A Ghost in the House

I had a dream this past week where a ghost was in my house. I don’t think it had anything to do with Halloween approaching. I was fascinated by the meanings and interpretations of dreams starting in my teens. I’ve been keeping dream journals since my teen years and still look at dreams as a way to understand my waking life.

I happened upon an article on ghost dreams the day after my own ghost dream. Synchronicity?

According to the article, this is what a dream where a ghost is in your home means:

This dream about ghosts signifies internal conflict. You do not feel happy in yourself. Our homes are where we are supposed to feel safe and secure. So to dream about a ghost in our private space is unsettling. Something is out of whack. This dream is asking you to go deep into your psyche and work out what is troubling you. This indicates low self-esteem and a lack of confidence in your abilities.

I don’t think anything is really bothering me lately. I also don’t currently suffer from low self-esteem or confidence.  But in my dream, the ghost spoke to me and that has its own interpretation.

Ghosts represent the past and regret. They are symbolic of unresolved issues. If the ghost spoke to you in your dream, it means you have regrets about someone in your past. It indicates sorrow for a failed relationship, or a longing to reconnect with an old friend.

This comes closer to my own interpretation. I was thinking about a good friend who died last year and I regret that I did not visit him at the end of his life.  His wife didn’t seem to want me to see him, perhaps so that my final memories of him would be the person I knew years ago. The ghost was a man, not particularly clear or looking like my friend, but he spoke to me like a living person – as if all was well.

The other dream scenarios mentioned in the article are:
A ghost haunting you
A ghost chasing you
A ghost tried to kill you, or you tried to kill a ghost
You befriended a ghost
You were a ghost
Your mother or father were ghosts in the dream

Why do ghosts appear in our dreams?  It might be because you are grieving the loss of a loved one (fairly obvious), have regrets about the past (ghosts representing the past), fear death (the most obvious interpretation), or have unfinished business (ghosts are sometimes thought to be people who won’t leave this realm because they have unfinished business here).