A Dream of Death at Sea

The night before last I awoke from a strange dream which had many different parts to it, or should I say scenes which appear disconnected. It would be helpful if I broke the dream into its various 'scenes':

Scene one 

I have a roofer who has carried out a lot of work for me over the last 3 years and indeed fitted a new roof for me 2 year ago. He has become somewhat of a friend despite the fact that he is a born again Christian! However he seems very traditional in his world views and they do align somewhat with mine. I found myself in his house, a guest among many others, seated around a dining table when a cat stole the food in front of me. I have interpreted this part of the scene but it has no relevance to the rest of this post. I did not see my friend but I knew that he was somewhere in the house and his wife gave me a bag of sweets and gifts which were given to everyone else present as well. To receive a gift in a dream may be interpreted that you are viewed with esteem by others.

Scene two

I leave the house on a bicycle but I recognise that it is not mine. In waking life I do not own a bicycle. I notice that it has no wheels but in their place are ceramic objects resembling chamber pots! I attempt to return the bicycle to the house. The riding of a bicycle in a dream may signify the need to spend more time relaxing and to achieve balance in one's life.

Scene three

The dream abruptly moves on to this third scene where I find myself along a seashore which on waking I feel is the French coast. The sea resembles sand rather than water. I see a man throw himself into this 'sea'. I am watching him and there is a female by my side. I do not know who she is. The man gradually drowns or sinks below the surface of the sand which now has become water. The sea of course represents the unconscious and the drowning may be interpreted as my sinking into my own subconscious and this comes with a risk-the loss of one's own identity in the process. I gradually come to realise in the dream that the drowned man is me. The unknown female may in Jungian terms represent my 'anima', particularly as this is a death scene. The Odian term would be 'Hamingja'.

Scene four

The scene abruptly moves on to another location close by the one in scene three. There is a shelter by the shore and I notice from the accents that there are a lot of foreigners present but I hear someone speaking in German, an old man. I decide to approach him and I ask him in German whether he spoke German or English. It turns out that he is English and we have a short discussion, the content of which I cannot fully recall. I conclude from the accents of the other people that we are on the French coast and I sense that it was on the opposite side of the English Channel. The old man in Jungian terms may be the 'wise old man' or 'sage'.

Scene five

Again the scene changes abruptly and I am still close by the location in scene four. I am looking out over the sea from the edge of the shore when I notice that in the ground are memorial stones to the dead. With shock I see my own memorial stone. I use the term 'memorial stone' because these were not graves but seemed to signify that they were memorials to people lost at sea. The strange thing is my real name in waking life was not on the stone but an entirely different one: 'Peter Birke'. I came to the realisation that I was dead and the drowning man was me. I look around and shout at the others saying that this cannot be true for I am not dead but alive. I then awoke.

This dream is only one of two where I dreamed that I was either dead or in the abode of the dead. I refer my readers to the following post: A Dream of Valhalla/Folkvangr and Freyja A third dream that I had of the dead (though I was clearly alive) came to me in late 2019 and may be a prophecy: A Dream From Late 2019 Concerning Mass Deaths In all my six decades I have never dreamed of death before-or at least not anything that I can consciously recall on waking. The dream from 2019 took place BEFORE the advent of the Coronavirus epidemic/pandemic and the piles of dead bodies, neatly stacked up were NOT the result of misadventure but a plague. The government helicopters could symbolise the drones that the Police in many countries are using to police the population during this crisis. At the time the dream did not make any sense to me.

This latest dream I am interpreting in psychological terms. I do not at this stage regard it as a personal premonition although I would say that both my late mother and brother did receive premonitions just days before they left this realm and in my mother's case she saw her name on her gravestone just four or five days before she died. She was a spiritualist medium with finely tuned psychic powers.

I have never encountered the name 'Peter Birke' before and the spelling of the surname is exactly the same as I recall from the dream and I believe that there is some significance attached to that. I have researched the name 'Birke' and it appears to be German in origin but despite my maternal German ancestry I was totally oblivious to this fact until I carried out a Google search of the name. I would ordinarily spell the surname with a 'u' which is the English spelling of the name so I must conclude that there was a specific reason for me to see this German spelling in my dream. The forename 'Peter' is common in both England and in Germany.