Funerary Dreams

I occasionally have some interesting dreams. They’re neither good nor are they bad. They’re dreams that I’ve had that are just strange.

Last night I had one that would be just that.

I dreamt that I was working in a cemetery like the Italian Cemetery and Mausoleum where I used to work. It’s just the cemetery. They don’t have any mortuary services. They just bury people… or put them in a crypt or a family vault. They don’t receive bodies until they’re to be buried and they were prepared for burial.

I had a dream that I was working in a cemetery and we were supposed to cremate someone… but there was no real mortuary services. For some reason there was a compact cremation machine. So, we put the body on the cremation device and let it do its work. For those of you who don’t know the cremation process, first of all the body is burned, then the ashy remains are ran through a grinder to break down the bone that didn’t turn to ash in the fire. Usually what left is a small bag worth of ash and bone chips.

Afterward the ash is generally put into a bag and into a plastic box. You have to pay for the nice, decorative urns. In this case, Everything looked more like sand and fit into a large clear bag. We took the bag and put it in the back of the car.

The rest of the dream was everyone talking in the car with this bag of sand. I’m not even sure if I remember properly what the bag of sand was for. I think it was to be scattered over a beach.

Now, legally, you can not scatter human remains without permits. I believe that doing it on one’s own property is an exception. But it’s considered a health violation to do so… if I’m remembering things correctly from the cemetery.
Anyways, I have no idea what this dream means. Not that I think that dreams usually have some deeper meaning, but I haven’t worked at a cemetery since 2009. There’s no real reason I should be dreaming about working in a cemetery. That being said, it was also the best job I ever had. I learned a lot about the funerary industry and it took even more of the mystery of it away. Even though I was dealing with death, it was still a pleasant place to be. The people were friendly. Everyone I met in the funerary industry was nice. I think to work in it, you have to be. On my last day of work at the cemetery, one of my co-workers thought that I would actually probably wind up being a funeral director. That I had the right personality to work in the industry.

I think maybe that’s why I had the dream… also living within 10 miles of Colma also helps.
I just have no concrete idea of why I had the dream. I haven’t looked at getting another job in a cemetery since 2010. So, why am I having that dream now?