Integrating Grief through Dreamwork - Case Study: Pet Loss

Grief following the loss of a beloved animal companion is often felt deeply, yet quietly minimised. For many of us, pets are attachment figures, sources of safety, routine and connection. When they pass away, the grief can surface in many ways, including through dreams.

The following case study is shared as an example of dreamwork in practice and not as a guide or replacement for individual therapeutic support. Some details have been omitted or condensed with permission, to protect confidentiality and for brevity.

What is dreamwork?

There are different approaches to dreamwork, I offer Embodied Experiential Dreamwork (EED) developed by Dr. Leslie Ellis, a therapeutic method that explores dreams as lived somatic experiences and not just symbols to be interpreted. In this way, dreams can become tools for healing by accessing trauma or behavioural imprints of unresolved wounds. They guide us to uncover hidden feelings and patterns which lead to change through memory reconsolidation and emotional and somatic processing.

CASE STUDY: Finding Emotional Freedom / Pet Loss

We explore a recurring dream centred on a beloved cat who had passed away some years ago yet continues to show up regularly in dreams. The dream therapy process honours the dream as an ongoing relationship with love, loss and emotional meaning, sometimes revealing what the subconscious still wants to integrate.

The Dream - Part 1

The dream was set in a garden maze area at night, there were trees to one side, and in the other direction white houses beyond the maze. It was very dark; the dreamer was holding her cat in her arms trying to navigate the maze made of hedges or bushes. The dreamer felt anxious and was anticipating being attacked around every corner she turned, from an unknown and unseen threat.

Dreamwork exploration

When we explored the feeling of anxiety, it became apparent that the dreamer felt anxious because she was trying to find safety for herself and her cat and there was a sense of responsibility. We discovered that the unseen threat around every corner was more of an internal fear, a ‘what if’ rather than an external physical threat that appeared in the dream. When focused on the houses outside the maze, they felt like a potentially safe and helpful element of the dream.

Real life connection

Since her cat had passed away, the dreamer had often felt a sense of worry and guilt of where her cat now was, and whether he was safe. The dream was expressing her fears and anxieties around the responsibility she still felt around this at times.

The Dream - Part 2

In the second part of the dream, the environment changed to the inside of an apartment building. It was daylight now, the room had a medical feel to it, a sense of helping others, and it felt light, warm and opulent. The cat is lying down in the room and grounding himself into the floor, there was a strong sense that he wanted to be free.

Dreamwork exploration

The dreamer was asked to explore the feelings of the cat in the dream in this new environment. Upon doing so, she could really feel a sense of freedom all around her. As she kept embodying this feeling, she noticed there was a limit to the freedom and how far it extended, but then she felt the barrier dissolve and, in that moment, it expanded outwards even more. This gave the dreamer a real somatic sense of how the cat felt in the dream, he was happy, safe and free and he had chosen to be there.

Dream forwarding

In the final part of the session the dreamer was asked if the dream was complete and if not, to imagine an ending that felt right. The dreamer visualised giving her cat a kiss and then turning to walk outside the building. Once she got outside, she could see trees and could breathe fresh air, she also felt her own sense of finding freedom.

Integration

The dreamwork session helped to facilitate an integration of grief from sadness, anxiety and guilt, into helpful feelings that could benefit the dreamer in real life. It offered a counterbalance from a relationship that felt like loss, into something the dreamer now found soothing, freeing and expansive, a resource she can return to whenever needed.

Finding the gift in the dream

Many dreams contain a gift, whether it be a new feeling, a resource, an insight or new sense of support. Pets often show up in dreams with a strong sense of help or guidance, just like in the case study we have just explored.

In another example, shortly after the passing of her mother, a dreamer had a vivid dream where her dog appeared with a large bunch of keys in his mouth. Through dreamwork, it was discovered that each key held access to a different part of the dreamer’s emotional inner landscape. Each was locked away separately because it was too overwhelming and she didn’t want to be flooded with every emotion all at once so soon after her mother’s death.

In this way, the dream gave the dreamer a gift of emotional control and regulation. Any time she felt ready to process the next emotion she could simply visualise asking the dog for the right key and it would unlock the feeling in her psyche so she could integrate it at her own pace.

Working with your own dreams

If you feel curious about what your own dreams may be offering, start by writing them down, creating a dream journal, paying attention to recurring themes and patterns or just simply making some time to listen to your inner stories.

If you are interested in exploring your own dreams, 1:1 dream therapy sessions are available online worldwide. Bookings available below.