children’s grief dreams and the theory of spiritual intelligence

Children’s Grief Dreams and the Theory of SpiritualIntelligence

Kate AdamsBishop Grosseteste University College Lincoln

Brendan HydeAustralian Catholic University

Throughout history, people have reported dreams that have impacted upontheir spiritual lives, some of which are related to death. Dreams related todeath are not uncommon in childhood, and research shows that some chil-dren make meaning from them. Often this interpretation of a dream reflectsa search for meaning about issues of life and death, as well as acting as acoping mechanism. This article explores how children make meaning fromthis type of dream by synthesizing the theory of spiritual intelligence withtheoretical approaches to dreaming. Specifically, it explores the intersectionbetween theoretical approaches to dreams related to death, children’s re-sponses to these dreams, and a key function of spiritual intelligence to solveproblems of meaning and value in life.

Keywords: significant dreams, spiritual intelligence, children’s dreams, dreams of thedeceased, grief dreams

Throughout history, people have reported dreams that have impacted on theirspiritual lives. Such dreams can occur at any stage of life, but there is evidence tosuggest that they often occur in childhood and can be remembered into adulthood(Bulkeley, Broughton, Sanchez, & Stiller, 2005; Jung, 1948; Siegel & Bulkeley,1998).

Qualitative studies have shown that some children reflect on their dreams andfind meaning in them, with some of these dreams making a spiritual impact(Adams, 2003; Coles, 1990; Siegel & Bulkeley, 1998). While spiritual dreams cancontain a variety of themes, a common one relates to death (Bulkeley, 2000;Bulkeley & Bulkley, 2005). The concept of death is one that children are faced withas they encounter issues of mortality in one form or another, usually via the deathof a grandparent or a pet. Dreams of the deceased, and those that are related todeath in other ways, are thus not uncommon during childhood (see Mallon, 2002;

Kate Adams, Department of Education Studies, Bishop Grosseteste University College Lincoln,United Kingdom; Brendan Hyde, School of Religious Education, Faculty of Education, AustralianCatholic University, St. Patrick’s Campus, Australia.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kate Adams, Department ofEducation Studies, Bishop Grosseteste University College Lincoln LN1 3DY, United Kingdom. E-mail:[email protected]

58Dreaming Copyright 2008 by the American Psychological Association2008, Vol. 18, No. 1, 58–67 1053-0797/08/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/1053-0797.18.1.58

Punamaki, 1999; Siegel & Bulkeley, 1998) particularly given that such dreams canclosely reflect stages of the grieving process (Garfield, 1996).

While some of these dreams may be disturbing for children, many of thedreams offer reassurance and coping strategies, or aid children in their search formeaning about issues of life and death. Dreams such as these, which an individualmay deem “spiritual,” are often significant to them because of the impact made ontheir lives. Knudson, Adame, and Finocan (2006) argue that qualitative methods ofinvestigating significant dreams are essential for exploring how the dream experi-ence influences the dreamer’s meaning-making process; that the exploration ofsignificant dreams requires methods appropriate to the study of the dreamer’s lifeexperience within their own cultural context. This article uses qualitative methodsto explore how children make meaning from dreams related to death by synthe-sizing the theory of spiritual intelligence with theoretical approaches to dreaming.Specifically, it explores the intersection between children’s responses to theirdreams and the concept of spiritual intelligence, focusing on its potential functionas a means by which to solve problems of meaning and value in life. While researchshows that some children find meaning in their dreams, less attention has beengiven to the processes by which children came to achieve those insights. This articleexplores one way in which children may come to identify meaning in their dreams.

SPIRITUALITY, SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE, AND DREAMS

Spirituality is a natural human predisposition (e.g., Hay & Nye, 2006;O’Murchu, 1997, 2000). It is more primal than institutional religion (James, 1901/1977; Maslow, 1970; Tacey, 2000) and concerns a person’s sense of connectednesswith self, others, and the world (or cosmos). For some people, connectedness witha Transcendent dimension is a part of spirituality (Bosacki, 2001; Elton-Chalcraft,2002; Fisher, 1999; Hyde, 2004; Tacey, 2003). Hay and Nye (2006) argue thatspirituality involves a deep down awareness of one’s relationship with one’s self,and with everything that is other than one’s self. The following section synthesizesthe theory of spiritual intelligence with theoretical approaches used in dreamresearch, particularly those pertaining to dreams that have a spiritual impact uponthe dreamer, and dreams related to death and grieving.

Spiritual Intelligence and Problem Solving

It is possible to conceive of spirituality as a type of intelligence (Emmons, 1999,2000; Hyde, 2003, 2004; Kwilecki, 2000; Zohar & Marshall, 2000). One hallmarkfeature of intelligence concerns the ability to solve problems (Ruzgis & Grigor-enko, 1994; Walters & Gardner, 1986). Zohar and Marshall (2000) define spiritualintelligence as the mental aptitude used by human beings to address and findsolutions to problems of meaning and value in life. In drawing on discourse arisingfrom theories of motivation and personality, Emmons (1999) further suggests thatpeople are able to use spiritual resources to solve problems:

The adaptive processing of spiritual information is a part of intelligence, and individualdifferences in the skills with which such processing occurs constitute core features of

Children’s Grief Dreams and Spiritual Intelligence 59

personality. Spirituality can serve as a source of information to individuals, and, as a functionof interests and aptitudes, individuals become more or less skilled at processing this infor-mation (p. 163).

James (1901/1977) and Maslow (1970) argued that an individual’s spiritualexperience1 can act as a mechanism for problem solving in relation to issues ofmeaning and value. Dreams that people describe as significant, or spiritual, haveoften been related to solving practical problems: in the dream incubation templesof the ancient world, people would find medical diagnoses or cures in their dreams(Gollnick, 1987; Van de Castle, 1994); Kekule claimed to have solved the chemicalstructure of benzene in a dream (Bulkeley, 2000); children find solutions to dailyproblems including resolving arguments with friends or overcoming nerves aboutparticipating in school events (Adams, 2003).

At times, the solving of problems through dreams has been directly related toissues of meaning and value, with dreams of deceased loved ones offering specificexamples, particularly because the dreams’ subject matter, by definition, can raiseor reflect questions of the purpose of life and death for the bereaved. One exampleof a child responding to such a dream is that of Amy, a 10-year-old secular girl,whose dream featured her deceased grandmother sitting on a bus. Amy, who wastrying to understand and accept her grandmother’s recent death, interpreted thedream of the bus journey as symbolic of a journey to heaven. Amy believed thedream showed that she and her grandmother would be reunited in heaven in thefuture (Adams, 2004). In making this interpretation, Amy resolved, at least in part,issues related to the loss of her grandmother concerning life beyond death; it helpedher to cope with the grief in the belief that she had not permanently lost hergrandmother.

Finally, in relation to spirituality, neuroscientific studies indicate that particularsites of the human brain become active when a person contemplates, or apperceivesspiritual experience (e.g., Persinger, 1996; Ramachandran & Blakeslee, 1998).Newberg, d’Aquili, and Rause (2001) identify four association areas of the humanbrain which become active in producing the mind’s spiritual potential. Theseassociation areas evolved over thousands of years to enable an individual to adaptand to find solutions to problems of meaning and value. Central to their thesis isthat an important function of the human brain is to solve problems, which is a keyfeature of intelligence. If the human brain has evolved with structures enablingpeople to addressing issues of meaning and value within their life contexts, then thismay render “spiritual intelligence” as plausible.

Spiritual Experience, Spiritual Dreams, and Childhood

While investigating spiritual experiences, Robinson (1977) gathered data fromadults and found that many had occurred during their childhood years. Theseexperiences remained vivid memories for the correspondents, who spoke of them

1 Although both James (1901/1977) and Maslow (1970) use the term “religious experience,” theyare in fact referring to the psychological, or mystical, experience of the individual, which often resultsin a sense of oneness and unity. In essence, they are referring to spiritual experience, regardless ofwhether that experience contains what might be described as typically “religious” content, or otherwise.

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as having great personal significance when contemplating issues of identity andmeaning in life. While the accounts may have become embellished over time,Robinson argues that it is difficult to ignore the impact of these experiences, whichin some way generated reflection in the individual.

Robinson’s (1977) comments have parallels with those who report dreamswhich impact on their spiritual lives, particularly as these often occur duringchildhood (see Adams, 2003; Siegel & Bulkeley, 1998). Given that individuals andcultures define spirituality in different ways, such dreams will inevitably vary inboth content and how they impact upon the individual. However, authors haveidentified some general characteristics, and as Bulkeley (2000) observes, suchdreams can come to people irrespective of their religious or nonreligious stance.Jung (1946) classified these as “big” dreams, describing them as those which “standout for years like spiritual landmarks, even though they may never be quiteunderstood” (p. 117). Jung (1933) also suggested that big dreams often occurred attimes when the dreamer faced mental or spiritual difficulties. Bulkeley (2000)suggests that such dreams can impact on the dreamer in a variety of ways, whichinclude offering reassurance, bringing new ways of understanding, and bringinggreater self-understanding. Here, the theory of spiritual intelligence intersects withdream theory, with individuals in both cases addressing problems of meaningthrough a spiritual experience.

Another possible impact of a big dream, according to Bulkeley (2000), relatesto assisting people in coming to terms with death and possibly offering insights intothe relationship between living and dying. Bulkeley and Bulkley (2005) report indepth on how people who are dying can have dreams which impact significantlyupon them. Such dreams often enable them to reduce the fear of death and/orengage with new understandings of the meanings of life and death; helping to, inessence, solve the problems of coming to terms with their impending death. Again,this response to the dream parallels the theory of spiritual intelligence which,according to Emmons (1999), maintains that individuals use it in order attain thegoal of resolving problems of meaning and value (see also Zohar & Marshall, 2000).

Garfield’s (1996) study of dreams of deceased loved ones over the course of thegrieving period concluded that the changes in these dreams correlate with thestages of the grieving process, with the content reflecting the stage of grieving thatthe dreamer has reached. Similarly, Barrett (1992) studied how deceased peopleappeared in dreams in 77 reports and placed them into one or more of fourcategories, one of which featured the deceased person offering the dreamer advice,accounting for 23% of the reports. Barrett identifies reassurance as a category.These dreams often provide the dreamer with a resolution to grief, for exampleoffering an explanation about the death. Through finding meaning in such dreams,the dreamers are able to attain the practical goal of solving problems of meaning—again, a hallmark of spiritual intelligence (Emmons, 2000; Zohar & Marshall, 2000).

Siegel and Bulkeley (1998), Bulkeley (2000), Mallon (2002), and Adams (2004,2005) all record children’s accounts of dreams which have been related to death.Several of these narratives reveal how children found consolation or meaning in thedreams, which to some extent helped overcome their loss. The following sectionapplies the theories of spiritual intelligence and spiritual dreams related to death tothe dreams of two children, in order to gain further insight into how the childrenmade meaning from them.


CHILDREN’S DREAMS: FINDING MEANING THROUGH SPIRITUALINTELLIGENCE

This section details two case studies of children’s dreams which are related todeath. The data were gathered through interviews with the children who both livein the United Kingdom. The children’s accounts of their dreams, the circumstancessurrounding them and the children’s responses to them, are situated in the contextof the theoretical framework outlined above. The children’s names are fictional-ized. The phrase “finding meaning” refers to the children’s responses to theirdreams. Essentially, the girls cited here, like many other children, interpreted theirdream, reflecting upon it and finding meaning in it as opposed to simply dismissingand/or forgetting the dream.

Preparations for Bereavement

Samantha is a 10-year-old girl who lives with her parents and two youngersiblings in an economically deprived inner city. Like many children of her age in theUnited Kingdom, she owned a pet who was very special to her. The pet was ahamster named Hammy and Samantha’s father had taken Hammy to the veterinarysurgeon for a diagnosis after he had become ill. At the time of the visit, Samanthahad a dream in which an angel came to her and said “Hammy would be happier andhe would be looked after well and he wouldn’t feel any pain or anything.” Saman-tha understood this to mean that her pet would soon die, but that he would have abetter life after his physical death. However, this information contradicted herfather’s words of compassion that followed his visit to the vet’s: “I said to Dad ‘Ithink [Hammy’s] going to die,’ and Dad said ‘don’t worry.’ But I don’t think I amthat stupid actually. . .”

The dream proved to be accurate, overriding her father’s opinion, and Hammysoon died, yet Samantha found the dream reassuring. Although naturally saddenedby losing her pet, Samantha was pleased that the angel had informed her of hisdeath “in a nice way” as this had helped to prepare her for the event.

For this child, her response to the dream may be seen in the context ofspirituality and spiritual intelligence. Samantha explained how she believed thatafter people and animals die, they go to heaven where they continue to live. Thedream was reassuring for her because it had confirmed her belief in an afterlife: forSamantha, the angel was a real angel as opposed to a representation of one.

In line with Jung’s (1933) theory of big dreams, the dream came at a time ofspiritual difficulty for Samantha. Bulkeley and Bulkley’s (2005) work illustrateshow people have dreams which anticipate a death. Their theory is also applicableto Samantha’s dream, which appears to be fulfilling that function of anticipationof—and preparation for—Hammy’s death. While the child was mature enough toknow that her pet’s death was imminent and inevitable, she also needed a mech-anism to cope with this knowledge. One means of doing so was to believe that afterHammy’s physical death, he would still be alive, albeit in a different state. Herdream affirmed this viewpoint through the angel’s auditory message and she wasable to cope with the impending death—coping being one possible outcome of a bigdream as Bulkeley (2000) suggests.

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As Emmons (1999) and Zohar and Marshall (2000) argue, the application ofspiritual intelligence can assist the individual in solving problems of meaning, whichis what appears to have occurred here. That is, Samantha inferred a connectionbetween earthly life and an afterlife in heaven. The solution to coping withHammy’s death may have been this belief that death would not be the end for him.Similarly, Emmons (1999) suggests that the use of spiritual intelligence can posi-tively impact upon a person’s well-being. This was indicated in Samantha’s ownwords, when she explained that the dream had made her “. . .feel a lot happier cossometimes I feel upset about [Hammy’s death] but when I think about the dreamI feel a lot happier.”

However, it was not only Samantha’s own well-being that was at the core ofthis issue. She was the eldest of three children and her younger siblings werestruggling to cope with their pet’s illness, this being the first time that they had facedan issue of death. Samantha adopted a pastoral role. She explained that the dreamhad helped her to console her brother and sister by assuring them that Hammywould be living a blissful life after his bodily death. She had been able to offer themcomfort based upon the meaning she had found in the dream. In reflecting upon herdream, Samantha was seeking a solution to the problem posed by her concern forher siblings’ feelings. Their sadness was distressing for her and this caring role wasan area of meaning and value for her. In responding to her dream in this way, shewas possibly using spiritual intelligence not only to address her own well-being butalso that of her brother and sister.

Dreaming of the Deceased

This second case study is of an 11-year-old girl named Claire who lives in thesuburbs of a large industrial city in the United Kingdom with her parents and heryounger brother. While many children have experienced the death of an adult,usually a grandparent, Claire had encountered the death of her friend three yearsprior to our meeting, when both girls had been eight years old. Claire explained thatthe dream about her friend came two and a half years after the bereavement. Shenarrated the dream as follows: “It was this big golden tunnel and I was walkingthrough it and she was at the end of it and, em, she was there and I was just talkingto her and I says, ‘what’s happening?’” The girls continued to have a brief conver-sation, during which her friend described how she was happy with new friends andClaire told her about events at school, before the dream ended. Claire thought thatthe tunnel was the “gate to heaven.”

Claire described two emotions during the dream—happiness and fear. She felthappy because she was able to see her friend again because it “had been a long timesince they saw each other.” Simultaneously, she felt scared in the dream becauseshe was uncertain about what was going to happen next. However, on waking, sheexplained that she felt happier because she knew that her friend was well and hadmade new friends.

Given that Claire’s dream occurred three years after the death of her friend, itis possible that she was in the latter stages of grieving. As Mallon (2005) suggests,dreams in which the deceased person visits the dreamer can indicate that thebereaved person has moved from disbelief to acceptance. This acceptance may also


be indicated by Claire’s reassurance that her friend was well; reassurance being akey feature of this type of dream of the deceased (Barrett, 1992), and also of a bigdream (Bulkeley, 2000).

While Claire could have viewed the dream as one that simply brought backmemories of her friend, she appears to have made meaning from the golden tunneland the conversation the girls had. As Fisher (1999), Bosacki (2001), Elton-Chalcraft (2002), Tacey (2003), and Hyde (2004) have noted, for some peopleconnectedness with a transcendent dimension is an aspect of spirituality. For Claire,the dream certainly had religious connotations and dealt with issues of life afterdeath. Rather than simply perceiving the dream as a combination of images derivedfrom memories of her friend and ideas of what the gates to heaven might be like,Claire has found meaning that also embodied a transcendent dimension. Thus,Emmons (1999, 2000), Zohar and Marshall (2000), Kwilecki (2000), and Hyde’s(2003, 2004) definition of spirituality as a type of intelligence (which for someinvolves what they might term a transcendent dimension) is applicable to Claire.Through the application of a spiritual intelligence, she has at least partially solveda problem of meaning in her life, as well as finding reassurance that her deceasedfriend appeared to be, in her understanding, still alive.

LIMITATIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

Although the dreams reported in this article have been limited to two casestudies, what has become apparent in the analysis is that both of the childrenappeared to have attributed their own meaning to their dream, and hence, hadundertaken their own method of dream interpretation. For Samantha, this relatedto her response to the angel’s words in the dream that she perceived to be amessage. Her interpretation of the words responds closely to the auditory messagedreams that have been recorded since ancient times (see Oppenheim, 1966; Gnuse,1996; Adams, 2005). For Claire, her response was one of the dream being a livedexperience—of meeting and conversing with her deceased friend.

While limited to two case studies, it can nonetheless also be argued that bothchildren used their spiritual intelligence in drawing upon their dreams, enablingthem to address and contribute to solving a problem of personal meaning and value.Furthermore, their dreams and responses to them conveyed a sense of connected-ness with those who were dying—connectedness being one of the defining featuresof a spiritual experience (James, 1901/1977; Maslow, 1970; Tacey, 2000). The notionof spiritual intelligence as a means by which to address and solve such problems ofmeaning and value reflects the descriptions, which have been offered earlier in thisarticle, and it seems these two children responded to their dream in this way.Furthermore, in both instances, the girls responded to their dreams using spiritualintelligence, which may have contributed positively to the well-being of each child.For Samantha, the recollection of her dream brought her comfort and helped herto feel happier, thereby contributing positively to her well-being. Claire’s dream,with its religious connotations, assisted her in finding reassurance about her de-ceased friend and, in this way, may also have contributed positively to her well-being.

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The well-being of children and adolescents has become a research priorityin many western countries. An area of further research may involve investigat-ing the extent to which the type of dreams discussed in this article contributespositively to the well-being of those who experience them. One aspect ofthis would entail measuring well-being. Several psychological studies havesuggested ways by which to measure the construct of well-being generally (e.g.,Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Grifin, 1985; Pavot & Diener, 1993). It may bepossible to take further examples of responses to dreams that appear to havedrawn on spiritual intelligence and measure the impact on the individual’swell-being.

Further research into how children find meaning in dreams, experiencesignificant dreams, and the possible impact on their well-being would haveimplications for a range of professions who engage with children and youngpeople, including health professionals, youth and social workers, as well aseducators. In some instances, for example, health professionals may be able toprovide opportunities for patients to use their spiritual intelligence when draw-ing upon certain types of their own dreams to enhance their sense of well-being.Similarly, educators teaching children may be in a position to enable thechildren themselves to draw on their experiences of dreaming in order to teachvarious aspects of the curriculum in ways which are relevant to children (seeAdams, 2008; Jones, 1987).

It is acknowledged that dreams have many layers of meaning and thus theremay be other meanings which can apply to the girls’ dreams reported here.However, this article focuses on the children’s independent (i.e., not dialogic)interpretation of their dreams, and not the meaning that adults might impose onthem. This point gives rise to further implications for qualitative researchersexploring dreams which have significance for the dreamer. By locating the chil-dren’s responses to their dreams in the context of the theory of spiritual intelli-gence, this conceptual framework offers a means of further understanding theprocesses by which some children respond to their dreams. The application of thistheory of spiritual intelligence to different types of dreams is also an area for futureresearch. Children have reported responses to divine dreams (Adams, 2003),traumatic dreams related to living in war zones (Punamaki, 1999), in addition to avariety of different types of dream (Mallon, 2002; Siegel & Bulkeley, 1998). Thepossibility that children have used spiritual intelligence when finding meaning insome dreams that are not related to the deceased is thus an area for furtherinvestigation. Because this article is a theoretical interpretation with vignettes toillustrate the theory, further articles could offer more thorough lists of the varietyof children’s dreams described in the literature at different stages of grief. Theresponses of children of different ages, with different cognitive abilities, could alsobe an area for future study.

Finally, it is possible that the children—in finding reassurance in dreamsrelated to death—are responding in the same way that many adults do (see Barrett,1992; Bulkeley & Bulkley, 2005; Garfield, 1996). If this is the case, then childrenshould be acknowledged for their insight into dreams, which is comparable to thatof adults, particularly because the children’s response to their dreams is oftenintuitive rather than actively learned.


CONCLUSION

Dreams of the deceased are not uncommon among children. Although dreamsof this nature may be disturbing, many offer reassurance and can assist children intheir search for meaning in relation to issues concerning life and death. Through theuse of qualitative methods, this article has investigated how some children makemeaning from dreams related to death by synthesizing the theory of spiritualintelligence with theoretical approaches to dreaming. It has presented two casestudies in which children appeared to have used their spiritual intelligence whendrawing upon their dreams, thereby enabling them to address and perhaps solve aproblem of meaning and value in their lives. In so doing, this article has offeredinsight into the possible processes by which Samantha and Claire may have beenable to make meaning from their dreams; meaning which helped them come toterms with the death of a pet and friend with whom they had emotional bonds.

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