Miller wrote: “To dream of a corpse is fatal to happiness, as this dream indicates sorrowful tidings of the absent, and…” Compare 3 historical dream books.
Compare the historical accounts
These are the authors’ historical interpretations. Their forecasts and period judgments are preserved as source material, not as predictions or established meanings for your dream.
Gustavus Hindman Miller
Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted; Or, What’s in a Dream · Gutenberg #926; bibliography identifies the 1901 original and subsequent reprints
Corpse · Heading 513; source lines 6417–6458 · Text transcription
Original source (English)
To dream of a corpse is fatal to happiness, as this dream indicates sorrowful tidings of the absent, and gloomy business prospects. The young will suffer many disappointments and pleasure will vanish.
To see a corpse placed in its casket, denotes immediate troubles to the dreamer.
To see a corpse in black, denotes the violent death of a friend or some desperate business entanglement.
To see a battle-field strewn with corpses, indicates war and general dissatisfaction between countries and political factions.
To see the corpse of an animal, denotes unhealthy situation, both as to business and health.
To see the corpse of any one of your immediate family, indicates death to that person, or to some member of the family, or a serious rupture of domestic relations, also unusual business depression. For lovers it is a sure sign of failure to keep promises of a sacred nature.
To put money on the eyes of a corpse in your dreams, denotes that you will see unscrupulous enemies robbing you while you are powerless to resent injury. If you only put it on one eye you will be able to recover lost property after an almost hopeless struggle. For a young woman this dream denotes distress and loss by unfortunately giving her confidence to designing persons.
For a young woman to dream that the proprietor of the store in which she works is a corpse, and she sees while sitting up with him that his face is clean shaven, foretells that she will fall below the standard of perfection in which she was held by her lover. If she sees the head of the corpse falling from the body, she is warned of secret enemies who, in harming her, will also detract from the interest of her employer. Seeing the corpse in the store, foretells that loss and unpleasantness will offset all concerned. There are those who are not conscientiously doing the right thing. There will be a gloomy outlook for peace and prosperous work.
Felix Fontaine
The Golden Wheel Dream-book and Fortune-teller · 1862
Corpse · Heading 162; source line 1635 · Text transcription
Original source (English)
(See Shroud.) To dream you see a corpse, is a sign of long life.
Dreams of rivers, ships and horses, Of snow and frost, and of dead corpses, Are signs by which it may be read, Your sweetheart’s love is cold or dead.
Astra Cielo
Fortunes and Dreams · New York, George Sully, 1917
Corpse · Dream section, heading 118; source lines 4140–4143 · Text transcription
Original source (English)
To dream of a dead body denotes long life, also news from friends.
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Attributed historical writing. Historical claims are not established predictions or universal psychological meanings. Updated 2026-10-12. Read our approach and sources.