Pregnancy dreams sometimes seem to do more than reflect expectation or anxiety: They may identify a coming child, hint at sex or character, or, in reincarnation cases, suggest a previous identity. Critics interpret these dreams as psychological projections by the dreamer, rather than communications from unborn children.
- Announcing dreams may occur before conception, during pregnancy or even after birth, and are reported by fathers and other relatives as well as by mothers.
- They can supply the first clue to an unborn child’s previous identity. They can influence naming decisions and condition expectations of the newborn.
- In departure dreams, a spirit appears to indicate that it has been reborn, sometimes telling the dreamer where.
Contents
Announcing Dreams
Apparent Contact with Unborn Children
Announcing dreams are sometimes defined as dreams that herald any sort of life transition,1Krippner, Bogzaran, & Carvalho (2002). but more often the term is used in reference to dreams that appear to ‘announce’ the birth of a child. Announcing dreams usually occur to pregnant women, but they may precede conception, and they may occur to fathers as well as to other relatives or close acquaintances of the mother. Non-human spirits sometimes deliver the announcements. When they occur in reincarnation cases, announcing dreams may help the dreamer ascertain the unborn child’s past-life identity.
Announcing dreams have been reported throughout history and from many different cultures. That recounted by the Apostle Matthew in the Christian Bible is perhaps the most famous. Joseph and Mary were engaged, but when he discovered that she was pregnant, he began to waver in his marriage commitment. Then he dreamed that an angel told him, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’2Matthew 1, 18-22, Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible.
An announcement from a spirit figures also in a Burmese reincarnation case studied by Francis Story and Ian Stevenson. Shortly before she became pregnant, a woman dreamed of an elderly sage dressed in white who came to her house and told her that he was ‘entrusting’ to her a recently deceased man, whom he named. The sage went out of the house and returned with this man, left him there, and vanished. The day after this dream, the deceased man’s widow came to tell the woman that she had dreamed of an elderly sage dressed in white, who had informed her that he was sending her late husband to be the woman’s child.3Story (1975), 197-98; Stevenson (1983), 245.
Pregnancy dreams are often said to be more vivid and realistic that other dreams. This is true of announcing dreams in particular, which tend to be highly significant for the dreamer. In announcing dreams, dreamers see and embrace loved ones as in life. When there are symbolic elements they are easily and intuitively understood; they do not require interpretation, as ordinary dreams often do.4Bowman (2001), 191-218. Announcing dreams are not exclusively visual, but may have sensory or auditory dimensions as well.5Mascaro (2016a), 192; Mascaro (2016b), 7. Some are lucid.6Mascaro (2016a), 201-2.
Several volumes of prebirth communications including announcing dreams have been published in recent years,7Bauer, Hoffmeister, & Goerg (2005); Carman & Carman (2013); Hallett (2002); and Hinze 2016), among others. but for the most part, the dreams are strictly anecdotal, collected from the dreamers without follow-up investigations or analysis. Serious research with announcing dreams is only beginning.8Mascaro (2016b), 7.
Announcing Dreams and Reincarnation
In the 1870s, the founder of cultural anthropology, Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, pointed to announcing dreams among the Koloshes (Tlingits) and Lapps as helping to identify the spirit being reincarnated in a child and argued that these dreams were among a set of empirical signs that had originally suggested the belief in reincarnation.9Tylor (1877). Indeed, it is easy to see how announcing dreams could have led to that conclusion, because they seem to depict a deceased person asserting his intention (or less commonly, requesting permission) to be reborn to a particular woman.10Matlock (2019), 164.
Thanks to the research of Ian Stevenson and his colleagues, announcing dreams in reincarnation cases are the most closely studied of announcing dreams. Jim B Tucker reported in 2005 that 22% of 1,100 cases in a computerized database at the University of Virginia had announcing dreams.11Tucker (2005), 9. In the majority of these dreams, the person making the announcement was known to the parents-to-be. Often, it was a deceased relative of the dreamer. When the person in the dream was not recognized, the dreamer typically realized after the child was born that he or she resembled that person.12Stevenson (2001), 100.
Announcements may be complex, involving more than one person and experiential modality. An American girl called Susan Eastland remembered being her elder sister, Winnie, who had been fatally injured when she was hit by a car. Winnie’s sudden death devastated her family, who although they had only the vaguest ideas of reincarnation, hoped that she would return to them. About six months after the accident, Winnie’s surviving sister dreamed that she was coming back to the family, and after she became pregnant two years later, her mother also had such a dream. In the delivery room at Susan’s birth, her father heard Winnie say, ‘Daddy, I’m coming home.’13Stevenson (2001), 80.
Gender and Announcing Dreams
Dream researchers have documented differences in dream content between men and women, but interestingly, these differences largely disappear during pregnancy. In addition, expectant fathers report more dreams than non-expectant fathers, consistent with the experience of their partners. The pregnancy dreams of both sexes contain more imagery related to the unborn child and feature a greater proportion of family members than do dreams occurring at other times. Some pregnant couples have reported shared dreams.14Mascaro (2016a), 195-96.
None of these dream studies have focused on announcing dreams and we have no firm data on gender-related features of announcing dreams specifically. However, there is no reason to believe that the patterns of announcing dreams depart from the patterns of pregnancy dreams in general. One study of the dreams of expectant fathers found that 21% recorded dreams of babies over a two-week period. Anecdotal reports show that expectant fathers sometimes dream of their unborn children before their partners do. The announcing dreams of men and women have no apparent difference in content.15Mascaro (2016a), 202-3.
Culture and Announcing Dreams
Little attention has been paid to the influence of culture on announcing dreams, apart from those that appear in connection to reincarnation. Reincarnation-related announcing dreams reveal cultural impacts on several dimensions.
The prevalence of reincarnation-related announcing dreams varies widely cross-culturally. Stevenson heard about them in every society in which he studied cases, but they were more common in some places than in others. They were especially frequent among the Burmese, the Turkish Alevi, and indigenous peoples of northwestern North America. They were reported rarely from the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka, from the Druze of Lebanon, and the Igbo of Nigeria, all of whom have abundant reincarnation cases.16Stevenson (2001), 175.
Because announcing dreams are more likely to be recalled (on waking, and long enough to be reported to a researcher) when the person dreamed about is recognized, they frequently accompany reincarnation in the same family.17Stevenson (2001), 175; Tucker (2001), 8-9. This may help explain why there are few announcing dreams in Sri Lanka, where family cases are unusual, but many in Burma, where they are much more common.18For comparative statistics on family cases cross-culturally, see Haraldsson & Matlock (2016), 223. Almost all of the announcing dreams studied by Stevenson in India occurred in family cases.19Stevenson (2001), 175.
The timing of announcing dreams is related to beliefs about reincarnation in different cultures. In America, where there are no definite ideas, announcing dreams usually accompany pregnancy, although they may precede it. Burmese announcing dreams tend to occur shortly before conception, in line with the Buddhist expectation that reincarnation occurs at conception.20Stevenson (1983), 245 n6. For examples, see Stevenson (1983), 236, 255-56. Among the indigenous peoples of northwest North America, the dreams usually come in last trimester, sometimes in final days of pregnancy.21Stevenson ( 2001), 99. The few Druze announcing dreams Stevenson learned about occurred after birth, consistent with the Druze belief that a spirit reincarnates immediately at death into a child born at that moment.22Stevenson (1980), 11-12.
The content of announcing dreams may be culturally influenced as well. Tlingit announcing dreams generally depict arrivals – at the dreamer’s home, at a dock, et cetera.23Stevenson (1994), 251-52. Although the Sinhalese have few true announcing dreams, they may interpret animals such as snakes or elephants in dreams as signaling rebirth.24Stevenson (2001), 101. Burmese announcing dreams tend to depict a person requesting permission to be reborn in the family. Stevenson heard about an amusing pair of petitionary announcing dreams in Burma. A woman whose husband was away from home on a long journey dreamed that a deceased friend asked to be reborn as her child. She did not wish for this, and (in the dream) told the man not to come to them. When her husband returned from his trip, he told her he had dreamed of the same old friend, making the same request, but he (in his dream) had told the friend that he would be welcome in their family. Their next child in due course related memories of his parents’ friend, suggesting that his father’s acceptance had prevailed over his mother’s rejection.25Stevenson (2001), 100.
Occasionally one finds cultural dissonance in announcing dreams. In another Burmese case, Ma Tin Aung Myo recalled having been a Japanese army cook killed in Burma during World War II. During her pregnancy with Tin Aung Myo (rather than before it), her mother on three occasions dreamed of a stocky Japanese man wearing shorts and no shirt who said that he would come stay with her (rather than requesting her permission to do so). Tin Aung Myo’s mother recognized the man as a soldier who had been encamped near her house. She had traded and discussed foods and cooking techniques with him. She had not known that he had died – much less how he had died – so Tin Aung Myo’s later claim that he had been killed by strafing from an aircraft could not be confirmed, nor could her memory that the man was shirtless and wearing shorts at the time of his death, as depicted in her mother’s dreams.26Stevenson (1983), 229. Experiences contrary to cultural expectations such as this might be explained as an influence of the person dreamed about, if he was of a culture different from the dreamer, as in this case.27Matlock (2019), 188.
Veridical Announcing Dreams
The details of Tin Aung Myo’s mother’s dream could not be verified, but other announcing dreams include correct information not known to the dreamer at the time.
The first indication that they are pregnant, or might be, comes to many women in announcing dreams. Announcing dreams also inform women of their children’s sex, often before this has been determined by tests. Over 20% of the women surveyed by Kimberly Mascaro had dreams in which the child’s sex was unknown at the time, but later confirmed as correct. One woman dreamed that she was playing with a male child, a few weeks before a sonogram showed that she was carrying a boy. When she was ten weeks’ pregnant, another woman dreamed that the twins she was carrying were boys, as was confirmed at twenty weeks.28Mascaro (2016b), 10.
‘My dreams have never come true in real life, except for [those] concerning my unborn children’, one woman told researcher Sarah Hinze. With her first pregnancy, she dreamed three times that her baby was a boy with blond hair, born two months premature, yet perfectly all right. Indeed, her baby was born at 33 weeks, a blond and healthy boy. Before she knew she was pregnant a second time, she dreamed that she had twin girls, as was later confirmed by the doctors.29Hinze (2016), 27-28.
Many other physical and behavioural details about unborn children may appear in announcing dreams. Not uncommonly, the visions prove to be so accurate, matching the appearance of the child after birth, that parents are convinced that they had been given a prebirth glimpse of their children.30Bowman (2001), 200-1. In her book Stories of the Unborn Soul Elisabeth Hallett includes a case in which a woman dreamed that the son she was carrying was about two years old. She was sitting on the floor playing with him. He told her he was going to build her a castle with blocks, and giggled. When the boy was born, he turned to have exactly the physical features as in the dream and he had the same giggle as she had heard in the dream.31Hallett (2002), 45-46.
Parental Responses to Announcing Dreams
Announcing dreams can influence parental behaviour in many ways. One of the most common is to give a child a name heard in a dream. Shortly before she became pregnant, an American woman dreamed about a boy, whose name impressed her as Stephen. She took the dream as a sign that she would deliver a boy, which she did. She named him Stephen, although this was not a name she and her husband had been considering before her dream.32Haraldsson & Matlock (2016), 240-41.
Announcing dreams can affect a woman’s personal belief system as well as decision-making and can motivate meaningful behavioural and attitudinal change. Mascaro concluded that the presence of the unborn child in the dreams of pregnant women was linked to confidence and affirmation (particularly in unwanted pregnancies), bonding and sense of connection with their children in utero.33Mascaro (2016a),198-99. See also Mascaro 2016b, 2018. Similarly, reincarnation researcher Carol Bowman noted, ‘The dreams may give specific information about the child’s identity, past life history, and advice on how to care for the child’s special needs after it is born. The messages help the family prepare’.34Bowman (2001), 213.
Some women have decided against pregnancy termination after announcing dreams.35Mascaro (2016a), 199. This occurred in the Finnish reincarnation case of Samuel Helander studied by Stevenson. Samuel’s mother became pregnant shortly after her stepbrother died unexpectedly. The pregnancy was unwelcome and she was considering an abortion when she dreamed of her stepbrother, who told her, ‘Keep that child!’ She did, and after he was born, Samuel displayed a variety of behaviours reminiscent of the stepbrother. He began speaking of memories of his life when he was about eighteen months old and continued to do so for several years.36Stevenson (2003), 152.
Departure Dreams
Closely related to announcing dreams are departure dreams, in which members of a deceased person’s family dream that he tells them where to find him reborn. Jürgen Keil studied a case like this among the Turkish Alevi. The previous person’s mother dreamed that he had been reborn in a certain house in a neighbouring village. She and later two of his brothers went there, but they were not allowed to see the boy, and only confirmed his identity years later, when he began to speak about the previous life.37Pasricha, Keil, Tucker, & Stevenson (2005), 378.
In some departure dreams, the reincarnated child complains (to his previous family) about his present circumstances. ‘Help! I have got myself in a poor family. Come rescue me,’ one mother dreamed her deceased son told her. A member of another family dreamed of being told that the new infant’s father was drinking alcohol excessively, and in a third instance, the previous person (as he appeared in the dream) alleged that his new mother was feeding him at her convenience, rather than when he needed sustenance, leaving him hungry.38Stevenson (2001), 100.
Departure dreams are much rarer than announcing dreams, and unlike announcing dreams, usually come after the birth of the child. Of hundreds of reincarnation-related announcing dreams, only six occurred postnatally. By contrast, of seventeen departure dreams, twelve were postnatal and five antenatal.39Matlock (2016). In a Burmese antenatal departure dream, a newly deceased man appeared in the dream of a relative and said, ‘I am going to live with Ma Htwe. Please look after my children.’ Htwe was then a young single woman, but she later married and gave birth to a child who recalled the life of the man in the dream.40Stevenson (1997), vol. 2, 1405.
Understanding Announcing and Departure Dreams
Psychological Projection
Stevenson noted that announcing dreams can be understood ‘as derived from the wishes and beliefs of the dreamers’.41Stevenson (2001), 243-44. The cultural variations in announcing dreams make this an appealing assumption for many critics, but it is hard to sustain in all circumstances. Especially when the dreams are predictive and veridical, it is difficult to view them simply as psychological projections and it becomes necessary to suppose that these cases have been wrongly remembered and reported. When children after birth are said to resemble dream children, this could be entirely illusory and due to wishful thinking or the imposition of culturally-determined beliefs.42Matlock (2016).
Motivated Psi
One way of accommodating the veridical aspects of announcing dreams without rejecting the accounts as delusional is to posit psi engagement by the dreamer. The dreamer might employ telepathy or clairvoyance to learn of matters beyond normal knowledge or draw on precognition to anticipate things to come. Philosopher Stephen Braude has proposed that the motivations of living persons are decisive in explaining reincarnation cases.43Braude (2003). From this perspective, the cases require no input from a deceased person, only psi acquisitions by the living.
Discarnate Agency
The conclusion reached by Stevenson was that announcing dreams ‘hint at an initiative on the part of at least some of the discarnate personalities in the selection of a family for another incarnation’.44Stevenson (2001), 244. This of course is the way that these dreams are understood by those who experience them. There is independent support for the idea of discarnate agency from memories of the intermission, in many of which there likewise is a conscious selection of the parents for the new life.45See Intermission Memories. Cases of planned reincarnation supply another strand of evidence for some degree of control over the reincarnation process. When the phenomena of other experiences related to announcing dreams are brought into consideration, the impression of the survival of a mind or consciousness stream capable of deliberative thought and conscious action is even stronger. The cultural variations and dissonances in announcing dreams make sense if we assume that beliefs and convictions held in life are carried over into death and continue to help shape the behaviours of discarnate spirits.46Matlock (2016).
James G Matlock
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