Dreams in Bereavement

Dreams that occur in bereavement have been mainly overlooked in the psychological literature. This causes a lack of understanding of these experiences for those who assist the bereaved and the bereaved themselves. This study focuses on the most memorable dreams of the bereaved that contain imagery of the deceased. There were 52 participants who completed the study via email. The main goal of the study was to investigate the occurrence of common themes in the dreams that have the deceased as a character. It was hypothesized that the most memorable dreams are memorable because they positively influenced the dreamers waking life grief process, which was partially supported. Furthermore, it was expected that that the most memorable dreams will have a greater frequency of positive elements and a lower frequency of negative elements than the normative data on dreams, which was partially supported. These findings support prior research on dreaming of the deceased and expand the impact that these types of dreams can have on the grief process. This should be especially useful to those who work with the bereaved and the bereaved themselves.

Autorentext

Joshua D. M. Black, BA, MA, PhD (Candidate): Currently in his PhD in Psychology at Brock University (Canada). Completed his MA at Trent University (Canada). The area of research he is involved with is bereavement, with a specific focus on dreams that occur when the deceased loved one is present in the imagery.