Dream Angels or Phantoms? Encounters with the Departed While Sleeping
Dreams can be a powerful way to connect with our loved ones on the other side, but it is not always easy to know if the experience is real or imagined.
Photo: Circa 1985. Stacey Couch and her Rottweiler “Major” and beagle “Willie”.
What does it mean when loved ones who are dead appear in our dreams? I have three working theories that I share at the end of this article. But first, a few examples of my own dream encounters with the departed. Let’s slip into the dreamtime together…
The Pink Diner
In a diner, a row of pink booths fade into a soft pink blur of light, much like the termination of a tunnel. He materializes out of the rosy cloud. An approaching spectacle of grace. A Rottweiler more affectionately known as brother. Light glimmering off his glossy black coat, he’s in his prime again, regal, stoic, safe. He stops and sits before me, my young legs dangling off the edge of a booth. Echoes of our early days together - the days when this magnificent beast would patiently wait at my feet for the crust of my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I’d sit with my legs dangling off the edge of the tall concrete slab patio in my childhood backyard.
I slide off the vinyl seat to kneel in front of him, our heads now matching heights. His deep amber eyes lit from within lock with my own. Throwing my arms around his neck, I weep and I know. I know he’s come back for me to say goodbye, to let me know he is okay, to offer solace.
Always my attendant, my guardian. A one hundred and fifty pound dog who appointed himself my keeper. I was over the moon to be selected. I could never get enough of dear Major. His quiet, strong presence carried me through many childhood losses. At his euthanasia, I wept and watched. I watched his soul float up and out of his cancer withered body. I was eleven. Brokenhearted, I carried a lead weight in my chest for months afterwards. Then this dream and his spirit too came and soothed the grief.
A Dream Eidolon
She died of cancer. Once a close co-worker and dear friend, her death was distant. I’d moved away years prior. Now she’s more immediate. I see her in my dreams every few months. She passes through. She is part of the back drop. We rarely talk. If we do, it’s of business and horses. The scene is usually the horse ranch where we worked. I’m not aware that I’m dreaming and that she’s dead. She doesn’t know either. The plot is basic. The dream has me trying to catch a horse, or find an item, or track down a person in an endless warehouse of tack. Dusk renders a haze over everything. Night comes and swallows the rest. A hollowness predominates. What is missing? Maybe it’s me.
We never officially said goodbye in this life, nor have we in the dreamtime. There is this limbo. There is no hint that her spirit is visiting. There is no emotion or recognition. The lights aren’t on.
In ancient Greek literature, there are stories of eidolon.