How does the motif of Mate's dream contribute to the plot?

Mate had a troubling dream in which she found her wedding dress inside her father's coffin. She has the same dream again in February, but this time Manolo, Minerva's husband-to-be, is in the coffin. In October, while she is a student at the university, she again has the dream, but now it is Armando Grullon, one of Minerva's friends, in the coffin.