Morbidity warning: is there a characteristic pattern of dreaming associated with impending death?

The only way for someone to have dreams related to their death would be if the person knew that they were dying, consciously or unconsciously. If the brain didn’t know it was dying, how would it know to dream about the fact that the person is dying. I don’t think that there would be a pattern, other than possibly the dreams may be frightening (because the person’s dying) or dreams may be happy, possibly about all of the good times they’ve had (to make the person feel like their life was actually worth living). So, once you factor in both the bizzare imagination and the lack of conscious awareness, dreams while dying can be pretty much anything. But of course, I have had no personal experiance in this area, mostly due to the fact that i am not dead, I can’t be sure that this answer is correct.

Yes.
The following dreams are among those that are very common for someone to have during the preactive dying phase.
Dreaming of:
-One’s own death
-Going to heaven
-Being surrounded by angels
-Being reunited with loved ones that have passed on
-Being young again
-Having health and vitality restored (in someone who has been ill for a long period of time)
-Being surrounded by small children they the person does not know. (This isn’t something I’ve ever heard of on a scientific level, but I have witnessed it several times. Other people in the nursing field that I know have also heard of patients having similar dreams.)

Increased frequency of nightmares is also not uncommon. They can include dreaming of:
-Going to hell
-Pain that will not subside (but does not exist when the person is awake)
-Being attacked, or often kicked or punched while trying to sleep
-Being haunted by ghosts or demons

I have worked with hospice for several years, so the majority of the people that I’ve personally witnessed through their last experiences were consciously aware that they were dying. Many of these dreams (as well as the possibility that one might have such dreams) are listed in standard hospice literature that is passed out to loved ones. However, my grandmother was not told that she was going to die, and she expressed having similar experiences shortly before her passing last year. So I don’t think that a person has to be consciously aware that they are dying, I do think in many cases the brain/body does know.
The occurrence of these dreams during sleep, as well as waking hallucinations, is often blamed on the physical changes of the body as it approaches death. A change in blood pressure or breathing can affect the amount of oxygen that the brain receives, which does cause hallucinations and certain physical sensations (like terminal restlessness.) Both are common in the preactive and active dying phases, which may explain why these dreams occur on a purely physical level. Having, perhaps sadly, seen many people through their last days, I have always felt like something much deeper is going on when a person reaches the end of life. I am not a religious or spiritual person, but my experiences almost force me to believe that there is something subconscious that occurs when a person is dying. It is as if you can see something happening on a deeper level within that person, many people fight back very hard at the end.

@TheOnlyNeffie, that’s exactly the kind of answer I was hoping for. I am especially interested in the experiences of those who did not know they were close to death but their bodies did—that is, their biochemical processes were supplying stimuli that led to certain kinds of dreams independent of any conscious awareness.

Presumably other things could prompt similar dreams, so simply having the dreams would not prove anything.

@Jeruba in all fairness, although a person may know that they are “dying,” perhaps of a terminal illness – no one knows exactly when they will die. So the presence of these dreams and waking hallucinations that are so common shortly prior to death are indicative that the body/brain does know.

I have nothing to back this up, scientifically, but having been through this more times than I can count – I am absolutely positive that the body knows.

I don’t know if it helps you with the exact question or not, but this reminds me of a story that appeared in Reader’s Digest a year or two ago. It was about a cat at a nursing home, owned by no one in particular, but sort of adopted by the staff and cared for by them, in the home. Apparently it was kind of aloof from most people… except those who were about to die. It seems that it would keep to itself, but once in awhile it would take an interest in someone in particular, spend time on that person’s bed, etc., and the person would usually be dead within days.

I think what convinced people that the cat was doing more than observing obvious signs of failing health and distress was when it spent time with people who no one expected to die soon, yet they did.

@WasCy : Some have theorized that certain hormones or pheromones are released by the body close to the time of death that the animals small and respond to. These could aloso affect dreaming, in the biochemical sense that @Jeruba suggested.

A close friend of mine recently passed away after a battle with brain cancer. We went to visit him in hospice, and while we were waiting we were talking to many of his friends who came to see him (so many that we never did get to see him).

At one point his wife took a break and came out to talk to us. One of her friends was a person who worked with the dying quite often. She began to interrogate our friend’s wife about what he was doing and seeing. One question she asked was whether he reported seeing friends and relatives who had passed. He had not. She asked a series of other questions about events she said were common amongst the dying, most of which @TheOnlyNeffie has already described.

Eventually, his wife, after saying no a number of times, interrupted this interview to relate one story. I then heard this story maybe five or six times since then, so clearly it made a huge impact on his wife. She quoted him as saying, “The stars. The stars. They are people. There are so many of them.” Clearly he was seeing something no one else could see. She said he seemed amazed and comforted by this vision. Our death maven said something about this being common, also.