And that's heartbreaking.

And so this is my invitation to you to imagine a new way of dreaming where your dad is still the subject of your dreams,

But in a wildly different way.

So I hope you'll try this.

The last thing I want to offer you is a wonderful free meditation app called Insight Timer.

And this is a place where I host meditations,

Generally episodes of my podcasts that you can find on there for free.

But you can search by meditation type,

Meditation style.

You can choose music or no music.

You can choose male or female oriented voices.

You can choose length and duration.

I want five minutes.

I want two hours of being suspended in a space of someone's calming voice,

Of calming music.

And I cannot tell you,

You can choose bedtime stories where they give you prompts to visualize what you would like to experience as you fall asleep.

I cannot tell you how many nights as my loved ones were sick or dying,

Or in the loneliness of my own grief after their death,

That I leaned on this resource for help.

Sleep sadly,

Nighttime sadly,

Is one of the most often reported times of loneliness and isolation for grieving people.

And sometimes just having another voice in the room telling you that sleep is okay,

That relaxing is safe,

That there may be beautiful dreams waiting for you,

Is what you need in order to let go of consciousness and allow yourself to get some rest.

No more nightmares.

I wish that to be reality for you.

May you know peaceful nights in the future.

May you have dreams of your dad that feel restorative and connecting and comforting and healing to your heart.

And may you write me again,

And let me know how it all turned out.

I am sending you so much love in waking life,

And in sleep.

Good luck.

That's all for this episode of Dear Grief Guide.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

If you're feeling lost,

Stuck,

Heartbroken,

Or overwhelmed in the midst of your own grief,

Check out my free workshop,

Grow Through Grief.

Three ways to stop feeling stuck and start moving forward.

I'll give you three easy,

Actionable tools for navigating life after loss,

And show you how you can create peace,

Stability,

And compassion right there in the middle of grief's confusion and uncertainty.

You can find the workshop link in the show notes.

If this podcast helped you feel a little less alone in your grief,

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And be sure to share Dear Grief Guide with a friend,

Because you never know what someone you love is going through.

You can submit your anonymous letter for the show,

And find additional grief support at shelbyforsythia.

Com.

Music for Dear Grief Guide is performed by Eddie Goldstein.

Editing by Rue Spence of Synivia.

Until next time,

I see you.

I am so proud of you and the work that you're doing in the world.

And I love you.

Because even through grief,

We are growing.