Grief Dreams, Nightmares, and Visitations: How to Understand Their Messages, Meanings, and More After Loss
Grief can make reading hard. Want to listen to this article instead? Find its corresponding podcast episode here.
Grief doesn’t stop when we sleep. For many of us, loss shows up in our dreams—sometimes in beautiful ways, sometimes in ways that leave us unsettled, even overcome by despair.
These nighttime experiences, often called grief dreams, can connect us to people and pets we love, reawaken our pain, or reveal truths about our emotional state we haven’t yet faced in waking life.
To explore this mysterious and deeply human phenomenon, I spoke with Dr. Joshua Black, a grief and bereavement researcher who has devoted his career to studying grief dreams on an episode of Grief Grower. His work highlights not only the prevalence of these dreams, but also the powerful ways they shape our relationship with our losses and our loved ones.
Read on to learn more about grief dreams: what they are, why they matter, how to interpret them, and how to have them if you haven’t yet had one—but would like to.
What Are Grief Dreams?
At their simplest, grief dreams are dreams that arise during or after a loss. They may include the person or pet in your life who has died—or is dying, symbols of grief, or conversations about loss. Sometimes they are comforting. Sometimes they are frightening. And sometimes, they can change your perspective in waking life.
Grief Dreams Across Cultures and Religions
Cultural beliefs shape how grief dreams are understood. In some traditions, dreaming of the deceased means they haven’t “crossed over to the other side” and may be stuck here on earth, tending to those who need them in some way. In other cultures, having a grief dream is considered a blessing. Some spiritual traditions carry both a “blessing and a curse” mentality. Among Christians for instance, some see grief dreams as divine messages; others view them as deceptive mirages from the devil.
What’s striking is how widespread grief dreams are. During our conversation, Joshua said his research suggests they are a human experience, not limited by spirituality or culture. Grief dreams show up not because we believe in them, but because we are human.
The 3 Types of Grief Dreams
Joshua has categorized grief dreams into three broad types:
1. Symbolic dreams of grief
These types of dreams don’t include the deceased at all. Instead, they symbolize the weight of grief through metaphor. For instance, you might dream of running along a mountain trail, only for the mountain to collapse on you. Having similar dreams of drowning, floating in outer space, being chased, or being trapped in a maze may be symbolically related to grief.
In 2021, I experienced a seizure that almost ended my life. For months afterward, I had nightmares about being caught in fires, floods, or other natural disasters—sometimes with family and friends I couldn’t save, other times alone.. Looking back, I can see those dreams now as a metaphor for how close I came to dying and how fragile life truly is.
2. Dreams where the deceased is mentioned but not seen
In these types of dreams, other characters talk about the person who died. As the dreamer, you might see the hospital where they died, or hear someone speaking about their absence.
After my mom died, I had a dream where a high school acquaintance approached me on the street and told me my mom was dead. My dream self received the news as if it was the first time I’d ever heard it and I was overcome by despair and grief, waking up in a panic. For me, that dream was a direct reference to my real-life experience of not being present for my mom’s death where I received a phone call from my dad informing me that my mom had died.
3. Dreams where the deceased is directly present
These are the most widely recognized grief dreams. The person or pet who died shows up in the imagery, sometimes physically present, other times as a voice on the phone—or, in today’s world, via Snapchat or Zoom. As Joshua noted in our conversation, “How you communicated with them in life may be how you communicate with them in death.”
Some of my personal favorite dreams where the deceased is directly present are: meeting my mom in a theater right before a musical begins, hugging my best friend, sitting with my cat on a beach, and shaking hands with my in-laws, who died before my wife and I met each other.
Why Grief Dreams Matter
Grief dreams often carry an emotional weight that lingers long after we wake.
They can:
Reassure us that love is still present
Allow us to say things left unsaid
Mirror the disorientation and trauma of loss
Provide insights about our own healing
As Joshua shared during our chat, “Some people who die were the ones that told us that we were good enough, that we were loved. These dreams are reminders that even though they’re not physically present, love is still there.”
While grief dreams are not discussed aloud in most societies—although I argue they should be!—it’s completely normal to make decisions about your waking life based on what you experienced in a grief dream.
For example, a stressful dream about not getting to say goodbye might prompt you to seek out a therapist or grief coach to work through your pain. A comforting dream featuring your loved one smiling with a red cardinal might prompt you to seek out cardinals on your commute home. A visitation dream from a beloved pet might help you feel ready to welcome a new pet into your life.
The possibilities are truly endless—because anything can happen in a dream!
How to Have a Grief Dream
One of the most common questions grieving people ask is: Why haven’t I dreamed of my person or pet yet?
Sometimes, the answer is simply that we don’t remember our dreams. Joshua’s research shows that dream recall frequency is the strongest predictor of whether people report grief dreams. If you don’t recall dreams often, you may still be having grief dreams; you just don’t remember them.
That said, there are ways to gently invite grief dreams into your life:
Value dreams: Pay attention to them, write them down, and talk about them. Starting a dream journal where you try your best to recall and write down or voice memo your dreams as soon as you wake up signals to your brain that dreams are important things to remember. Try this practice for 30 days and notice how much your dream recall improves!
Build the dream you want: As Joshua suggests, describe in detail the dream you’d love to have. Where would you be? What would you do together? What words or feelings would be exchanged? Some people find that naming this desire increases the chance of dreaming it. You can even treat it like a game of “Grief Dream Mad Libs” where you write your own script. For instance: “Tonight I would like to dream of [blank]. Together we will [blank] and [blank]. We will be wearing [blank], eating [blank], and talking about [blank].” This is also a fun activity to do with kids or others who would like to have more dreams of a loved one.
Ask others: If you haven’t dreamed of your person, chances are someone around you has. In his research, Joshua has even encountered cases where dreams arrive “on behalf of” someone else—dream messages for a spouse, a parent, or a friend.
Interpreting Grief Dreams: What Works (and What Doesn’t)
Many of us grew up with dream dictionaries—whether in book form or online—that claimed to decode symbols that appear in dreams and nightmares. But as Joshua emphasized during our interview, “Everyone has their own dream language.”
A scorpion might be a terrifying sign meaning “Watch out!” to one person and a blessing of protection to another. The meaning lies not in a universal symbol, but in your relationship to it.
Instead of rushing to interpret, Joshua encourages you as the dreamer to:
Start with the emotion of the dream.
Connect that emotion to something you experienced in waking life, especially the day or week before.
Reflect on how the dream might be your way of processing or mirroring those feelings.
This can help you come to a more accurate—for you—conclusion about what a sign or symbol means in a dream.
When Grief Dreams Are Distressing
Not all grief dreams are peaceful. Some are nightmarish, replaying the trauma of your loss. Others feature the deceased expressing blame, anger, distress, or judgment about how you’re living your life.
This can be incredibly painful, but it doesn’t necessarily mean your loved one is upset with you. More often, these dreams reflect your own guilt, regret, or trauma. As Joshua explained in our conversation, “That’s not the soul blaming you. That’s you blaming you.”
Research shows that 90% of grief dreamers report positive dreams, while about 40% experience negative ones. Those negative dreams tend to occur earlier in grief or when trauma is unresolved. Here’s the good news: as you process your grief, your dreams are likely to become more positive and comforting.
There’s even evidence in Joshua’s research that working through traumatic dreams can reduce PTSD symptoms by 50%. Dreams aren’t just byproducts of grief—they can be powerful avenues for healing. So if you’re having freaky, traumatizing, or stressful dreams, consider talking to a therapist, coach, or other emotional healing professional who can help you process what you’re dreaming about.
Carrying Grief Dreams Into Waking Life
For many grieving people, grief dreams become touchstones—moments we return to again and again for reassurance and connection.
Joshua’s aunt, for example, dreamed of her husband decades after his death. In the dream, he sat by her bed and said: “I’ve been to the end of time and back, and you know what? I still love you.”
She carried that dream with her for the rest of her life as a reminder of his love for her and their ongoing connection.
Dreams like these remind us that love doesn’t end, even when life does. They can spark reflection too. You might find yourself asking, “If I can experience this kind of peace and closeness in a dream, is it possible in waking life too?”
Closing Thoughts
Grief dreams invite us into a surreal intersection of memory, emotion, and love. They can comfort, challenge, or even change us. They remind us that grief is not confined to waking hours—it moves with us through every part of our lives.
If you’ve ever had a grief dream—or longed for one—you’ll want to hear my full conversation with Dr. Joshua Black. We dive deeper into the science, the mystery, and the profound truths these dreams reveal.
Listen to our full conversation here.
