Special Dream: Personal Accounts After the Death of a Loved One Book

Special Dream is a book of vivid dreams, or defined by research as special dreams, where people have had a chance to see or communicate with a loved one who has already passed. The book begins with a few chapters explaining the phenomena and how the research was conducted and how the stories were selected. After these chapters the book is organized by who the dreamer saw; first grandparents, then parents, brothers and sisters, later dreams of children and so on. Some people received messages, others comfort and peace and ultimately used the dream as a method of closure and continuing on.

My favorite dream was from a mother who lost her 4 month old baby. She dreamed an angel came holding her baby boy and told her he needed to let her know he was okay. What a gift for a grieving mother! These are remarkable and sacred stories. To have a compilation of accounts in a book is a great asset. This book could be used during the grieving process to bring comfort and it could be used to further one's exploration on the topic of dreams.

Dreams of loved ones who have passed are stirring and interesting to contemplate. It is amazing to me that the power of such strong comfort is given in these types of dreams. Some dreams also give one the resolve to refortify their faith in God or the afterlife.

I have often thought at various funerals that my sadness is more for those left behind and not for those who have passed. With a few exceptions, the dreams in this book convey that very theme, that there is no need to worry over the dead as they are in a much better place. It seems that the dead have need to communicate they are okay because this is the essence of the majority of the messages received.

I once read a quote directly connecting dreams as the method for our ancestors to communicate with us. I went and looked for it after reading this book and couldn't find it, but found the following one instead:

"sometimes when your physical senses are asleep, your spiritual senses may be very much awake and then there might be woven into the fabric of your spiritual senses a message from one who may draw close to you and weave into your mind a dream that has meaning - it may be a warning, it may be a comfort, it may be a direction to do something." - Parley P. Pratt

Is the spirit world so very close that one who has passed may merely "draw close to you" to communicate? I started searching further for quotes and stories from leaders in my church and found a touching experience related by Spencer W. Kimball. He had a dream where he could see his father smiling at him and felt himself "pulsating with gladness". I found his following comments of the effects of this dream quite compelling:

"If it did nothing more for me than to more completely connect mortality with the life beyond, it served a good purpose. As I have contemplated these months the exquisite joy which came to me in a reunion with my earthly father, I came to anticipate with infinitely greater happiness the possible meeting of my Lord and Savior and our Eternal Father. And there began to bear in upon me the feeling expressed in the song I have sung so many times, 'O grave, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?' Somehow after this, the future, whatever it was, did not look so bleak and nebulous. There settled down over me a comfort and a peace which, except in a few weak moments, has never left me."