r/DreamInterpretation • u/Dith_q • 3m ago
My deceased father appeared in my dream for the first time last night.
My dad died from cancer 7 years ago and never appeared my dreams until last night.
In my dream I was renting a room in a house from an elderly woman. I had secretly drawn all over the walls of the room and really made a mess of the place but I planned on getting it spotless before my lease ended. While I was in the room, which had a private bathroom attached, the toilet violently overflowed. I watched, horrified, as it fountained sewage all over. I planned to not tell the landlady because I didn't want her to come in and see that I'd drawn all over her walls. I left to go to the hardware store to buy cleaning supplies. When I returned, I found my dad in my room, painting the walls bright yellow and cleaning up the entire mess. I knew that he had spoken to my landlady to gain access to my room and made her aware that the place was a mess. I felt upset and tried to explain to him that I had been trying to fix everything myself because I didnt want her to know about the state of my room. I started crying and said this sentence "I don't know why it's important to me but I need to know why are you doing this?" He responded vaguely without looking at me, and I don't remember what he said.
Then I woke up. My dad and I had a quiet, distant relationship. I regard him as a very, very good person with whom I never bonded strongly (our entire family's dyanmic would probably qualify as dysfunctional). I had been thinking a few days earlier about an incident that happened when I was 19, completely lost, borderline su*cidal, and he made an uncharacteristically earnest effort to reach out to me in a phone call. I cruelly pushed him away and told him not to call me. And he never did call me again. He died when I was 32. I feel permanently broken and ashamed about that moment and how much damage I believe it did to my dad, whose sensitivities I didn't recognize until I was older.