Death
The end of a phase. Almost never a literal premonition.
Death in a dream is the dictionary's most misunderstood symbol. It is almost never a literal premonition. It is the ending of a chapter — a job, a relationship, an identity, a way of seeing yourself.
The death of someone close to you in a dream is usually their role in your life shifting, not their physical wellbeing. A parent dying often means you are stepping into more authority of your own.
Your own death in a dream tends to come at a turning point. The shock is real and the dream usually does not let you skip past it — but on waking, what people most often report is relief.
Where you often see it. The death of a person you know in waking life. The death of a stranger. Your own death in the dream. Almost without exception, the dream is the ending of a phase — a relationship, a role, a self-image — not a literal calendar event.
What it is not. The dream's death is not premonition. Folk reading aside, the dictionary has many decades of evidence that death imagery names chapter endings, not biographical deaths.
Related in the dictionary. Read death with autumn, winter, graveyard, and ruin. Many readers find this entry the most useful one to keep open in their browser the morning after the dream.