Dream Q. I had a dream last night where I sent a patient (dog) to the Veterinary College and then drove an hour to see him. When I finally found him in the maze of the clinic there, he had just died and his file was in a large clipboard resting on his back leg. I was sad for the owners (who were not there) and put my hands on him, moved the clipboard and was really surprised how hot he was to the touch. I asked somebody if they were sure he was dead because he felt so hot but they basically dismissed me. Then I was alone with the dog. A short time later he started coughing and choking, and then all of a sudden he was surrounded by people doing CPR and I was pushed out of the way. -Stephanie
Patti’s A: Thanks Stephanie. You shared with me the fact that you had just suffered a miscarriage two days after this dream and wondered if there was a connection and wondered what the dream means. As a Veterinary doctor, you remembered your student days at the OVC and shared your associations along with the fact that some pet owners consider their pets to be surrogate children. With this in mind, there are dreams, called “prodromal” dreams that warn of illness in the body. So we might feel a connection between the death of the dog-a surrogate child symbol-and the loss of your pregnancy. Probably your body was already picking up the subtle signs of your non-viable pregnancy. While you couldn’t stop the miscarriage, even had you understood the advanced warning, the dream is important because it tells you what you think is dead (your chance to be a mother again) is not really dead. So on one level the dream offers hope. But dreams often have more than one meaning for the dreamer and the theme of premature death (the dog was pronounced dead a little too soon) definitely can be seen in the dream. I might wonder, beyond the issue of your pregnancy, is there anything else in your life that has been written off as dead-whether a feeling or an issue in your life-that isn’t dead at all?
What also strikes me as important in this dream is the fact that you were being dismissed and pushed out of the way! I suspect the dream is reflecting a situation in your waking life where you or your ideas or feelings are being dismissed in a similar manner. The dream then can be telling you that you have to trust yourself and what you know to be true. Maybe that relates to your work, but it can be about anything.
I also noted that you put your hands on the dog and shortly after that, he came back to life. If it were my dream, I might wonder if I might have any hands-on healing abilities? So the challenge will be to see if the actions in the dream are meant to be considered literally or as metaphors and symbolic of feelings and situations in your life. Thank you for sharing such a wonderful dream and I wish you a recovery filled with hope in your future and confidence in your truths. Sweet Dreams.
