Black clothes, a coffin, the smell of incense or lilies, and sometimes the odd certainty that the funeral is your own. Funeral dreams are rarely as grim as they sound on waking. The old dream books, it turns out, had more to say about them than about death itself, and drew their lines in unexpected places.
| Variant | What the old books read | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Mourning the dead | Good, for everyone | Yume handan jikkensho 1908; Menglin xuanjie 1906 |
| Going to a funeral | Bad; plans stall | Yume handan jikkensho 1908; Menglin xuanjie 1906 |
| Following a funeral procession | Money spent | Yume handan jikkensho 1908 |
| Your own funeral | Getting into one's own coffin read as good | Menglin xuanjie 1906 |
| A parent's funeral | Nervous troubles and family worries | Miller 1901 |
| A stranger's funeral | Unexpected worries | Miller 1901 |
| Crying at a funeral | Joy to come; parting if crying with family | Yume handan jikkensho 1908; Zhou Gong |
| Laughing at a funeral | Unlucky | Menglin xuanjie 1906 |
What does it mean to dream about a funeral?
The Japanese books divide the funeral into acts and read each one separately. The 1908 Japanese dream book, Karasawa Shōkaku's Yume handan jikkensho, gives three lines in a row: to mourn the dead is good, to go to a funeral is bad, and to send off a funeral procession means money spent. The 1906 Japanese translation of the Chinese Menglin xuanjie has the same three acts with fuller glosses, which shows where the 1908 book found them. It read keeping mourning and offering condolences as fortunate "for everyone", going to a funeral as plans failing and illness lingering, and following the procession as "空しく費用を費やし", spending money to no purpose. Grief, in these books, was a good thing to dream of. The errand of getting there was not.
Miller's 1901 dream dictionary (Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted) read funerals far more darkly, mostly as worry, family trouble and bad news. But his entry on burial adds a gentler line: a burial where the sun shines on the procession he read as good health among one's relations, and perhaps a wedding. Rain and dismal weather turned it to sickness and bad news.
So the weather, the role you played and whose funeral it was all changed the meaning. No book read a funeral dream as simply a death foretold.
Whose funeral it was
These are readings from the old dream books, reported as history; no dream is a forecast.
What does it mean to dream of your own funeral?
You stand at the back watching people mourn you, or lie in the coffin hearing them talk. Miller's 1901 dream dictionary has no entry for one's own funeral; under "Coffin" it read seeing one's own coffin as business defeat and domestic sorrow. The 1906 translation of the Menglin xuanjie read the same image in reverse: getting into a coffin seems unlucky, it says, "然らず", but is not, and read it as an appointment to office. Psychologists hear an ending of a version of yourself: a role, a reputation, a life stage being laid to rest, and sometimes a wish to know how others would see you.
What does it mean to dream of a parent's funeral?
It might be a parent who is still alive, or one who died years ago. Miller's 1901 dream dictionary read the funeral of any relative as "nervous troubles and family worries". The 1906 translation of the Menglin xuanjie read being in mourning as good for anyone, rich or poor, but added that for "人の子", a son or daughter, the dream was a little less fortunate. Psychologists read a living parent's funeral as the bond changing shape, often as the dreamer grows more independent; for a parent who has died, see dreams about a dead loved one.
What does it mean to dream of a stranger's funeral?
You don't know who has died, but you are there among the mourners. Miller's 1901 dream dictionary gave this its own line: the funeral of a stranger "denotes unexpected worries". The 1906 translation of the Menglin xuanjie read sending off a coffin by the rank of the dead person, honour if they were noble and lowliness if they were not, a reminder that these books cared who was in the box. Psychologists read the stranger as the unknown in oneself, and a stranger's funeral as something ending that you haven't yet named.
What you did there
What does it mean to dream of crying at a funeral?
The 1908 Japanese dream book read weeping with others as a sign of joy to come, but weeping with brothers, teachers or friends as parting. The Chinese Zhou Gong dream list, in its 1880 print, reads weeping with others as "有慶賀", cause for celebration. The same 1908 book has a sadder line: weeping over a dead body it read as wishes not being fulfilled. Psychologists read tears in dreams as emotion that waking life hasn't made room for, and dreamers often wake from a good cry at a dream funeral feeling lighter. See also dreams about crying.
What does it mean to dream of laughing at a funeral?
Giggling during the eulogy, unable to stop. The 1906 translation of the Menglin xuanjie read the funeral ceremony itself well, reading condolences and burning incense at the altar as gain, but read laughing and joking at the ceremony as "不吉", unlucky. Psychologists are kinder: inappropriate laughter in a dream often marks relief, or an ending that you mind less than you feel you should.
What does a funeral dream mean psychologically?
Psychologists read the funeral as the psyche staging a formal goodbye. Funeral dreams tend to accompany endings that want acknowledgement, and the person in the coffin is often not a person at all but a phase, a role or a version of the dreamer. A finished degree, a child starting school, a relationship that closed without ceremony: the mind supplies the ceremony.
How you behaved at the funeral is often the clearest part. Attending calmly tends to track acceptance arriving. Arriving late, losing your way to the service or being unable to find the right clothes tends to track an ending you are not ready for. These dreams sit steadily in the grief literature as ordinary work, not omens, and they are common in the months after a real loss. If funeral dreams regularly leave you distressed, that's worth mentioning to someone you trust. For what lies beyond the ceremony, see dreams about a grave.
A question to sit with
What in your life has ended without anyone marking it, and what would it mean to say goodbye to it properly?
A dream book can tell you that the Meiji dream books thought mourning was good and walking to the funeral was not. It can't tell you why the funeral in your dream was held in your old school hall, or why everyone there was someone from your first job. That shows only when your dreams are recorded and kept together. If you're wondering whether reading dream meanings helps at all, we wrote an honest answer: should you stop reading dream meanings? Dreamlock, on the App Store for iPhone, is a private dream journal made for keeping them together: it listens to your dream, paints it, and notices when the same places come back.