Is there something important in your life or in your past that you've been avoiding dealing with? Is there an impending change on the horizon or an existential issue that you've not wanted to think about? Well, a death dream might be your inner-self's way of begging you to handle your sh*t and face your truths. Dreaming of something so disturbing can be interpreted as a way for your subconscious to grab your conscious attention and give you a little shake. I mean, what's more alarming than living through a weird, virtual-reality version of your own or someone's else death, brought to you by the theta waves of your trippy subconscious mind? Not much. The mind's computer just doesn't have enough data to complete the simulation.' explained why we often wake up before experiencing our own death in a dream: ' we don't really understand what happens to us after our bodies die, dreams about death typically end abruptly before or after the point of impact.

In an interview with HuffPost, psychotherapist Jeffrey Sumber, M.A., M.T.S., L.C.P.C. Not sure if any research really supports this theory, but I've tacked it trustily onto my long list of unfounded anxieties anyway - just for funsies! That said, most people don't get to put this theory to the test, as our brains almost always wake us up before we actually meet our dreamtime fate.

For example, I think we've all heard the slightly preposterous concept that if you die in a dream, you'll actually die IRL in that moment while you sleep.

Naturally, as is often the case with anything related to the confrontation of one's own mortality, there are lots of superstitions surrounding death dreams. Whether it's your own death or the death of someone you care about, dreaming about it is almost always pretty jarring - but most of us have experienced it at one point or another. Seriously though, for a little dream-obsessed macabre freak like myself, this is an important question. Nothing like kicking off a day like wondering what it means to dream about death.

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