Woke Up Crying, Really need help :(

Ok i am a 22yr old male and at 4:30am i woke up from a dream with tears streaming down my face.

I cant remember the start of the dream all i know is i left a hospital (that i dont recognise) after visitng some one (who i also dont recognise). She was an older woman possibly in her 30's. I was very close to this woman but i dont know how i was close to her.

If i seen her walking around my town i would recognise her instantly, which is weird because in most of my dreams i forget faces easily as if they wernt really there...but this woman felt so real. As if i had known her for a very long time.

Any way in my dream, I then return to the hospital to find shes passed away and i imediatly start crying and packing away all her belongings, thinking that i never got to say goodbye. This is when i woke up.

I have no idea where this could of came from as i havent lost anybody close to me. But all i know is who ever the woman was in my dream...she was real.

A bit of background for myself:

Perfectly healthy 22yo. Mother, father, older sister with healthy family, older brother with healthy family. I have a girlfriend of 4 years, step son of 3 years (long story) and a daughter of nearly 4 months. Recently promoted at work so i couldnt be happier at the moment.

Any help with this dream would be hugely appreciated as all i can think about is this woman and I then start to feel quite upset, i still have her face in my head. The only thing i can think of is perhaps a repressed memory from when i was younger? I am in a really upset mood and i cannot seem to snap out of it.

I think this has more to do about the female side of yourself. Mayby you are not expressing these sides of yourself.

I wonder whether this dream is in part about growing up and having new responsibilities and a new role in your relationships to family and other interpersonal relationships as you grow up.

In this dream you are the one packing away the woman's belongings which is the sort of thing a grown child would do if their parent died or a widower if his spouse passed away. Anyway it is a responsibility that a grown up needs to perform in an exceedingly difficult situation. Only a few years ago you were not ready for such thoughts, but now perhaps your mind is considering what it would be like if you faced this ever. You have greater responsibilities and thus the risks and fears are greater. And someday you will face a difficult family situation like that, hopefully not any time soon, but someday, and your mind chose this night to perhaps consider that.

I think the woman's face is unknown to you because it is not a specific person, but rather it is a dream where someone important dies and it is your responsibility to deal with it. I don't think that your remembering her face necessarily means that this dream character was a real person, some dreams are more vivid than others, and I think this one stood out like that because this dream matters to you, so your mind chose to remember it in more detail.

Also death in dreams does not nevessarily mean death. Dreams do exaggerate. Death could also be symbolic for the end of an era, coming of age for example and never being a youth again, or your realizing that you are now a different person like part of you died - yes, in the dream that part is female but it could be part of your personality - perhaps saying that now you are "a man" (as opposed to a boy).

Of course I could be wrong, and if any of this does not sound right to you, please feel free to disregard it.

Thankyou that was very helpful. And it makes sense but i dont understand the womans face, i can still remember it clear as day...

I think your mind may have supplied a face because it was not about a specific person, also the dream would have been even more traumatic for you if it had been the face of an actual family member, and maybe your mind did not want to go there.

There is a myth that human minds are incapable of creating a dream character who does not actually exist in waking life, that everyone we see in dreams is someone we actually met in waking life. But I strongly believe that is a myth. Our mind is very powerful with strong imagination, and just as fiction writers can create realistic characters in their novels who do not really exist, our dreaming minds can create vivid imaginative people who actually do not exist.

Of course, your theory of repressed childhood memory is possible. Maybe the woman was a babysitter you knew as a kid when very young, and your conscious mind forgot her but your subconscious remembers. Or maybe you saw the woman on the street or in a store and your conscious mind did not find her important enough to recall, but when your dream needed a face hers was there in your subconscious memory. Or if you want to get fancy maybe people who believe in reincarnation got it right, and maybe the woman was someone you knew in a previous life. She could also be an actress in a commercial you saw recently.

I think that how you got this woman's face whether from memory or imagination may not matter enough and you may be unable to find it out. However, if it deeply matters to you, maybe you should trust your intuition on that. Have you described the woman to your family to see whether any of them have any ideas?

Before the womans face fades from memory you should try to get her likeness down on paper.
If you know an artist, ask him to draw her from your descriptions.
Or trawl the internet for someone similar, then use photoshop to alter to a more realistic image of her.
I have dreamed of very good looking women, but never had enough image left in my memory to draw a likeness.

YOU?
As you are really happy now, can this be highlighting where you are not, or were not, happy?
She could mean the mature compassionate, feeling, receptive side of you that you need to be close to, that is close to you and so real, but was sick and died, which you had to pack away and made you sad.

Can you remember that happening?

HER?
But you never got to say goodbye, seems too pointy, and where you woke up or where the issue is.
Can it possibly be about a past relationship which didn't end well, who you no longer know, you want to resolve maturely or is pretty old? Could it be to do with the one sad thing highlighted by how well things are going, regarding the relationship that gave your step son perhaps, which bothers you?
You went to a part in you that was sick, or needing fixing - the inner hospital.

I have had several dreams that have resulted in me waking up crying, the most recent being only a few days ago. Usually it's always been something emotional happening to me or someone in the dream, not necessarily someone I know either.
Now, we all know that emotions are heightened in dreams, and they way I see it is simply the part of your brain which deals with intense emotions like that becomes more stimulated based on how your cortex has interpreted the brain signals zooming around. It will excite the neural networks which are responsible for making you feel really sad. The mind needs rationalisation to explain what it perceives, so the dream will likely create a representation to adequately fits into its context.
Hope that helps you.

Thank you all for getting back to me. They are all excellent points but i still have no idea where it came from. The more i question it the less sense it seems to make.
The womans face has now drifted from my memory but i can still remember the dream vividly, however it doesnt feel as real when i think about it and i no longer get upset.
I no longer feel upset when i wake up. Instead i am back to my normal dreams of living past memories differantly etc. and feel happy when i wake up again.
I have come to the conclusion that it was just alot of built up emotion. I always tend to lock things up as i am either at work or i get home and have the kids to sort when i get home. As for why my mind chose to do it this way i guess we can only speculate. Thank you all very much for your time.