I have read some very sad posts on here,and I would like to know if any of you have had dreams of your lost pets,I have alawys had a bit of a spiritual life,my husband calls it spooky,but regardlesss of what you believe,has anyone had one of those dreams that are so real,so vivid and bright where your beloved pet is in full health and with you.
This last happened to me after I lost my cat sorcha,she was so beautiful,I dreamt I was sitting in a deck chair and she was on my lap and as I was stroking her I turned to a man sitting next to me and asked him is this real? is she really here with me? he replied of course she is,and then said,you know,its a bit like a green card,she can go where ever she likes.
I personally dont believe this is a dream,on a different level its real,so what about you?

I lost a dog to a car accident when I was about 16, she was a very sweet little thing.  One night I woke up or thought I did to see what was like lamp light, my dog came in with my gran and gran encouraged her to jump on the bed, can't remember anymore of it but never forgot it or worked out if it was a dream or not.

When i was a little girl i woke up one night and thought the cat was cleaning itself, I looked up and it was a jack russell, we didn't own one.  That was lit up also.  Years later i told my mum who announced it used to follow her to the loo in night.

Didn't dream this one.  When the cat died the other year, I was nursing her the last few hours.  I went to do something at the sink inbetween checking her to take my mind off it and i saw her walk out the back door.  I knew she'd gone before i checked.  Hubby's seen her sat in fav spot as well and both (we lost two in a year) have sat on the dressing table.

I've not seen them for a year or two.

When my old Shepherd Kia was PTS I was unable to be with him (Don't go there) he had been my constant companion for nearly 14 years and would have given his life for me. I found it very very hard to come to terms with untill one evening about 12 months later (different house) I was sat in the lounge and he walked in the door bold as brass and sat beside me as if to say "It's OK Mum I understand" My now OH was sat there as well and he said I went really pale and started to shake. After that I felt so much better and now feel he is at peace.
Aileen

I don't care whether it was a dream or not.  When my grans collie(my first dog) came to me in a dream one night, it was so real I could feel her coat and everything while I petted her.  That is my most vivid memory from childhood.  How I missed/miss that dog.

After a pet dies i normaly have one dream about them except with one pet, I had a rabbit and a guniea pig who use to live tougher and the rabbit had to be putdown due to a degenerative spinal problem, over a yeah later i just had the guinea pig in their hutch in the garden and i had a dream about the rabbit and then in the dream the hutch with the gpig in fell into a hole and i woke up. A few weeks later it was realy windy and in the night the hucth with the gpig was blown over. Coinecence maby?

Daoist literature is quite matter of fact about this phenomenon--essentially that energy embodied in a being doesn't just vanish after death, but is transformed, and that the individual that is so cherished is perfectly capable of being seen by those who love him/her long after they are gone from our lives. I do know that after a very dear friend of mine died after a long war with cancer I did see her walking down the lane about a month after she had died--and I can tell you that Geri's very Californian taste for colours meant it could not have been anyone else.

I dream about my pets someof them are quite horrific, it always seems to be when my pets are still alive and I dream terrible things happen to them and wake up crying. Then spend weeks terrified it will come true.

But I do pick up smells of lost ones. When they visit I tingle over my right shoulder and pick up aftershaves, perfumes or just how people/animals smell. As a child I used to stand at the top of my nan's stairs and dream I floated to the bottom is about the best way I can describe it, then come to, flat on my back staring back up the stairs. But definitely had the feeling of floating. Very odd, whenever I tried to do it never happened but something would come over me and then it occured. Used to happen in my own home as well. I used to get pictures of peoples clothing in my head followed by names and once picked up a work mates great gran's name etc which she had no idea of but 2 days later talked to her mum who confirmed the name!! Freaky!! Would love nicer dreams though a friend of mine has similar occurences and they seem so reassuring and comforting, like the green card idea, what a lovely thought.

When something has had a great impact on you I think it is natural to have it so much in your mind that you continue to dwell on it in your sleep.
Personally, I do not think this indicates anything "real" but it is the minds natural way of working through grief or troubled times.

yes i dream about my old pointer and my daughter i lost i do not want to put much detile on here about my dreams x

I remember one very vivid dream I had about Brady my first Flattie. In this dream, while he was still with us, he was walking along a path where we used to go to relieve themselves before bedtime. He was off his lead as usual and I called to him and he didn't come back, instead he turned his head, looked straight into my eyes then turned away and walked around the corner. I woke up at this point and told hubby who just laughed. A few weeks later we lost Brady very unexpectedly and suddenly as he had been fine up to an hour before he was PTS.
I know this is probably just coincidence but it was so vivid and so clear he was looking at me to say bye bye.

not long after we lost one of our elderly cats ... I was sitting in the living room where I could just see up the hallway where there is a large window I saw one of the cats sitting on the window ledge ..thinking it was one of my other cats I got up and walked towards the window when I got there the cat had gone ..I though he had run up the stairs..so I went up to look there were no cats in the house... I didnt mention it to my OH but kept thinking about it all evening the follow day we were off out in the car and I said to my hubby a weird thing happened to me yesterday ..I told him ' Mansell our old cat came to visit'... expecting him to say you idiot here you go again ... he went very quiet and carried on driving..when I looked at him he said.. 'I know' I was shocked at his reply but he said he had seen him himself that morning... my hubby is not a believer so for him to admit this was very difficult for him.

As for dreams .. I have many.. some strange some amusing... I believe a dream where loved family or pets have passed is a visit...

>he was looking at me to say bye bye

This happened to me with my first Border Collie.  It was as clear as if he was really there. 

I'm feeling very left out, if I have dreamt of my animals the memory is gone, I can't think of any at all, and even though my heart has been ripped out when some of my animals have passed over, I've never seen them afterwards :-( feeling quite gutted that I haven't now, could it be that I have been at peace with their passing even though extremely heartbroken?

I've often felt people I love with me, and I know a dog was frequently seen at the bottom of the stairs by relatives as children, but never seen an animal myself............ why???? sob, sob.

What is strange is how as a species and moreover as a culture we have isolated ourselves, consciously or not, from being able to acknowledge sensory or extra sensory perception. We often talk about "believing when we see it with our own eyes" and then promptly deny what we think we have seen when it conflicts with social or cultural norms. Our animals don't seem to have this problem. I believe one reason why people tend to report "seeing" loved ones in their dreams rather than while awake is simply because the mind is able to relax out of day to day constraints enough more easily in REM sleep.

I agree with you entirely JAY15, I feel the human race is by far the most restrained animal instinctually. :-)

I lost a very beloved dog 3 years ago. I remember dreaming one night that she was sat in front of me as I sat on the floor and she was just looking straight into my eyes. I could see every fleck in her eyes and remembered that is EXACTLY what her eyes looked like. In fact we were so in tune with each other I really believe that that dog used to look into my soul. That is what I felt that night. But the night she died there was a real phenomenom in our bedroom with the curtains actually lifting horizontally to the windows when there was only a slight breeze outside.

You're not the only one Carrington, I wish I could dream of Henry and hold him again even in a dream. I do sometimes dream of my dogs, usually like someone else said it's more a nightmare of them being trapped or lost of something. But since Henry died, the only once or twice I have had any dreams involving him, it's not been actually dreaming of him if you see what I mean, just that in the dream I'm aware of him being dead. I guess he's too busy humping all the bitches at Rainbow Bridge to come visit - sorry to all the bitch owners!

carrington,lucydogs, you could just try asking,at some quiet time just say that you love and miss them, and please come and visit so I know your ok.It wont be a nightmare,i get a run of those too,that my dogs are missing,run away and I cant find them(probably as they ran away a lot when they were younger,now they are too old to bother!)
Thankyou for all your posts x

Worth a try, though he never did anything he didn't want to during life! :-)

I think some people are more open to this than others... that is why some people believe and others think its codswallop...

I don't so much "see" them in my dreams...as "feel" their presence when I'm awake....especially when they have only just left the physical realms...(Although I do have a tendency to "tune out" really easily and am oblivious to people talking to Me...which I suppose is almost like dreaming when you're awake...???) 

My sister and My Mum and I were with My Dad..at home..when he died...and I stayed at My Mum's for quite a few days afterwards. When she had gone to sleep and I was watching over her...the lights were flickering...and electrics were buzzing...and I felt My Dad in the room with us even more strongly than during the hours just before he left us (if that makes sense...???) (Although the actual few minutes before He left...he kissed My Mum)..... I have only seen him once in a "sleeping" dream since 1999 and he appeared to be behind a veil...

I think maybe a lot depends on weather a person is more a right-brained thinker...or a left brain thinker.... as to whether they will perceive the experiences of others as a possibility...or a load of old codswallop....??? :)

I can't remeber ever having a dream with any of my pets.

I have had an 'experience' of a pet.
I was sat on a dining chair and I felt a cat brush past my (bare) legs, the distictive feeling of my cat Molly's ,long, silky-soft coat. I looked down to see her walk on under the chair, then I somehow lost sight of her. She died a year before that and we had no other cats. I checked the house, convinced that there MUST be a 'real' cat hiding somewhere, there wasn't.
It never spooked me, or made me feel odd. It felt very matter-of-fact. Only happened the one time.
She used to sleep on my boys top bunk bed, strange how we could still hear the sound of her jumping off the top bunk and running accross the landing even months after her death. It was a sound so real that even visitors heard it, one time my sister was convinced there had to be an intruder upstairs, so I had to go and show her there was nobody up there, it was just the osund of the cat that we always heard.

> When they visit I tingle over my right shoulder and pick up aftershaves, perfumes or just how people/animals smell

Oh, slighty off topic, as it's not about pets, but I was around my friends house and I smelt a lovely perfume waft past me. I turned to her to ask her about it, her eyes had welled up as she'd smelt it too, it was the perfume her mum always wore. I never met her mum, she died before I met my friend (her mum was only 40 when she died). That gave me goosebumps. My friend was glad that I'd smelt it too. She said she often smelt it, but thought it was her imagination and wishfull thinking that her mum was visiting her...........

My Mum lost her cat a couple of years ago and George was a house cat as they lived on a very busy road. He used to chase immaginary mice under her bed and they still hear him now running round the bedroom. Mind you I think my Mum is very sensitive to these kinds of things as she used to work for a (Famous ) man and he had a huge 12 century house. She would put flowers in the fireplaces in the summer and go back to the room later to find the flowers scattered over the floor. In the end she used dryed flowers or fir cones and they allways stayed put. Once while cleaning the bath in the owners en-suite she felt a tap on her shoulder, the bath had a large mirrored wall behind it and when she looked up no one was there! My brother once stayed in the house while the owner was away and was woken during the night to athe sound of people dragging things around in the corridor, He assumed it was the owners come home early as they were due back the next day so went back to sleep but in the morning the house was empty bar him and no one had been home. The doors were all still bolted....spooky! I have stayed there (In Mums house on the estate) to keep an eye on things when they have been on holiday and never felt or seen anything and the house has a lovely welcoming feel to it.
Aileen

>>go back to the room later to find the flowers scattered over the floor. In the end she used dryed flowers or fir cones and they allways stayed put.

Guess they didn't like flowers or not in that particular place.

My old house had funny goings on, didn't other people felt it as well until I said something one day.  It was mainly my bedroom and the stairs.

I sometimes catch a glimpse of someone but it gone too quick for it to register properly.

When my uncle died, my mum saw him at the back door and got his cup out and made him his coffee.  She wondered where he'd got to and was puzzled to find him not there.  A few nights later we had a visitor to say he'd died and not been found for a few days.

Well not quite a dream but when my first spaniel died, I was terribly upset over it. I think because I had to make the decision to put him to sleep and stayed with him for it. I was hardly young doing it as I was 23 but it was my best friend after all. Anyway for the,weeks following it, I kept having a vivid dream where I was reliving the whole thing. One night at work, a patient arrived for xrays. I was in the middle of the examination with her and was walking across the room chatting about the weather etc and she asked me if I had lost a pet recently. I said I had and she said that there was a spaniel following me everywhere I went. She described him and said he wasn't ready to leave yet as I wasn't ready to let him go. She said when I was ready, he would go and wait for me when my time came. I was pretty shocked by the whole experience but it made the process alot easier. I never saw him or anything but the dreams stopped.

> >she asked me if I had lost a pet recently. I said I had and she said that there was a spaniel following me everywhere I went. She described him and said he wasn't ready to leave yet as I wasn't ready to let him go

How lovely.  I always think they stay if we want them to.

I think, that is probably about right, people and animals will stay with us until they know we are ok without them.

My Grandmothers little sister (6yrs) had her nightie catch on fire from a piece of coal rolling out of the fireplace, my Grandmother  (17yrs)  rolled her in their carpet to try and put out the fire, burning her own hands in doing so, but her sister very sadly died. She told me that her sister would walk home with her from work whilst cutting through the woods and did so for many weeks until she was told that she needed to let her go and when she said goodbye she stopped seeing her.

My Grandmother continued to see spirits all her life, including animals, but she scared the life out of us as children as often the spirits she spoke of frightened her as they would just appear and not say anything. She scared the life out me so much that when she was dying she told me she would come see me and I told her not to as it would frighten me...........

My oldest grandson got very scared when he was about 12-13 because he started seeing a lot of 'ghosts'. We took him to see a spiritualist friend who talked it through with him and showed him how to cope. We were somewhat sceptical and thought there might be a  degree of attention seeking there, until he went on a school trip to Culloden. When he got home we asked how it had been and he said it was strange because there were a lot of spirits there but the weren't the armies who had fought the battle. He said they were not wearing a uniform but just had ragged kilts and stuff on. The 'armies' would not have worn a uniform and were shepherds and farm workers who rallied to the cause. So he was seeing what would actually have occurred rather than what he expected to see. It made me have far more faith in him.
I also noticed him waving down my garden when he was here. When questioned, he was surprised that I didn't know that my son spent a lot of time sitting on the bench by the big flower bed. When his small brother and sister got a bit bigger they would grin and wave at the same place and this was before they could speak. I feel sad in a way that my son has stayed so close and I can't see him :(

In our old terrace house thoings would always happen and I got the impression we weren't welcome there. It was not a happy house for us and I feel the same about my parents house, where I've had my skirt pulled as I walked downstairs, been pushed down the stairs quite abruptedly. Always feel someone over my shoulder in my parents house, I can remember sitting watching TV alone in thehouse when a crystal bell on the dresser rang twice. Up I got to close the window as I thought it was a breeze only the window was closed. In the terrce the boys as babies slept in our room in their cot and both of them would look and laugh at the same spot on a wall. I put a knife down once in the kitchen and went out to check on the boys in the garden, came back and couldn't find the knife. Eventually found at the far end of the kitchen, no where near my chopping board. I had a glass on a tray on the floor just shatter in that house, now that frightened the heck out of me. Hubby thought I was bonkers...still does!!

Here's a really scary one, when I was approx 14yrs I went with my friend to our local village graveyard, and weird I know but I used to love reading the names on the gravestones in my head wondering what the people had been like. On this particular day I read the names out loud with my friend (Never, ever will I do that again ) that night when I went to bed there were loads of heads floating around the bottom of my bed, I ran into my parents room and asked if I could sleep with them as there were heads in my room, of course my dad told me it was just a nightmare, but let me stay. (Now that in itself is embarrassing enough a teenager sleeping with mum and dad. :-D)

The next night it happened again , and again and again, I didn't want to appear a baby or a lunatic so I never said anything else about it and learnt that nothing was going to hurt me, I used to go to sleep every night with my head under the covers so I couldn't see them. :-D Eventually I guess I just got used to it.

This went on until I moved out and every morning I would try to rationalise and think of logical answers for these heads, me being a psycho being top of the list. :-D

When I eventually did move out one of my brothers moved into my room, but the next day moved out again, saying it didn't feel right sleeping in there as it was my room and I could still use it when visiting, (how lovely I thought :-) ) it wasn't until we were in our late 20's that he told me when he moved into my room there were heads around the bed, I couldn't believe it! It felt so good to have someone confirm I wasn't a nutter. (Gran long gone by then, or I could have talked to her) Mind you we might both be loonies. :-)

I've slept in that room as an adult and nothing there at all now, although I sometimes feel my dad with me who is now passed, the honest truth is, I really don't want to see whatever it is we become, scares the life out of me.

I don't think I would be afraid of seeing my beloved pets though, I think it is lovely that people have, I wish I could..... but maybe because deep down I'm scared now, they stay away too incase they give me a heart attack.

I wonder if this is at the root of it. They know who could cope and who couldn't. I have heard stuff, my dogs tag jangling against his collar buckle just as it did in life. My mother has heard her dog padding around the landing where she used to sleep but neither of us have seen anything and in all honesty I don't really want to. It must be so lovely and comforting to see our pets and loved ones but I know I wouldn't be able to cope with seeing them. I would be so scared I'd need a long stay in hospital to recover from the experience.

Maybe they know this and this is why I never seen them. Doesn't mean to say there are not there but know I couldn't cope with it and maybe thats the way for others who have not seen as well.

I wonder if this is at the root of it. They know who could cope and who couldn't.

I think you have hit the nail on the head, well as much as we can conclude I guess, it's the thought of perhaps being watched as well that I don't like, imagine relaxing in a nice bubble bath or dancing in front of the mirror :-) and you suddenly have a visitor, ***shudder***

I have heard the sound of nails on the floor behind me and turned to look who has come to see what I was doing to be met with no dog there and so have run into the Lounge to find them all fast asleep. My husband has been out with all the dogs and I have heard the chink of the collar coming down the hall and gone to the door to see why he has come back so soon to yet again be met by no dog and husband still out for another half hour with the dogs. I always believe that past dogs have come back for a visit.