the dreamer's condition
Dreaming of death
Read two ways. Let them disagree, the truth often sits between.
Artemidorus · Oneirocritica
Drawn up, it speaks of To dream of your own death often foretells liberation from an old role and the beginning of a new one.
Drawn down, it warns of The death of a beloved in a dream is sometimes a literal warning; the augur Artemidorus advised the dreamer to write to that person at once.
Jungian · the collective unconscious
Drawn up, it speaks of Death in dreams is rarely literal, it is the symbolic completion of one form of self so that the next can emerge.
Drawn down, it warns of Repeated death-dreams of the same person signal unresolved attachment; the psyche is asking that piece of the relationship to complete.
When it appears with another
Death in company
death + wedding
The coniunctio with the old self's ending. Marriage of opposites requires that one form give way; rarely literal, often profound.
death + house
An ending in the structure of the self. A whole way of being is closing. Watch the rooms of the dream, which ones are losing their door, which ones are being painted.
Did you dream this?
Keep it before it fades
Write the dream down in your journal and the cards will name its symbols for you, or have the whole dream read in full.