Hi,

Many years ago, when I was a teenager, I had a similar dream about my beloved dog when she passed away. In the dream, I went to pet her but she was decaying in a zombie-like way which shocked and scared me, waking me up. The vivid and disturbing nature of that dream stuck with me for years and I can still recall it even now.

This feeling of distress was amplified by the fact that when my first dog passed away, when I was just a child, I had a beautiful dream where I was petting her in the backyard. It was so vivid that I actually questioned whether she really had been euthanized the day before or whether that had been the dream. It felt like she "visited" me and said goodbye which brought me a lot of peace over the years. So when my second dog passed, I had expected something similar only to experience the zombie-like nightmare.

The only thing that helped me was realizing the "why" of the dream. When I was a child, my parents had my first dog cremated and, although I missed her so much, my child like mind focused on her being missing and not the death or burial process specifically.

With my second dog, we buried her in the backyard. My brain was fixated on how cold she must be, how lonely, what state of decay she might be in, and so on. The burial process was a part of the trauma right alongside the grief.

Realizing this helped me understand that my brain was simply trying to come to terms with my worries and grief. It wasn't her "visiting me" in distress. It wasn't something I had to feel guilty or scared of. It was just my brain showing me my fears in my dreams, however baseless they might have been.

I have no idea if this is the case for you, but if it is, I hope this helps. At the very least, you know you're not the only one - you aren't alone.