Dreaming about my two dead cats dying for two days in a row

We had two cats, one died because of illness and the other one disappeared months after the first one died. We had the first one for 3 years and he has been very close to me, while the other one was in my life for only about 6 months or so.

First dream - There was this river or something alike in our apartment and the cats were trying to swim but the flow was too strong and I saved the little cat while the big cat (the big cat was the first one we had, the little one was the other one that we got later) was taken by the flow. I decided to go after it and even tho the water was high I went to find him and I did but he couldn't breathe because he had a lot of water in him, so I started doing CPR and I think some water got out of him, then I woke up.

The second night - it was only a dream about the first cat and he had brain tumor. Thats all I can remember, but it shocked me how I had two dreams about my lovely cat dying when he has been gone for almost a year now.

Today for a change I dreamed about an orange cat, the exact cat I want in the future.

I would really like someone to maybe explain it to me? If it means anything at all. Thank you

It's not uncommon at all to dream of pets that have passed away, even years afterwards. Most likely something recently made you think about it, but possibly only very subliminally. It might not even be that you thought about it while awake, but maybe a dream just sort of randomly led to it. Dreams progress according to something called dream schema, meaning one idea leads to another in a sort of chain of causation. The example given in Stephen LaBerge's book Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming is that you might dream about being on a dark street, which seems scary, so that sets off a frightening schema. This causes your mind to come up with something scary, say a dark figure that you glimpse across the street coming toward you. That then kicks off a chase segment, where you're trying to get away but he's always just behind you, no matter where you go.

Some chain of dream events might have simply led up to you dreaming about one of the cats or both of them, which kicked off the schema of the death and disappearance. Then that just led naturally to thinking about the cat you want in the future, so in it popped into your dream.

Greetings jtanja13,

In these dreams your cats are the focus, but dreams are always metaphorical unless they are visions. Your cats represent independent self-willed deceptive thoughts. The orange cat represents stubborn strong willed independent thoughts. It is interesting that the second dream contains a brain tumour, highlighting something growing in your mind. All three dreams are related to each other and are speaking to you about a need for change.

There are growing strong stubborn ideologies you have developed in your thinking that need to be washed away for you to be free to move forward in your life. These thoughts are barriers to your future. You are holding on to them and stubbornly refusing to let go, even trying to revive old thoughts (CPR). It is time to tear them down.

Adam.