Recently I had a very vivid dream (can still picture it) that I was with a group of people, my late husband was there also. We were climbing stone steps and I couldn't keep up with them, kept sliding back, then when the others were out of sight I started to run up the steps but didn't catch them up. I came to some high rocks that I had to climb over and I froze, I called out to my husband but he obviously didn't hear me, too far away. I thought when he realised I wasn't with them he would come back for me and decided to wait.

The scene changed and I was sitting talking with a (strange) woman and she remarked that my husband wasn't so active and I told her he had terminal cancer and had only a few months to live but few knew about this as we tried to carry on as normal as possible.
Then I woke up but carried on with this dream (lucid dreaming?). I was pondering on the conversation with the woman and realised that because my husband was still working and we were carrying on normally that I'd forgotten he was going to die and the realisation that he had only about 3 months left, hit me. I stopped dreaming, was really wide awake, back to reality and suddenly remembered that he had already gone. This came like a shock, as if he'd only just passed and I'd forgotten, yet it's 6 years now!

Hi Vlinder,

A lucid dream is a dream in which you become aware that you are dreaming. So, it's not dreaming on after having wakened, but dreaming and suddenly realizing you are in reality asleep and dreaming.

Dreams are about resolving our inner emotions about life events, normally no older than a week ago. The cause of the dream is often not present in the dream either. This makes me wonder whether you recently lost someone else in your life that made you revisit the feelings of being left alone, while friends and your husband have moved on, ahead of you where you cannot reach them? Did a friend of yours died recently, or did you get any news about a friend being close to dieing, which caused to throw you back into the feeling of losing your husband to cancer? Climbing staircases is about getting a higher understanding, going to higher more spiritual levels. But you seem to feel it keenly that you fell behind. The rock indicates an obstacle between you and them, and death is certainly an obstacle to be with your loved ones. The freezing indicates you feel left alone and may be bitter about it.

I am sorry the old wounds seemed to have been ripped open again for you, but I think perhaps it is necessary in order to heal them properly. Possibly your previous attitude of pretending nothing was wrong to the outside world in his last months before his death may have lingered afterwards too and prevented you from coping with the loss. On the other hand, perhaps until now you may not have been ready to cope with it, because it was so painful.

In any case, I think you had this painful dream because first of all these emotions are far from resolved, and that perhaps now you are more able to deal with them.

I wish you all the best and all the love to embrace yourself with through this phase in life where you need to deal with losing friends and your husband. Hugs,

SSR

Thanks sunray for your response. Because the second dream felt so much different than the first one, like I was on a different level of consciousness thought maybe I was awake and aware I was dreaming, wasn't quite sure what a lucid dream was.
No, I haven't lost anyone recently thank goodness, but (just looking back at the date I posted) it was near to my late husband's birthday and it was about a week before his birthday that we knew how seriously ill he was. So, maybe like you say, there are things still buried that keep cropping up. I did have some flash-backs by the way which made me emotional and I was surprised as I really thought I'd left it all behind.
Thanks again!