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Why it picks who it picks
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In a study of Canadian university students, 54.1% said they had dreamed at least once of a living person as dead. So you are not alone in this, which helps a little and not enough.
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The oldest reading is change: something about what you have with that person is shifting, and the sleeping mind, which has no gift for subtlety, says “gone” when it means “different.” Whether that is true is your call, but people have said it across enough languages and centuries that the dream, at least, is not new.
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What I notice in the letters people send is simpler than all of that. The person who dies is almost always the person you are most afraid of losing. The dream is not a warning; it is a practice run for the fear you carry in the daytime but never say out loud.
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So the question is not what it means. The question is what to do with it at six in the morning while the ceiling still feels too close.
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What to do at six in the morning
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The worst response is nothing, because nothing means the feeling sits in your chest all day and colours everything one shade darker. The second worst is to call the person and frighten them with a story you do not yet understand.
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Here is what works better. Write down what happened in the dream, just the images, in a few plain words. Then underneath start one sentence with “I am afraid that” and see where it goes. You do not have to finish it well or show it to anyone.
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That is tonight’s practice, below. Keep the notebook where you can reach it.
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✦ WRITE BACK
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Which part of today’s letter was the hard one to read?
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TELL ME WHICH ONE
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You dream of losing them because you love them enough to rehearse it. That is all this dream is, and I wanted you to hear it from someone who has had it too.
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| Sleep well, |
| Dream Signs |
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P.S. My neighbour told me she had this dream about her husband last month. She rolled over, put her hand on his back, and went back to sleep. In the morning he said, “You were holding on quite tight.” Tell me who you reached for. I am still thinking about that one.
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