Dreaming of Death

Dr. Thomas Cavanaugh, PhD, looked anxiously at the clock on his desk. David Halpin had missed their appointment for the third week in a row. It was so unlike David to miss a meeting and now it had been three weeks!

The psychologist straightened his tie absentmindedly as he struggled with what to do. As a clinical professional, Dr. Cavanaugh knew exactly what he should do. He should report to David’s case worker his absences and let the system handle things. And yet . . .

David had been referred to Dr. Cavanaugh’s office as a disability case. The diagnosis was agoraphobia. Simply put, Mr. Halpin had left his job because he refused to go out of the house anymore. His family had applied for disability after this went on for several months and, amazingly, it was approved. The only catch was that Mr. Halpin was required to see a psychotherapist each week in the hopes of being cured and returning to work.

When Dr. Cavanaugh had first gotten the referral to meet with David, he assumed it would be a very straightforward course of treatment. However, after several sessions, David began to open up and Dr. Cavanaugh started to see that there was far more going on than just a simple fear of being outside.

It had all started in August 1997 when David began having dreams about Princess Diana. The dreams happened every night for weeks and were always the same. David would see the princess running and running, trying to get away from something David couldn't see. Then the dream would change to a funeral scene that David could tell was for the princess. Once the dream ended, David would wake up. This went on night after night for several weeks until the beginning of September.

One evening, David saw a picture of Princess Diana on the evening news. That night, the dreams stopped. Three days later, the princess was dead in a car accident.

At first, Mr. Halpin shrugged the whole bizarre event off. But a few months later, the dreams began again. This time, he had recurring dreams about Sonny Bono. Just like before, the dreams went on for several weeks until Mr. Halpin saw a picture of Sonny in a magazine. Within a week, the entertainer and politician was dead.

Months later, the same thing happened again. This time, Mr. Halpin didn’t recognize the person in the dreams at all. It was only when he saw the man’s face in the television interview that David knew Jerome Robbins was about to die.

Soon, it happened again a fourth time. Then a fifth.

After this last experience, Mr. Halpin stopped watching television or reading magazines. His only source of news became the radio. To his great relief, the dreams stopped.

In 2005, though, the dreams began again. Only this time David would personally know the people in the dreams. It started with a distant family member whom David had not seen in years. The dreams began five weeks before David met his great aunt at a family reunion. She passed away in her sleep five nights later.

In 2006, David dreamed of the same young lady walking through a parking lot. For four weeks, he saw her walking by him with a gentle smile on her face. When the dreams stopped, David made sure not to even glance at a magazine or computer or television. He was terrified of seeing the woman’s picture. 

Then it happened. 

While walking out of the grocery store David happened to look up in the parking lot just in time to see the woman smile at him as she walked by. It took a few seconds for David to realize that it was not just another dream. He turned around to look at the woman again – only to see her hit by a car and killed.

From that point on, David tried as hard as possible to not dream or see people. He avoided sleep, took medication to make him sleep so soundly that he wouldn't dream, and found a night job that kept him away from people. That worked for several months until David began to have the dreams again.

In terror, Mr. Halpin refused to leave his house or even come out of his bedroom. He would not even see his own family members. By the time David had come to see Dr. Cavanaugh, he had not even looked at another person in over three months. In fact, the only way his family was able to get David to see the psychologist was by allowing David to wear a blindfold the entire time he was out in public.

It took some time, but after several meetings, Dr. Cavanaugh was able to convince his client to remove the blindfold. As a result, David’s meetings with the psychologist became the only instance of face-to-face human interaction David had each week.

During their therapy sessions, Dr. Cavanaugh worked with David to help him see that all of these events were just coincidental. There was obviously no connection between David’s dreams and the deaths that followed them. While still filing his paperwork with agoraphobia as the diagnosis, Dr. Cavanaugh was also seriously looking at treatment modalities for grandiose thinking and paranoia.

Finally, after months of therapy, Dr. Cavanaugh convinced David to try removing the blindfold for a drive in the country. Soon, he was able to get the blindfold removed for other short excursions where there was little chance of encountering many people.

Dr. Cavanaugh wrote encouragingly in his case notes that things looked like they were coming around finally. Mr. Halpin might even be able to return to work sometime in the future.

Then the dreams began again. This time, the dream was about a famous skier. David recognized his face from years before. Night after night, he would wake up seeing the skier careening out of control in the middle of a race and crashing.

Of course, this all scared David so badly that he locked himself in his room and refused to leave without his blindfold. Dr. Cavanaugh lamented the set-back, but was hopeful that he could use this opportunity to show David how foolish his thinking was.

A week after the dreams ended, though, a tragic event for David happened. He was out shopping with his wife per Dr. Cavanaugh’s instructions. David still had his blindfold on, but at least he was outside. Unfortunately, as they came around the end of an aisle, a display hook caught David’s eye mask strings and pulled it off. In the instant before David could shut his eyes, they fell upon a People magazine with this skier on the cover.

Two days later at their appointment, Dr. Cavanaugh assured David that nothing was going to happen to the skier and, if it did, David’s dream would have nothing to do with it. Mr. Halpin was not significantly consoled by this, but Dr. Cavanaugh felt that he had mitigated some of the damage from this unfortunate event.

That is, until he saw the news that night and learned that the skier had died in a horrific accident in a World Cup downhill race.

Of course, it took several weeks of therapy to help David cope with the trauma of the skier’s death. Dr. Cavanaugh felt that this was a significant set-back, but he still hoped that some progress would be made. It would just take a while longer for it to happen.

And then, for no apparent reason, David quit coming to his appointments. This was now his third missed meeting and Dr. Cavanaugh was worried. He glanced at the clock again, David was half an hour late. He was almost certainly not coming yet again.

The psychologist struggled for a few minutes and then made up his mind. He grabbed his coat, locked the office, and drove the four miles to Mr. Halpin’s house. He knew this was well outside of standard clinical procedure, but Dr. Cavanaugh was too concerned about David to let that stop him.

Mr. Halpin’s house was in a run-down part of town. David's wife worked at a nearby hotel as a housekeeper. Between her paycheck and David’s disability income they managed to scrape by.

Mrs. Halpin answered the door. Her face showed open shock at the sight of the doctor at their house. She invited him in and hurriedly began straightening up. Dr. Cavanaugh was unconcerned.

“Where’s David?”

“He’s back in his room. The one on the right.”

Dr. Cavanaugh brushed past Mrs. Halpin to David’s room. He considered knocking, but decided that he didn’t want to find himself negotiating through the door. Instead, Dr. Cavanaugh grabbed the doorknob and walked right in.

David Halpin had been sitting in bed reading a book. He looked up in surprise at the intrusion and his face became terrified once he saw his therapist. The troubled man dropped his book and collapsed in tears.

The psychologist was not sure at first what to make of the situation. Was David grateful that Dr. Cavanaugh had sought him out? Was David scared that he was in trouble for missing their meetings?

Dr. Cavanaugh waited a few minutes in silence.

Finally, he spoke softly, “What’s the matter, David?”

Dr. Cavanaugh’s client wiped his face and looked up at the doctor with deep, sad eyes.

“I have been dreaming about you.”

(c) 2015, Kevin H. Grenier