Many people have had dreams that they are near death or dying. In many cases, these dreams are not so much prophetic but are more informative. Sometimes we have nightmares where we are in danger. A man may be shooting at us, or holding us at knife point. Or we may be in a battle, with guns and missiles going off everywhere. Of course, these dreams can be prophetic because we all will die, but a dream about dying may be more of a message from your unconscious that some part of you might need to die, not all of you. When I have been attacked or died in my dreams, I have been shown some behavior, or feeling, that no longer serves me, that I could or should abandon.
Likewise, nightmares may provide an opening to other possibilities. They may be suggesting that some old patterns or behaviors that do not serve your true self need to die, or perhaps be released by you. Another possibility is that this dream is showing something you experienced in a past life, especially if the setting of the dream is from another time in history. Because every person’s dreams are unique and no one but the dreamer knows the nature of the message, it is critical to discover his or her associations with all parts of the dream before assuming something needs to die. It is not always the dreamer who is near death.