[Dianer0839]

The dream: My stepfather and a young woman came to work to pick me up, I told him that I wasn't ready to go and he said that he would wait for me.

Background: My stepfather lived with me for a year before he died and we were very close. I always heard that if you see the dead in a dream you should pay close attention to any word spoken. My husband is more freaked than I am but I still wonder at the meaning.

Is this a warning or a message of love?

[HungarianGypsy]

I have been seeing my dad in dreams off and on for a few months. In each dream was also a friend of mine who I did not even know until months after my dad's death. I always remember one where he asked what I thought of that friend. I tried to fumble and admitted I had feelings for my friend. He gave me that look only a dad can, kissed his fingers to my face and said, "From God's lips to yours."

Perhaps your dream means that you still have work to do in life and your stepfather will be waiting for you when the time comes for you to leave. A reassurance.

[Innovative]

Don’t worry — you did say you weren’t ready to go, that’s key, in my opinion.

On occasion I and others I know had disturbing dreams that could have been interpreted as “ominous” but nothing happened.

And things can happen without any warning.

Say a prayer for your stepfather’s soul, for yourself and family and let it go.

[kabumpo]

I take dreams about the dead very seriously, as did Jung and his followers. It’s a warning. I don’t know of what. You are prepared for whatever comes your way - you told him you weren’t ready. If you see him again, ask him a question. Say “what do you want?” I learned that from an Indian medicine man.

[Intolerant in NJ]

Dreams are just more or less random firings of brain neurons when our conscious faculties which usually keep those firings on track are inactive - they have no predictive or “hidden” meanings.....

[aruanan]

Random thoughts on the subject (produced in a dreamlike continuity):

Concentrate on the part of the dream that appears to be most completely unrelated to anything you've known in the past. That's probably of more significance to you than the familiar window dressing in which it is featured.

Your mind processes and consolidates information constantly but a large portion is done during sleep. Normally, if you get enough sound sleep, in the waking state, your conscious mind is so completely occupied by all the incoming sense data and by whatever it is you're trying to deal with or accomplish that you're completely unaware of this processing. But if you have a sleep disorder, such as sleep apnea, this function of sleep is so interrupted that your sleep latency can decrease to the point that REM states can irrupt into waking consciousness.

On the other hand, when you're asleep and able to proceed through a normal sleep cycle and relatively free of incoming sensory input, the synaptic static of that information processing and memory consolidation can bleed through or ruffle the surface of the conscious mind in largely visual and auditory forms (smell and taste are usually absent) to which you can respond with an emotional latitude that is as wide as the dream imagery is florid and unrestrained by the physics of the waking world. Usually your consciousness takes whatever happens in the dream as reality, as it does in waking life, but occasionally you'll find yourself in a dream able to compare and contrast different parts of the dream and say, "Hey, wait a second, I'm thinking of how many miles back to the car I've got to walk on this other route when I just got out of the car on the other side of this field. That doesn't make sense at all." And in rare instances you can realize that you're dreaming and control the imagery.

None of this rules out being in a hypersuggestive state in which you could receive some sort of communication that otherwise you'd never accept as being anything but a daydream or a fleeting thought, but it doesn't follow that all dreams are to be interpreted in this way.

Not too long after my dad died, I had a dream in which the family was together and we were laughing about what would be my dad's take on something and then he was there saying, "Hey, I may be dead, but that doesn't mean I've stopped existing." It was a very nice dream.

[Mr. Mojo]

My husband is more freaked than I am

Your husband is freaked about you having a dream about your stepfather? He freaks easily.