When deceased relatives or pets show up in your dreams

My own speculation is that people  begin to spread out across what we call spacetime as they pass away. Transcend spacetime, if you will. At least they no longer seem bound to space and time as strongly as the wakeful healthy are.

To them, when you asked a question in the future, it’s possible they are still passing away, unbound and timeless, and free to answer as if it was but a moment ago.

I enjoyed reading this speculation of yours very much.  It resonances with perceptions I have had.  The idea of having a second environment with its own structural basis gives a "place" where meanings can "spread out".

Ray Moody's work includes a view on the nonsense of dying perceptions.  The bowl of fruit "in every room" may just be a meaningful communication, where the relationship to abstract intuitions of "fruit" and "every room" are not in nonsense in context of this different environment'
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I enjoyed reading this speculation of yours very much.  It resonances with perceptions I have had.  The idea of having a second environment with its own structural basis gives a "place" where meanings can "spread out".

Thank you Stephen. I did glance at Moody's nonsense language, but it didn't grab my interest quickly enough for me to devote any more time to it.

It seems sometimes my dream-life is richer than others. Some of the time, especially when I was younger, perhaps having more physical strength and having to steer a path through this world, I would have many dreams which served as guidance, helping me to understand where I might be going and showing possible futures. I had so many questions, uncertainties and choices.

In relation to the passing of relatives, the dreams were occurring before a death had occurred. I'm not talking about precognition. Rather, there was a process unfolding, an illness inevitably leading to the end of a physical life. Some of my dreams showed a house where my future relative would dwell in the future. Nothing extravagant or elaborate, but a place where one might be content to stay for a while. This had been prepared by friends and helpers waiting 'on the other side'. Our language regarding these things sounds a bit fanciful yet it was all very 'down to earth' in the way things were shown to me. At that time I was deeply concerned about my passing relative, wanted him to stay here with us for a while longer. What my dreams were showing me was another very different perspective. I was shown things more from the perspective of my dying relative, how everything was being dealt with smoothly and with great care and understanding.

By the time my relative eventually breathed his last, I was no longer disturbed or distressed over things. I started to get different dreams from then onwards. One thing which has been said by others is that a recently-deceased person may stay a while around his family and friends afterwards, remaining concerned for them. Very specifically I was shown how my relative would be with us at his funeral, not loitering with the bag of bones and flesh in the coffin, but close to and among us, sitting or standing by our side.

My dreams are not always so eventful or interesting. But they serve as a reminder that even when awake, going about daily life, there is no need to feel alone. The 'place' where the deceased are does not feel distant and unreachable, it almost seems to overlap this world, a bit like layers on a map where we can choose to view roads or we can choose to view mountains and valleys, there are different perspectives but they are all of the same land.

I'm wondering what people here think if and when they experience dreams where deceased relatives, or pets, appear.

I frequently (at least once per week) dream about people who were my friends in my early youth and who I have lost contact with over the years. I do know they are alive though. I don’t attach any paranormality to these dreams. My interpretation is that they represent a longing for getting in touch with them again.

It’s much more rare I dream about people who are in my life today.

I think dreams about the deceased repesents the same longing for them to come back.

I frequently (at least once per week) dream about people who were my friends in my early youth and who I have lost contact with over the years. I do know they are alive though. I don’t attach any paranormality to these dreams. My interpretation is that they represent a longing for getting in touch with them again.

It’s much more rare I dream about people who are in my life today.

I think dreams about the deceased repesents the same longing for them to come back.

On the other hand, it might be argued that your dream reunions with people from your past are happening in the same way that people meet their deceased relatives in dreams. We tend to use the term "paranormal" as though there is a definite distiction between the nature of the spirit in a living person and that of someone who has passed on. Perhaps, in waking life, there are restrictions imposed by the physical system we inhabit but it might be that the dream reality ignores these restrictions.

I'm not sayin that's always the case but I think there may be occasions when we visit or are visited by the spirits of the living as well as the "dead".

On the other hand, it might be argued that your dream reunions with people from your past are happening in the same way that people meet their deceased relatives in dreams. We tend to use the term "paranormal" as though there is a definite distiction between the nature of the spirit in a living person and that of someone who has passed on. Perhaps, in waking life, there are restrictions imposed by the physical system we inhabit but it might be that the dream reality ignores these restrictions.

I'm not sayin that's always the case but I think there may be occasions when we visit or are visited by the spirits of the living as well as the "dead".

When I recall my dreams I don’t feel I have been interacting with other persons. They are actors in a scenarie created by my own consciousness/imagination. Like if I wrote a novel with myself as the protagonist. 

I’m not saying this is what other people experience when they dream. As I understand it there’s a lot of difference in how much we recall our dreams.

[Ninshub]

A quote from a book I'm finishing that I find relates to the OP, Animals in Spirit: Our Faithful Companions' Transition to the Afterlife by animal communicator/psychic medium Penelope Smith.

She quotes another animal communicator, who contacted the transitioned cat Smokey and related the information to her human companion Martha:  "Smokey said he had been with Martha quite a bit since he had left his body and that he'd done his best to support her in her grief and in life generally. He said he meets her especially at night when she sleeps and that she would remember this as dreams, although the dreams would likely be distorted memories of their visits."  (p. 112) (Atria Books, 2008.)