JoannaB

I am baffled by why I would dream about death. The use case part I can sort of understand why I dreamed that: I have been recently reviewing my skills, and a basic use case is one of them. A use case is used in Software Development in the requirements gathering phase, to establish what it is that the user needs to use the system for. But who would be the user that would need a system to ackomplish death? It would be a pretty finite and extreme user action.

I did not think I am depressed now. Yes, I have a lot of stress, but not depressively so, so thinking of death does not make sense for me. I didn't think I was.

Ah, but what if death is a metaphor that stands for something: a drastic change from which there is no going back. I am in mid job search. Could it be that my mind is comparing a change of jobs to death, and saying that there are different ways to go: self initiated, laid off/fired, and "natural causes" (which does not really fit). No, I don't think that is a good metaphor, and it does not quite fit, so maybe that's not it.

The other big change in my life is that I am working hard at trying to achieve lucid dreaming. Could this dream be somehow about that? Comparing lucid dreaming to death - as long as one believes in resurrection and an afterlife. They say orgasm is "la petite mort" (the little death) and there is something orgasmic about the adrenaline rush from a lucid dream. On the other hand I have not been cery successful in my lucid dreaming efforts, and is there some sort of morbid fear that is preventing me? I don't think so. This metaphor is a stretch. Let's see if the categories fit: natural causes (getting lucid naturally), suicide (self induced), murder (???). No, I don't think this fits.

So where does that leave me: hidden depression (even though I don't feel depressed), job search (natural causes??? Plus it just does not seem right to compare a change of job to death), lucid dreaming effort (murder??? Plus this is supposed to be fun not morbid). Anything else?

Growing older and fear or acceptance of the eventuality of death? Perhaps acceptance. The "system" of life is designed to lead the "user" to death, one way or another eventually. Is this what this dream is about? I don't know. I don't think so.

I think I figured it out! This dream is about my assessment of the possible future of the project that I am currently on. The death of the system, either by suicide (something the team or lead did wrong) or murder (external politics, others trying to kill the project) or natural causes (supply and demand, cost and budget). It fits. This dream is about my lack of confidence in the successful future of this project.

I've got an alternative equally valid interpretation: the use case of death could be about my stress - does it come of natural causes (such as hormones), is it self inflicted, or caused by others? The stress has been a huge problem, and if I do not successfully fight it, it could be my death, at least figuratively: stress is a killer, it kills the fun of life and energy. What kind of life is it if one is under regular stress? Stress can also be a killer literally, for example as a cause of heart attacks. Since I am actively working on reducing stress, I am confident it will not kill me. However, the use case of death dream was dreamed after a day that was particularly stressful, and thus perhaps my mind exaggerated a bit and said: such stress shall be the death of my system. Perhaps it was a warning from my subconscious: a distress signal. It was so stressed out, that it could only communicate with me in a diagram, not even a decent visual dream.