I have a Theory, Lets Test it right now.

[finklogangt]

When I was a small child, I was close to a grandmother that had passed away. I don't remember this, but my mom told me the story of how I woke up in the middle of the night crying for her. I told her that "Grandma was sitting in the rocking chair starring at me".

So not sure what this was... Did I actually wake up and see the apparition of my dead grandmother? Was I just dreaming that she was there? Anyhow, weird.

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Second thing, my step father passed away when I was 20. We were not on the best terms at the time. Obviously I walked away with a lot of guilt with a lot of things left unsettled. I had a few dreams over the years about him. Some where he was alive and well as if nothing had every happened; others where I got the sense that he was there letting me know, "hey things are cool, relax". I'm not really certain what to make of the dreams.

I certainly believe in the possability of this, but can't say for certain the entities in my dreams were not just spawned from my own subconscious. In terms of spirits and ghosts, they are supposed to be a form of energy. So maybe its possibly they can somehow tap into us in our sleep and communicate; just as some can communicate while we're awake..

[Valerie]

I think this is very interesting. I often get dreams like that when someone around me dies, but I dream it before I know they are dead... I don't think that we can get messages from the dead (don't dismiss it either), but I am a believer in Telepathy. There is probably such a strong emotion when someone dies that if you are open-minded, it's only possible that you feels it.

[onekatietwo]

I was pretty young - maybe like fourth or fifth grade - when my grandpa died, but I definitely remember having a dream about him after I found out.

In my dream, my friend and I were running around my house and playing with a bunch of other kids. Her and I stopped in my room for some reason and my grandpa came and knocked on the door. He basically just greeted me and said he just wanted to say good bye. Afterwards, he walked back down the hall that leads to my room. And then in that strange dream way, a little before he left he kind of turned into my mom dressed as him or walking with him or something. It was weird.

I think it probably has more to do with one's own mind than somebody actually saying goodbye. I guess it was kind of weird because I wasn't particularly traumatized by my grandpa's death or anything.

I don't remember it well enough to recall if there was an animal. There could have been.

[Lynne]

"My theory is that after a loved one dies, they WILL visit you in a dream."

Sometimes even when you are not quite dreaming. My story is long so I apologize. I've shortened it as much as I can.

In 1996 I met my 'soul mate' online. Jay and I wed in 1997 and I used to tell him that I got a glimpse of God through our relationship. I had no idea it was possible for two people to be so close.
In October of 2001 he was diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer. As a side note, I was diagnosed with stage 1 uterine cancer three months later. When I told Jay he said, "I know we are soul mates but we don't have to share everything!" Surgery took care of me. Jay was not so fortunate.
After 9 chemo treatments, countless radiations and several surgeries it was time for him to go. In August 2003 he had a peg (feeding tube) and a trach which silenced his voice. On the evening of August 28, 2003 one of tumors in his neck ruptured the carotid artery. I stood by his bedside helplessly watching him drown in his own blood, watching it pour out of the trach, as I prayed over and over, "God, please just take him". It took ten minutes but seemed an eternity. At the end he turned his head slowly in my direction. His eyes were not working in tandem, the right one dragging behind like a club foot, but I could see he was looking past my right shoulder. There was nothing but a wall of shelves behind me. I knew he was looking at someone when he smiled, and I felt he was being greeted by someone to help him over. Then he truly left.
The manner of his death haunted me. For 10 minutes his body moved. How could a god of love allow such suffering? I could not move past this. I grew depressed and angry over the next few months.
One Saturday I returned to the house after running some errands. My energy level had been normal until I walked into that empty house. I felt completely drained within seconds. I sat in a recliner to practice my napping skills and almost immediately fell into a twilight state. My eyelids were so heavy I could not lift them. Then there was a presence beside the chair. Someone was there and I could not open my eyes. Far from being afraid, I felt it was Jay. Then my eyelids lifted just a bit. I could see my left arm resting on the chair.
That is [i]not[/i] what I felt, however.
What I felt was my arm raised at a 45 degree angle. If I had been asked to choose at that moment which body was real, I would have chosen the one I felt rather than the one I saw. Jay was helping me to understand that although he was still "in" his body, he was disconnected from it. The suffering I witnessed was not what he felt at all. His presence enabled me to let go of the past and focus on now.
"Till death do us part" was the only lie in my marriage vow. He is still with me.
To make a long message even longer, I was not the only one having trouble getting past his death. Our friend Greg was there for Jay's death also and confessed that he had asked Jay to let him know all was okay. "Just give me a sign that you are allright," Greg prayed as he drove a winding road. As he crested a hill, there before him was a complete rainbow. Greg told me he had never seen such a complete and splendid rainbow before. As he continued his drive, everywhere he looked he saw fragments of rainbows until he laughed and said out loud, "Okay, okay, I get it! You're allright!" The rainbows disappeared.
As Greg was relating his experience to me I just had to laugh. "Did you know Jay worked in community theater in Houston in the 1980s," I asked him. "He won an award for his work." I pointed to a statuette on the mantel.
"What did he win that for," Greg asked me.
He won it for Best Lighting.

[footballgeek]

Eleven years ago my last surviving grandparent(my moms mom) was in a nursing home dying. For about 15 years our family watched here fade away due to Alzheimer's disease. She was an awesome grandparent, a great storyteller, and a voracious reader. The fact that she had Alzheimer's was very hard on the whole family...

My grandmother was dying in her nursing home and my family was called in to help comfort and ease her suffering and in her final hours. My wife stayed at home with our two young daughters. I met my mother, father and siblings in her room and we did all we could to comfort her in her suffering. I stood near the top of the bed and stroked her hair, and my brothers and sisters each took turns telling stories of our beloved grandmother. We stayed at the nursing home for about 12 hours then they sent us home.

That night while my wife and I were sleeping I had the feeling that someone was stroking my hair while I was asleep. When we woke the next morning, I asked my wife where our 3 year old daughter was because I assumed it was that was her that was stroking my hair in the middle of the night. It was then my told me that she had the same sensation of someone stroking her hair while she was sleeping. We went to my daughters room and found her safe asleep. Right as we shut the door to her room the phone rang. It was my father telling me that my grandmother had passed away over night.

[FeeFee1270]

My grandfather visits me. My great-grandmother visited my grandmother and she said that she was trying to get her to come to her on the other side of a river and my grandmother told her that she didn't want to cross and get her feet wet. She told me that if she had cross that river in her dreams she knew she would have died in her sleep (crossing the river means that you've died like when you dream you're falling and see yourself hit the ground, supposedly you've died).
Fee

[Intuitive_Wiretap]

As a very intuitive person, I've had multiple people come to me in dreams.
CRAAAAZZZIIEEEESSSTTTT one I've had was one of my friends coming to me before he was about to die in a car accident. He told me what would happen, but not to worry, because it was his time.
Dreams bring me a lot of peace, but that one just shook me.