Tag Archives: dream

Grandmother’s Goodbye

Genre: Folk Narrative – Ghost Story

Text:

“My dad once told me a story about an experience he had with a ghost. My dad was really close with his grandparents; he spent a lot of time over at their house when he was younger and as a child, he had these really weird dreams where his grandmother would appear to him. In the dreams, she was just sitting on a stool beside his bed and talking to him.

“When I was around ten years old, my great-grandmother, his grandmother, passed away. But my dad told me he had one of those dreams the night she died: in his dream, he was a child again as he was looking at her, and just as she always did in the dreams, she was sitting on a stool and talking to him. But he had a feeling that this dream was different. Although he doesn’t remember the details of the conversation he had in the dream, when he woke up, he felt a visceral change and later discovered that that was the night she passed away.”

Context:

“My great-grandparents on my dad’s side, around when I was ten years old or so, were dying of Alzheimer’s and they needed a caretaker. It was a really big burden on my family, and I remember my dad talking about them a lot during that time because he had a really deep connection with his grandparents. He spent a lot of time with them growing up, and he even ended up remodeling their house and turning it into his parents’ house, which is where my grandparents live now. I think my dad’s dreaming of them was a representation of the deep emotional connection they shared. I think he really felt a change in that connection the night his grandmother died, and I like to think of that dream as her way of saying goodbye.”

Analysis:

Although I am skeptical about the idea of a truly prophetic dream, I think this is an example of how dreams can sometimes help someone process an ongoing trauma or complicated emotions. The informant explained that his great-grandparents were dying of Alzheimer’s, which is a slow end. It is possible that the informant’s father dreamed about conversations with his grandmother as a way of processing this difficult mental condition, and only after hearing news of his grandmother’s death did he feel that, at the time of the dream, he felt that he knew she had died at the time. Memories are notoriously faulty and dreams even more so, which is why I personally believe that this was not a ghost the informant’s father envisioned the night his grandmother died, but merely a way of his brain processing the difficulty of losing a loved one.

Another idea to consider is the fact that the informant’s paternal family is Mexican. Ghosts are prevalent in Mexican culture, particularly the ghosts of loved ones (as seen in holidays such as Día de los Muertos). It is possible that this cultural background influenced the informant’s father to be more inclined to believe in a supernatural explanation for his dream/ghost rather than a scientific one.

Interactions beyond the grave

Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: Apr 4, 2023
Primary Language: English

My informant talked about some paranormal activity that happened after her brother passed away.

The first incident happened a couple weeks after the death. The brother had a bmw, and through some series of events, his boyfriend received it. When he was driving the car, he got into a car crash. After the car crash, when the boyfriend checked his phone, he had missed a call from the deceased brother on snapchat, exactly when the crash happened. After informing the family, they checked the brother’s phone, as snapchat accounts can only be logged in on one device at a time, and the account was never logged off. No one else in the family logged on so there is no plausible explanation for this event.

The second event that happened was a couple days after, when the boyfriend had a vivid dream that he and the brother were touring my informant’s, and her brother’s, high school. Afterwards, he described what he saw in the dream to one of his friends, and everything he stated was accurate. The catch? The boyfriend had never been to that school in real life.

Both of these stories are true paranormal stories. These stories contain the trope of a loved one being visited by the dead sometimes in a time of need. The call during the car crash could have been one of warning, and if the boyfriend had picked up (which you shouldn’t when driving) the crash may have been avoided. Similarly, seeing your loved one in a dream is also a common story. Dreams can be seen as some sort of liminal space between life and death, allowing for the communication between the two parties. This isn’t something that directly impacted my informant, but was something that she witnessed.

No one has a reason to lie, leading me to believe in the story, but realistically, it doesn’t make sense. The first can be attributed to shock perhaps, as people often hallucinate or imagine angels or something when in accidents, but the second doesn’t seem to have a plausible reason.

Soldier Loses Rifle Magazine

Context:

D is a college student at the University of Southern California, he is 22 and from Singapore. He served in the Singaporean military from 2018 to 2020 (it is mandatory for all men 18 and older), where a fellow soldier experienced a supernatural encounter. He told me he didn’t believe in ghosts, even though ghost stories and beliefs in ghosts were common in Singapore; however, he thinks that this story has no other logical explanation and that this occurrence changed his mind.

Text:

“So, I was in the military, and we were in the jungle, and this guy loses his riffle magazine, which is a very bad thing because they are very important, and you cannot lose your riffle magazine when you’re in the military. They are very strict about not losing your riffle magazine because if you do, you’ll get punished in a really bad way. So, he goes around looking for it, but he can’t find it, he calls all his friends to help look for it and none of them can find it. So, he thinks he’s screwed because when he gets back, he’s going to get punished. It gets late and there’s no point searching for it, so he goes to bed. He dreams about a little girl, around 5 years old, and in his dream, the little girl points at a rifle magazine. It isn’t that far from him (10 meters), and the little girl is just pointing. But then he looks up and sees himself in the third person on the ground sleeping. Then, the little girl picks up the rifle magazine and walks toward him. As she gets closer to him, he feels the need to wake up; but when he wakes up, the riffle magazine is already in his hand.”

Analysis:

There are many legends and superstitions in the army since it is a folk group with a very strong culture and folklore. Oftentimes, people resort to supernatural explanations for events that don’t make sense or cannot be rationalized with logic or science. Singapore has a very spiritual population whose culture appears to believe in and celebrate ghosts and spirits, so for a group of Singaporean soldiers, the thought of a ghost making things happen in the camp does not sound too impossible. A common motif in ghost stories seems to be little girls, perhaps it is because they are a representation of innocence and goodness, in this case, if this experience were to be a tale, she would be seen as a wise donner figure from another realm that helps the hero.

Korean Childbirth Dreams

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Primary Language: English

Context:

The following informant is a 21-year-old Korean American student. I was having a conversation about dreams when this topic came up. The informant stated that she heard the story from her parents who are Korean immigrants. In this I will be denoted as C and the informant will be denoted as S

S: So there this like thing I don’t know if it’s only for Korean women but apparently you get like a pregnancy dream when you’re pregnant. So like my mom’s pregnancy dream when she was with me was by a river or a swimming pool or something and then like a giant shiny black fish jumps out of the water and she catches it, and that’s kind of the dream she has. And then for my sister she had a dream of a shiny beautiful pearl. So my mom had a dream that I was a beautiful shiny black fish that she caught.

C: And what does it mean?

S: Apparently, I was talking to my photography teacher who is also Korean, what she’s heard about Korean pregnancy mother dreams is that if you dream of something really really small then it means girls, wait no, if you dream of something really small it’s a boy but if you dream of something big it’s a girl. So the big fish, me girl. So that’s it.

Analysis: This is an interesting folk belief and I have heard similar folk beliefs that are said to indicate the gender of the baby.

Familial Legends: Dreaming of the Devil

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Lynn, Massachusetts
Performance Date: 4/20/19
Primary Language: English
Language: none

Every family member on J.R.’s father’s side has experienced the same DREAM.

J.R. – “Every single person in my family on my dad’s side, as far back as, like, 4 generations, has had this terrible sleep paralysis at least once in their lives, and during this nightmare they see a manifestation which they believe to be the devil.”

Can you describe the dream?

“So essentially, uh, they – well, really, it’s not a dream, it’s that; when they come to, they’re completely frozen, and usually there’s a window or a door for some reason, and by the foot of the bed.  So what my father saw was a foot-tall figure, usually completely shadowed, has appeared on their bed and walked towards them with blood red eyes.”

“As soon as it gets really close to them, it goes black, and they wake up.”

“My grandmother’s was slightly different than my father’s: she was passed out on her bed, a similar situation to my father, and it appeared.  And the staple of this figure is definitely it’s blood red eyes.”

When you think about the possibility of that happening to you as well, what crosses your mind?

“I’m intrigued, especially because of my father’s family’s interesting relationship with religion.  My dad was a mormon at one point, but now he’s not even religious . . . my grandmother had some issues which kinda drove her away from religion . . . in my eyes, I wouldn’t put it past anything – just for me, I’m not super religious.  I don’t necessarily believe in that stuff, but I don’t think my dad ever has ever, and so I’m intrigued to say the least.”

 

This is fascinating to me.  The person who told me this story is a close friend of mine, and I would have known by now if he was in any way overtly religious.  I’ve known, in fact, that he isn’t particularly religious at all, and neither is his family.  So, it shocked me to hear this from him of all people, because I would never have imagined something so spiritual, so saint-like, could have happened to that family in particular.  Subjectively, I think think that this is a prime example of spiritual fluidity, going through all members of one family.  It’s also interesting to hear what this person, who had not yet had this nightmare, has to say about the possibility of it’s occurrence.  I’d be terrified, as I often am, although he seemed so cool about it.