Dying to the Past in Your Dream/Real Life
Death is not such a bad thing in your dream life for one very amazing reason. 
Death in real life is only death to the body. It is not death to the spirit which has a life that continues on long after it leaves the body. Death, in the metaphoric sense like in a dream, always means that you are leaving a past life behind. It is not a past life life in the new age sense or how the reborn Christians see it although I think they are both on the right path. It is being born into a new, higher state as if you are leaving the old life behind and the new ones begins.
As people begin to age there is a huge tendency to stop the process of leaving the past behind and awakening into a new self. We especially see it as people begin to approach 50. They over-glorify the past as if it were so much better than their current lives. This is simply because their current lives are very problematic. They don’t have a proper orientation to the future especially about life after death and the continued growth process of the soul after it leaves the body. When I was studying education in the early 1970s, there was a big move to change the traditional course of the teaching of reading because so many children were failing. A few brave souls began experimenting in new ways especially helping people to get out of the old boxes that they were stuck in, but as soon as the experiments went forward, a wave of traditionalists stomped them out before they had a chance. They called their movement back to basics which preyed on people’s fear of a future. Not surprisingly a lot of people of my generation are stilling doing the same in America. They want to go back to a past that never really functioned very well.
It is a scary thing. You look out into the future and see that you might fail if you try something new. This causes you to be conservative with the same strategies that never served you well in the first place. There is a quick fix to the fear. It is so simple that it just surprises me why people don’t do it more often. If you have this process, you will make huge progress and be unbelievably successful in ways you never dreamed of before.
Here it is. When you have a death dream, it is a big sign that it is time for this process. The change is this. In your mind’s eye go out in the future and then see the most positive future you can. See the thing you want to change the most in your life and see yourself being wildly successful. For instance, see yourself getting along with your siblings or see yourself being really friendly with others of other countries. Don’t give into the fear of being unsuccessful just because you didn’t succeed in the past. Stay with it. Focus on the positive future and then just live it. It is so simple. Don’t be a conservative. Be into change all the time.
People who over-glorify the past do so because what they really do not want to remember or have to re-live is the trauma in their past. If they have been severely rejected in a relationship, or abused or abandoned, they set into motion a pattern that allows them to forget the trauma and over- glorify a past that never really happened. Then they protect themselves from change. Not remembering a trauma is not the same thing as letting it go.
If you want to let go of a trauma, it has to be done consciously. (See Dreamwork https://gumroad.com/l/FbZe#, if you want a detailed discussion of why we forget.) Dying to your past means letting go of the trauma and then facing the future with a great deal of optimism and courage. Most people need professional help to do this. You cannot just bury trauma. If you do, it will work unconsciously. You will sabotage a positive future. Your future will be a false past. You will end up in a bar recounting stories of how things used to be so great or fearing an apocalypse. When your apocalyptic fears are huge, it means that you have already lived a huge apocalypse. Now you want protection.
Real change depends upon having an extremely positive view of the future and then living the vision. At the core of every human being’s positive vision of the future there is a desire for close relationships with other people and a desire to leave a positive impact on the world. If your vision of the future is not aligned to this kind of vision, it is because you are still traumatized.
Think about your future as if it were a muscle in your body that needs to be trained and have workouts to get fit. Everyday you can stretch to get it to the most positive. Let go of the past that doesn’t serve you, keep the past that does, and stretch your ability to have a positive future.
The sun is just beginning to rise. 
Richard Hastings is an expert in change work and dream work and author of Dreams for Peace. He is a 
Dreams For Peace 
Thank you so much for this timely piece! I just spent 3 weeks in Norwich, New York and came home full of doom and gloom after being deluged with negative media. People on the street were friendly and warm, but they too, were being deeply affected when one got to talking with them. I have been speaking in apocalyptic terms for some time and so appreciate the “heads up” reality sandwiches!!
Time to address the traumas!!
Life is truly wonderful, and scintillatingly precious!!
Thank you again!!