Ego Death: What I Dreamt About During My Spiritual Awakening

On The Landscape, a miniseries on dreams. In this second episode, a set of dreams from December 2020 - September 2021 reveal a common overarching theme: ego death.

Episode Time Stamps

00:01 - December 19, 2020 | Journal Entry

02:26 - April 22, 2021 | Journal Entry

02:55 - May 16, 2021 | Journal Entry

03:33 - June 12, 2021 | Journal Entry

04:01 - June 28, 2021 | Journal Entry

04:56 - July 24, 2021 | Journal Entry

05:12 - September 29, 2021 | Journal Entry

06:01 - Intro + What is Ego Death?

10:08 - Spiritual Awakenings During Eclipses

12:18 - The Darkness / Hermit / Isolation Stage

17:55 - My Dark Night of the Soul

21:53 - Why The Death Dreams Stopped

23:57 - What’s Your Death & Rebirth Process Like?

24:16 - Rebirth & Integration Stages + Outro


Dreams in Journal Entries

December 19, 2020

Sometime mid-December 2020, I had a dream that my mother was lounging like a Goddess surrounded by golden fish and bronze rooster statues. Eastern (Chinese) and western astrological elements made of luxurious materials so clearly on display right before my eyes. ⁠

This shrine she so casually laid in was the living room of the last childhood home I lived in. A reminder of the hometown I declared I’d never return to for that was where many of my demons were born. ⁠

Then suddenly, I started speaking with another “mother” of mine about reconstructing her house, which was happening in real life around the time of the dream.⁠

Soon after, an elderly Khmer man stood at the door asking what day it was. My mother responded in Khmer and claimed that today was “buon.” ⁠

It was striking to me that she used an incorrect term for the word Tuesday. In Khmer, buon is a sacred ceremony.⁠

He then looked at me, spoke in Khmer and proclaimed that the “naive girl” was a “sleeping beauty” and “now we have awakened the beast.”⁠

It wasn’t until six months later that I realized this prophetic dream symbolized what was to come in 2021: my spiritual awakening. ⁠

A fated sacred ceremony. A buon for my homecoming.⁠

I was the naive girl the wise man was referring to. ⁠

For so long I obediently operated within a realm where I unquestionably followed what society told me to do to survive and succeed, not knowing any other way than that. ⁠

I learned to distrust all the messages my body’s inner space had been sending to me since I was a child.⁠

I developed an ego where my greatest source of love and validation was external.⁠

But now, the sleeping Beauty is finally awake. And so is her Beast.

April 22, 2021

The other day I dreamt of a sick woman that had a disease covering her skin. Then, I saw another woman who looked almost identical to the sick woman. She was telling a group of friends, “I have to say goodbye. I have to say goodbye.”

I felt this dream was about saying goodbye to the old me. Goodbye to a chapter in my life that is now closed.

May 16, 2021 

I dreamt I saw several people vomiting out green puke. In the next scene, I saw a girl trying to defend herself from a group of men who want to harm her. Next thing I knew, an axe appeared and she used it to protect herself. Unfortunately, she was helpless in the dream. At the end, she was murdered by being shot in the face.

My interpretation of this dream is that I am lacking control in some area. Death is me letting go the old me. The axe symbolized cutting off this old identity.

June 12, 2021

I was sleeping in my bed. I noticed another figure was lying next to me. It wasn’t just another figure, though. It was a cloned version of me.

Strangely, there was something about this scene that made me feel as if it was painful to have this other version of me be in the same room as me. So I strangled her trying to kill her. It felt extremely real.

June 28, 2021

I saw my sleeping self and it felt as if who I saw was the real me. It was as if I did astral projection and seeing my body. I saw three spirits that stood around me on my bed. I couldn’t identify them. They were just black figures. I realized I wasn’t alone in my bed. Next to me was another dark figure who also happened to be me. The dark Rosie was trying to kill the real me by strangling me. I didn’t feel separate from the dark Rosie or the sleeping Rosie. I was both at the same time.

To wake myself up, I threw a pillow across the room in real life. I wondered if perhaps the other spirits in the room represented the crows I often see in waking life.

July 24, 2021

Yet again, I dreamt of who I now refer to as “Shadow Rosie” sitting on top of me. This time, she didn’t strangle me. She just sat on top of me, like a creeper.

September 29, 2021 

My bedroom was pitch black in the dream. I kept feeling around my bed because I had the sense that there was some thing or someone else around. That it wasn’t just me on my bed.

Then I felt this dense, heavy matter as if there was another body sitting next to me. In the darkness, I could seet the shape of a body and knew that it had no face.

It scared me to realize that I could actually feel the texture and density of this body. I was in so much shock at how real it felt that when I woke up, my hands were stunned, shaking and full of a tingling pulse. I had goosebumps. I felt as if I had been electrified.


What is Ego Death?

If you haven’t picked up on it yet, a lot of these dreams symbolized death.

  • Disease of my body = shedding of my skin, my old identity.

  • Green vomit = things I no longer want to stomach because I was tired of having outdated belief systems shoved down my throat.

  • Shadow Rosie = She was fighting me because she wanted to stay alive and in control.

  • Act of strangling and suffocation = killing the ability to speak up, use my own voice and sever my connection as a vessel for the divine.

This wasn’t just any kind of death. It was ego death. It’s a figurative way to describe dissolving a part of our ego that has total control over us. An ego death doesn’t mean complete elimination of the ego. It’s a transcendence of evolving beyond the shackles of not just our ego, but also of our experiences and conditionings that shaped a false sense of identity for us.

Spiritual Awakenings During Eclipses

This episode released after the new moon in Sagittarius took place on November 23, 2022. This is the first new moon in the sign of Sagittarius that’s not an eclipse since 2020. This marks a true end to the eclipse season for the Gemini-Sagittarius axis that started in 2020.

I am a Gemini rising and my Mars and Jupiter placements live here too. My Descendant is in Sagittarius.

Astrology is one of the fun places you can explore to see if planetary transits and what they symbolize may be influencing the messages in your dreams or rather, if it’s the mark of your spiritual awakening. Eclipses are known for fated happenings, destructions and disruptions so it would be fitting that my dark night happened around this time.

The Darkness / Hermit / Isolation Stage

At this time of my life, I was very confused. If you had these dreams too, I know you would also be confused and highly concerned. Who wouldn’t be with the amount of violence and grotesque things I just explained?!

I also felt in despair and frustrated. I was having these painful realizations. Feeling as if life wasn’t panning out the way I thought it would. I lost all motivation and love for all the things I wanted to do. There were a lot of ups and downs. Every day was unpredictable. 

Going through these things is sometimes referred to as a dark night of the soul or a spiritual crisis. These feelings and phases are known as the darkness and/or the hermit and isolation stages. At these stages, you may:

  • Have a strong need to spend time alone. Want to avoid small talk and phoniness.

  • Feel disillusioned, unhappy, depressed, anxious and empty.

  • Experience a huge life event such as pain associated with trauma, relationship breakup, divorce, sickness, loss of a loved one and grief. Remember what I said about eclipse season in my previous point, that counts too!

  • Start to question what life is, why are you here and who you are. Your heart is searching for something greater than your own wants and needs. As you continue to question, you step into the role of the seeker.

  • Start to prioritize spirituality and develop a devoted practice while being disconnected or detached. Teachers may start to appear.

  • Come across information and ideas that help you understand more and more about your true life purpose.

  • Experience synchronicities that confirm you’re on the most aligned path.

 Once you get to the last four points of this list, you’re likely to undergo a rebirth.


The final two episodes of this dreams miniseries will weave in the last stages of a spiritual awakening.

Stay tuned for episode 3 covering the rebirth and integration stages. Subscribe to my channels (Apple, Spotify, YouTube) or join my eNewsletter so you don’t miss out!


My Dark Night of the Soul

As what most people would do when experiencing a spiritual crisis, I resorted to help and I got into a bunch of things to help me explore myself even more.

Here are some key moments from December 2020 – September 2021 that I believe are part of my spiritual awakening. Did you do these things too? Are you thinking of doing something similar?

  • February 2021 - Moved into my own studio. PS - this isn’t my final move! There’s one more big relocation I’ll be doing soon…and yes. It’s guided by my spirit guides!!!

  • March 2021 - Traveled and visited Oregon. (See photos and thoughts here)

  • February 2021 – February 2022 - I began letting go of an important relationship while meeting someone else who has become very important to me. Hint: last episode of this miniseries goes into detail about this!

  • May 2021 - I started seeing dead birds that no one else reportedly saw. Also had a dream about the numbers  which prompted me to study numerology.

  • June 2021 – Did an Akashic Records reading and an esoteric healing session.

  • August 2021 – Joined Rose Gold Goddesses, a “divine feminine mystery school” because I was interested in learning about the role of gender and worshipping of women as goddesses from a historical and spiritual lens.

  • September 2021 – did my first psychic medium reading.

Why The Death Dreams Stopped

The last time I had a dream of Shadow Rosie was on September 29. What’s important to note about that date is that in the beginning of September, I saw a medium. That’s when I connected with more of my guides who gave me the specifics of my life mission.

Once I surrendered to the plan, the content of the dreams changed. Now my dreams shifted to focus on: 

  • Helping guide me on my path to becoming a healer.

  • Helping me heal more of my unresolved trauma and other wounding experiences.

  • Helping me strengthen my connection with my significant person (may be labelled as a “soul mate,” “soul connection,” or “twin flame” depending on your beliefs).

I really want to emphasize how journaling provided a timeline for what I was dreaming versus what I was going through in real life. Although the content of the dreams didn’t exactly give me all the answers, understanding that they had one overarching theme, which was the symbolization of an ego death, helped me accept that the old sense of self I was clinging on to was no longer serving me.

I had to say goodbye. Just like the woman in the dream. I had to say goodbye to my old reality.

What’s Your Death & Rebirth Process Like?

I’d love to hear from you on what a process of death and rebirth has looked like for you.

  • What triggered your spiritual crisis or dark night of the soul?

  • What were some of the things you experienced along the way?

  • What helped you move forward?

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