Dreaming about a dead baby: what it may mean and how to cope

Dreaming about a dead baby: what this dream does not mean

Dream interpretation is not prediction and not diagnosis. This article separates what sleep research observes from what popular interpretation associates with the theme, always saying which is which.

Dreaming about a dead baby is not an omen, a punishment or a sign that a pregnancy or a child is in danger. It is a dream that hurts, and it tends to appear in very human situations: in people who are pregnant or have just had a baby and live with the fear that something will go wrong; in people who have been through a pregnancy loss or the death of a baby, sometimes years ago; and in times of saying goodbye to something that never got to grow, such as a plan or a relationship.

If you lost a baby, the dream does not say you did anything wrong. It is part of how memory deals with a loss that many people around you do not know how to acknowledge. It is a delicate variation of dreaming about a baby and is closely related to dreaming about a miscarriage or abortion.

Read also: Grief dreams: what research observes and Dreaming about a newborn baby.

Why the fear of loss turns into a dream

According to the continuity hypothesis, tested by Michael Schredl and Friedrich Hofmann in 2003, what weighs on the day comes back at night. During pregnancy and the baby's first months, the fear of loss is almost always switched on: the test result that takes a while, the baby who sleeps a little too quietly. The dream gives that fear a shape.

In 2007, Nielsen and Paquette surveyed pregnant women, women in the postpartum period and women who had never been pregnant. Dreams about the baby in danger appeared both during pregnancy and after birth, and more postpartum women than pregnant women reported dreams with the baby in danger and with anxiety. For the authors, they may reflect maternal worry as well as the broken sleep and hormonal changes of that stage. The dream goes along with the caring; it does not announce anything.

Outside of motherhood, the death or injury of people close to us is among the nightmare themes adults cite most often in the 2018 online study by Schredl and Anja Göritz.

Sources: Schredl and Hofmann, Continuity between waking activities and dream activities, Consciousness and Cognition, 2003; Nielsen and Paquette, Dream-associated behaviors affecting pregnant and postpartum women, Sleep, 2007; Schredl and Göritz, Nightmare Themes, Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 2018.

After a loss: when the dream calls for comfort

People who have been through a pregnancy loss or a perinatal loss may dream about the baby for a long time, sometimes alive, sometimes at the moment of goodbye. In a survey of bereaved people, Wright and colleagues found that dreaming about the person who died was common, that most of these dreams were pleasant or mixed joy and pain, and that many participants felt they brought comfort and greater acceptance. The study was not about babies, but it helps to see this dream as part of grief.

Seek support if the dream always replays the scene of the loss, if it makes you afraid to sleep or if the sadness knocks you off your feet for weeks. A psychologist with experience in pregnancy loss, your obstetrician or the team at your health clinic can help, as can support groups for pregnancy and infant loss, and frequent nightmares can be treated. If you are in intense distress, in the US you can call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), 24 hours a day; outside the US, reach out to your local crisis line. In several countries, October 15 is observed as a day of awareness of pregnancy and infant loss (in the US, it is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day): a reminder that this pain exists and deserves a name.

Sources: Wright and colleagues, The impact of dreams of the deceased on bereavement, 2013; Morgenthaler and colleagues, Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 2018.

Scenes from this dream and what usually goes with them

If you are pregnant and the fear also shows up while you are awake, such as the feeling that the baby is moving less, do not wait for the dream to pass: talk to your obstetrician or go to a health service. To understand why dreams change during pregnancy, see dreams during pregnancy; if the scene was the birth, dreaming about giving birth.

See also: Dreaming about holding a baby and Dreaming about a child drowning.

Freud, Jung and faith on such a small loss

In Freud's psychoanalysis. In The Interpretation of Dreams, a young patient tells Freud she dreamed of her little nephew lying in a coffin, like his brother who had died, and asks whether that makes her a bad person. He shows that the dream was not about wishing the child harm: it was tied to her longing to see again someone she had met precisely at the earlier funeral. The lesson for anyone who wakes up frightened is that the image in a dream is not an accusation.

In Jung's psychology. Jung saw dreams as the mind's attempt at balance, and in the Jungian reading the child is an image of beginning and potential. In that reading, a dead baby may be grief for something that never got to be born: a plan, a wish, an imagined life. For someone who lost a real baby, however, there is no symbol to decode: there is longing.

In symbols and faith. In the Bible, David fasts and weeps for his sick son and, after the child dies, says that one day he will go to him (2 Samuel 12:23). Jeremiah speaks of Rachel, who weeps for her children and refuses to be comforted (Jeremiah 31:15). In Brazilian popular Catholic tradition, babies who pass away are remembered as "anjinhos", little angels. Each faith offers, in its own way, the hope of being reunited; it is belief, without proof, and many families find comfort in it.

Bringing both readings together. Research shows that this dream goes along with the fear and the grief of people who love; faith offers support. Neither treats the dream as a warning, and both ask that no one go through this pain alone.

Sources: Freud, Die Traumdeutung, 1900; Jung (ed.), Man and His Symbols.

What dream books record

O Livro dos Sonhos, a Brazilian dream book by L. P. Baçan, has no entry for a dead baby. The entry for baby is optimistic (luck in life, news in love), while the entries for the dead and for a corpse have the somber tone typical of these books, which should not be taken as a warning, least of all by someone who is pregnant or grieving.

Jung was wary of these ready-made translations: the same dream does not say the same thing to an anxious pregnant woman and to a grieving mother.

Sources: L. P. Baçan, O Livro dos Sonhos, 2014; Jung (ed.), Man and His Symbols.

What folk belief says about this dream

In Brazilian folk belief, some people say that dreaming about a dead baby "means the opposite" and announces health or new life, and others read it as the end of a phase. Among families who have lost a baby, a common reading is that the baby appears at peace to comfort those left behind. These are interpretations from tradition, with no scientific basis, and no one needs to carry fear because of them. See what dream meanings look like according to science and culture.