Dreaming about saying goodbye
One of the most emotionally significant dreams people report and one of the least written about. A goodbye dream involving somebody who has died is a recognised part of bereavement and is usually described as a gift.
Also searched as: a goodbye, saying farewell, someone leaving, a last conversation
The bereavement version is the important one. Dreamers describe a conversation, an embrace or simply a look, with somebody who has died, and report it as a goodbye they did not get.
These are reported with unusual clarity and are remembered for years, which sets them apart from most dream content.
A second and more ordinary group involves goodbyes to living people, usually at a station or an airport, and belongs with the travel material.
Being unable to say it is a third pattern: the words will not come, or the person leaves first, and the speech-failure material applies.
Common associations
- Completion that waking life did not allow, in the bereavement version.
- Unusual clarity and durability of recall.
- Departure, in the ordinary version.
- Speech that will not come, in the third.
Positive readings
These are among the most valued dreams people report. Dreamers describe genuine comfort and a sense of something having been finished, and the bereavement literature supports that these dreams are common and generally helpful.
The database records that plainly, and does not attempt to explain it away.
Difficult readings
Waking is hard, and dreamers describe a second small loss.
The unable-to-say version is genuinely painful, and it is worth knowing that the speech failure is physiological and not a judgement.
Psychological perspectives
Bereavement dreams are well documented: common, usually showing the person alive and ordinary, and generally reported as comforting rather than distressing.
Why the goodbye version is recalled so much better than ordinary dreams is not established. Emotional intensity improves recall, which is the obvious candidate.
What these dreams are is not a question dream research can answer, and the database says so rather than reducing them or inflating them.
Cultural and historical
Contact with the dead in dreams is an accepted and serious category in a great many traditions, and in several it is a normal part of mourning rather than an anomaly.
For a large number of people this is not an interpretive question at all, and the database records the reports and the traditions without adjudicating between them.
What the sleep science says
Well documented: bereavement dreams, their frequency and their generally comforting character.
Well established: speech commands are not executed during REM.
Outside the scope of evidence: what these dreams are, which the entry does not claim to settle.
Your own context
- Was anything said?
- Did you get to say it?
- How clear was it, compared with your other dreams?
- How did you feel a day later?
If this recurs
Log these warmly and in full, and without analysis. They are among the few dreams where the record itself is the point.
Emotions often reported
- grief
- tenderness
- longing
- peace
- relief
- melancholy
Specific saying goodbye dreams
Each of these is written separately, not generated from this page.
What happened
Where it happened
What state it was in
Questions for reflection
These are for your journal, not for us. Nothing you write is shared.
- What was said, if anything?
- Was it clearer than my usual dreams?
- How did I feel the next day?
Dream interpretation is subjective. Nothing here is a diagnosis, a prediction, or medical advice.
Sources and reviewed references
4 references. What these labels mean
- 1.The Dreams of Blind Men and Women: A Replication and Extension of Previous FindingsPeer-reviewed research
Craig Hurovitz, Steven Dunn, G. William Domhoff and Harry Fiss (1999) · Dreaming
Cited for: That congenitally blind dreamers report no visual imagery but rich non-visual sensory content, while those blinded later may retain visual dreaming.
- 2.The Scientific Study of Dreams: Neural Networks, Cognitive Development and Content AnalysisAcademic book
G. William Domhoff (2003) · American Psychological Association
Cited for: The continuity hypothesis (that dream content largely reflects waking concerns) and a sustained critique of symbolic dream interpretation as an evidential method.
- 3.Ta'bir al-Ru'ya and the dream manuals attributed to Ibn SirinReligious or philosophical text
Attributed to Muhammad ibn Sirin (died 728 CE)
Cited for: The symbol readings of the classical Islamic dream-interpretation tradition as they circulate. ⚠ Authorship is disputed: Ibn Sirin was a real early figure renowned for dream interpretation, and the large manuals sold under his name are later compilations that gathered material from several hands. The tradition is genuine; the single-author attribution is not, and the pages say so.
- 4.Gender Differences in Dream Recall: A Meta-AnalysisPeer-reviewed research
Michael Schredl and Iris Reinhard (2008) · Journal of Sleep Research
Cited for: Dream-recall frequency as a measurable, individually stable trait, and the factors that move it.
Dreamers’ accounts
How dreams of saying goodbye have gone for other people, in their own words. Nothing here is an interpretation of anyone else's dream. It is a record of what happened and what it was like.
Nothing here yet. Be the first to say how this has gone for you.
Related records
- PersonDead relativeDreams of the dead are extremely common in bereavement, are frequently reported as comforting rather than distressing, and are taken seriously by grief researchers as part of how mourning proceeds. What they are not is evidence of contact.
- PersonGrandparentGrandparents are among the most frequently dreamt-of dead, and the reports are consistently gentle. The characteristic dream has them alive, well, and doing something entirely ordinary in a house that no longer exists.
- PlaceStationStations and airports are waiting dreams, and the waiting does not end. What dreamers report is the departure board: the platform that changes, the time that will not resolve, the destination that is not listed.
- EmotionGriefGrief dreams are a normal and well-studied part of bereavement, and a large proportion of people who have them describe them as comforting rather than painful.
- EventCourtThe judgement dream in its most formal setting, and it shares the structure of the police and prison entries: a proceeding against the dreamer with the charge left unstated.
- EventGraduationAlmost never a dream about finishing. The characteristic report is discovering, at the ceremony, that something was never completed, and it is one of the more specific anxiety dreams there is.
Records that mention saying goodbye
These pages link to saying goodbye, either as something reported in the same dream or as a related subject. This page does not point back at all of them, so the list is assembled rather than chosen.