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Journal of
Scientific
Exploration
Anomalistics
and
Frontier
Science
61
journalofscientificexploration.org JOURNAL OF SCIEN TIFIC EXPLORATION • VO L. 38, NO 1 – SPRING 2024
INTRODUCTION
Sheldrake et al., (2023) reviewed accounts of end-
of-life experiences (ELEs) involving non-human animals.
ey showed animal1 ELEs are similar to human ELEs,
suggesting common underlying processes. Here, we con-
sider apparent aer-death communications (ADCs)2 from
animals. Generally, these were animals that lived with
HIGHLIGHTS
Reports of aer-death communications from non-human animals closely resemble
those from humans, suggesting common underpinnings to these events.
ABSTRACT
In an earlier study, Rupert Sheldrake, Pam Smart, and Michael Nahm reviewed
accounts of end-of-life experiences (ELEs) involving non-human animals. ey showed
animal ELEs to be similar to human ELEs, suggesting common underlying processes.
Here, we consider apparent aer-death communications (ADCs) from non-human
animals and compare them to accounts of ADCs from humans. We collected 442
accounts of animal ADCs from our own appeals and from reports in the literature.
We found a close resemblance between ADCs from animals and from humans in the
types of experience—dream visitations, a sense of presence, visual, auditory, tactile,
and olfactory apparitions, and psychokinetic eects. As with human ADCs, the great
majority of animal ADCs were reported to have occurred in the rst hours or days aer
death, with a dramatic falling o over time. Moreover, our data show that people grieve
their pets in much the same fashion as they grieve their human loved ones, suggesting
that human bereavement studies would do well to take into account the animal data to
which we draw attention. Doing so may help clarify issues regarding the fundamental
nature of the experiences—determining whether they are best regarded as internal
hallucinations, as living-agent-psi-mediated subjective or objective phenomena, or
as actual contacts with the deceased—which in turn carries implications not only for
academic studies of bereavement but for clinical practice with the bereaved.
KEYWORDS
Aer-death communication, animals, bereavement, continuing bonds, phenomenology
RESEARCH
ARTICLE
James G. Matlock
jgmatlock@yahoo.com
Bethany Hilton
hiltonbethany@gmail.com
Rupert Sheldrake
rupert@rsheldrake.org
Pam Smart
p.e.smart57@gmail.com
Michael Nahm
nahm@igpp.de
SUBMITTED February 6, 2024
ACCEPTED March 1, 2024
PUBLISHED March 31, 2024
https://doi.org/10.31275/20243087
PLATINUM OPEN ACCESS
Creative Commons License 4.0.
CC-BY-NC. Attribution required.
No commercial use.
Aer-Death Communications
(ADCs) from Non-Human Animals:
Parallels with Human ADCs
people as pets and companions—mainly dogs and cats,
but also horses, other mammals, birds, a goldsh, and a
house spider.
Our database comprises four distinct samples: ac-
counts reported to Sheldrake and Pam Smart between
1996 and 2009, predominantly in response to appeals in
2003 and 2004; accounts collected by James Matlock and
Bethany Hilton from Facebook groups between June 2020
62 JOURNAL OF SCIEN TIFIC EXPLORATION • VO L. 38, NO 1 – SPRING 2024 journalofscientificexploration.org
AFTER DEATH COMMUNICATION FROM ANIMALS Matlock et al.
and the rst months of 2023; accounts culled from the
scholarly and popular literature published between the
1880s and 2020s; and accounts from stories and reader
responses in the London Daily Mail online edition in 2016.
We dened an ADC as apparent contact with an an-
imal aer its death without further specifying the form
of that contact. We excluded animals in place-centered
hauntings, in which there was no connection between
the deceased animals and living human percipients. We
also excluded mediumistic contacts with deceased an-
imals, borderline accounts involving symbolic signs and
synchronicities, experiences that seemed to us equally
well or better interpreted as psi from living agents, and
photographic anomalies. Our four samples combined
contain a total of 442 accounts we judged to be apparent
aer-death communications from animals.
e accounts3 and are largely anecdotal, although
some include information from follow-ups through Face-
book instant messaging or email. As our literature sample
demonstrates, animal ADCs have been widely reported
for some time, although as with Sheldrake et al.’s (2023)
ELE study, the present study is the rst to focus on this
material in an academic journal. It is also the largest study
of these experiences to date. Consistent with animal
ELEs, we show that animal ADCs are, in many respects,
remarkably similar to human ADCs in their phenomenol-
ogy, again suggesting common processes underlying the
experiences. Although we recognize the limitations of
our reliance on anecdotal accounts and the informal and
heterogeneous strategies by which they were collected,
we anticipate that the patterns we have identied will
be conrmed and extended in more formal surveys. Af-
ter describing our methods and outlining our results, we
provide illustrative examples of each account type, com-
paring them to human ADC types. In discussion, we treat
the animal accounts within the framework of human be-
reavement studies.
METHOD
Matlock and Hilton began their informal survey of
Facebook groups in response to Sheldrake et al. (2023, in
dra) without knowing that Sheldrake and Smart already
had a substantial sample of animal ADCs. When we real-
ized that we had two samples of the same occurrence, we
decided to compare them, later adding samples of previ-
ously published accounts (one in print, the other on the
web). e four samples were collected over dierent time
periods, utilizing dierent protocols, and we wanted to
see how similar they were. e more similarities across
the samples, the more robust our conclusions could be,
we reasoned.
Our Sheldrake/Smart (S/S) sample is drawn from
the same large dataset from which their animal ELE ac-
counts were taken. e majority of accounts came in re-
ply to Sheldrake’s requests for animal ADCs in the London
Daily Mirror in 2003 and 2004. Others were reported in
response to articles in other newspapers, pieces in his
newsletter or on his website, or his books Dogs that Know
When eir Owners are Coming Home (1999) and Seven Ex-
periments at Could Change the World (2002) between
1996 and 2009.
Our Matlock/Hilton (M/H) sample derives in the main
from four Facebook groups in which Matlock and Hilton
solicited animal ADC accounts between December 2022
and July 2023.4 ey also searched the same groups for
earlier relevant postings, adding a few accounts that go
back as far as June 2020. Matlock and Hilton engaged with
respondents on the group pages and, in some instances,
followed up accounts in instant messaging or email to ob-
tain additional information. ey did not attempt to in-
vestigate accounts through in-depth interviews, nor did
they request supporting documentation, although some-
times this was volunteered.
Our Literature (Lit) sample consists of ADC accounts
that have appeared in books and periodicals. Some of our
sources (Bayless, 1970; Bozzano, 1950; Gaddis & Gaddis,
1970; O’Donnell, 1912/2012) compiled narratives from
early psychical research publications, whereas others
contained previously unpublished accounts (see Data-
base Sources, following paper References list). A few of
these accounts were investigated to some degree, but
the majority are anecdotal only. is is true especially of
more recent accounts in books, oen self-published, in-
tended for the general reader. On the whole, we believe
our coverage of both older and newer accounts of animal
ADCs is reasonably comprehensive, although we have not
sought to make it denitive. With the exception of a few
French cases in Bozzano (1950), all accounts were drawn
ultimately from English-language sources.5
Our Daily Mail (DM) sample contains accounts pub-
lished in an article (Mail Online Editor, 2016) promoting
a book by Bel Mooney (2016a), along with comments
from readers,6, and two additional accounts contributed
in comments following a subsequent article by Mooney
(2016b). Mooney’s own account is taken from her book
and is included in our Lit sample.
From prior acquaintance with the animal ADC liter-
ature and accounts on Facebook, we had the impression
that animal ADCs conformed to the same types as human
ADCs (a sense of presence; dream visitations; visual, au-
ditory, tactile, and olfactory apparitions7 psychokinetic
eects) and we coded the animal accounts accordingly.
Several respondents contributed accounts of more than
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Matlock et al. AFTER DEATH COMMUNICATION FROM ANIMALS
one animal. Many accounts included more than one
type of ADC, similar to human ADC reports (Streit-Horn,
2011; Woollacott et al., 2022). We assigned each animal
a unique account record, with the records recording all
ADC types pertaining to that animal. We grouped ADC
phenomena that did not conform to one of the seven ma-
jor types in an Other category. A few submitted accounts
were, in one way or another, ambiguous or questionable
as true aer-death communications. We classied these
as Borderline/Questionable and excluded them from our
analysis.8
Matlock and Hilton coded accounts in each of the four
samples, deciding on the assignment of type of ADC and
other variables (e.g., country, animal, time elapsed be-
tween death and ADC). Although they did not code inde-
pendently, they checked each other’s work and discussed
and resolved all coding disagreements. Codes were lat-
er reviewed by Sheldrake and Nahm, and disagreements
were again discussed and resolved so that we had a four-
way agreement on coding decisions.
OVERVIEW OF RESULTS
Because we collected accounts in an open-ended way
and coded them rather than using a questionnaire, our
data for many variables is incomplete. Follow-up ques-
tions compensated for this incompleteness to an extent,
although our questions were aimed at clarifying ambi-
guities and obtaining more comprehensive descriptions
rather than adding data on specic variables. e obvious
disadvantage to this approach is the incompleteness of
the data, but there is an advantage also, in that we avoid-
ed leading questions, and the responses we received and
coded were, by and large, spontaneous.
Similar to reports of human ADCs, the overwhelming
majority of the respondents in all ve samples were wom-
en, but this should not be interpreted to mean that ex-
periencers of animal ADCs were predominantly women.
Woollacott et al. (2023, p. 426) note that although their
questionnaire respondents were predominantly female,
other studies have shown no sex dierence in those who
experience ADCs. In our collection, husbands, sons, and
other men frequently gure in the accounts as co-percip-
ients of the phenomena in question.
Although we coded for country, many of the accounts
we collected did not specify the place respondents lived,
so we refrained from reporting this statistically. However,
it is our impression that the bulk of our accounts came
from the United Kingdom and the United States, with
some from Canada, Australia, and countries in Europe and
Asia. One account is identied as coming from Argentina.
A list of the animals represented in our collection is
shown in Table 1. It should be noted that this list is based
on our combined sample and tallies accounts, which we
located in the literature and on the web, along with ac-
counts reported to us. Unsurprisingly, since dogs and cats
are the most common pets, they are disproportionately
represented in our dataset. Signicantly, however, we
collected accounts involving horses, a llama, a mouse,
birds, and a sh. Our Lit and Mail samples contributed
several mammals (rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, rats, a
pig, a ferret, an opossum) and a spider that did not appear
in the responses to our own appeals.
Human ADC studies beginning with the classic Phan-
tasms of the Living (Gurney et al., 1886) have consistently
found that the majority of experiences occur near death,
with a dramatic falling o over time. Haraldsson (2012,
p. 232) found that in surveys in Iceland, 14% of respon-
dents reported apparitional experiences within 24 hours
of a death.
In the third volume of his Death and Its Mystery tril-
ogy, which analyzed thousands of European human ac-
counts and cases, Flammarion (1923, p. 299) presented
Animal N
Dog 220
Cat 195
Horse 5
Llama 1
Pig 1
Ferret 1
Guinea pig 1
Hamster 3
Rabbit 3
Rat 2
Mouse 1
Opossum 1
Bird 5
Fish 1
Spider 1
Unclear 1
Total 442
Table 1. Animals Involved in ADCs (Combined Sample)
Figure 1. Incidence of apparitions of dying and deceased
persons (from Flammarion, 1923).
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AFTER DEATH COMMUNICATION FROM ANIMALS Matlock et al.
a graph that is reproduced as Figure 1.9 Researchers con-
cerned with animal ADCs have observed a similar pat-
tern: the great majority of contacts are reported in the
rst days aer death, which is a dramatic decline in the
number of experiences over time (Warren, 2009, p. 121).
e majority of our accounts do not specify a precise time
from death to ADC, so we coded in periods of ≤ 24 hours,
≤ 1 week, ≤ 1 month, ≤ 6 months, ≤ 12 months, and >12
months. e results from the 291 accounts for which we
have pertinent data are presented in Figure 2.
Our data show the same trend as with human ADCs,
with the majority of experiences coming in the rst hours
or days aer death. In fact, 37% of the accounts we col-
lected were of events occurring initially within the rst
24 hours, and 63% occurred initially within the rst week.
Some (30, or 6.3%) were coincident with the death itself.
However, it is important to appreciate that Figure 2 re-
cords the date at which experiences began and does not
capture their duration. ADC experiences were recurrent in
134 accounts (30.3%). When they recurred, it was usually
not in exactly the same way, although this reportedly did
happen on occasion. Oen, various visitations appeared
for days or weeks before they ceased, not to resume,
whereas in other instances, they persisted for a period of
time, ceased, and then reappeared at some point (oen
years) later. In some accounts, the experiences were on-
going at the time of the report.
Many records (103/442, 23.3%) contain reports of
collective percipience, either on the same occasion or on
dierent occasions. In 30 instances (6.8%), a living animal
reacted to the perceived presence of a deceased animal.
Sometimes animals reacted (e.g., by seeming to follow
with their eyes, vocalizing, or otherwise responding) as
if they saw something no human could see, but in the
majority of animal reactions (26/30, 87%), the apparition
was perceived simultaneously, or on separate occasions,
ADC Type S/S Sample
(n = 120)
M/H Sample
(n = 82)
Literature
Sample
(n = 165)
Daily Mail
Sample
(n = 77)
Total Sample
(N = 442)
Visual apparition 45 26 82 28 181 (25.3%)
Tactile apparition 50 28 58 32 168 (23.5%)
Auditory apparition 40 17 76 23 156 (21.8%)
Dream visitation 12 30 28 10 80 (11.2%)
Sense of presence 18 717 6 48 (6.7%)
Psychokinetic eect 4 5 26 6 41 (5.7%)
Other ADC phenomenon 9 4 8 1 22 (3.0%)
Olfactory apparition 8 1 8 3 20 (2.8%)
Total ADC phenomena 186 118 303 109 716 (100%)
Subtypes of Other ADC Phenomenon (N = 24)
Other Phenomena
Telepathic message 4 3 5 0 12 (54.6%)
Electric charge felt 2 0 1 0 3 (13.6%)
Inuence on living 1 0 0 1 2 (9.1%)
Sign/ synchronicity 2 1 2 0 5 (22.7%)
Total Other subtypes 9 4 8 1 22 (100%)
Borderline/Questionable ADC Phenomena (N = 24)
B/Q Subtype
Sign, synchronicity 2 2 -- 04 (17.4%)
Living agent psi 12 2 2 0 16 (69.5%)
Photographic anomaly 0 2 1 0 3 (15.0%)
Total B/Q 14 6 3 0 23 (100%)
Note: n counts are number of records in each sample. Each record represents a single animal. e totals of ADC
counts exceed n counts because many records include multiple types of ADC.
Table 2. ADCs from Non-Human Animals in Five Samples.
Figure 2. Incidence of animal ADCs over time.
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Matlock et al. AFTER DEATH COMMUNICATION FROM ANIMALS
by one or more human. Animals have been reported to
have reacted to the apparitions of humans as well, some-
times as co-percipients (Nahm, 2016).
Respondents sometimes reported that they were in
deep grief for their departed pets at the time they saw
their apparitions or felt their presence. A state of grief
coincident with the phenomena was mentioned in 73 ac-
counts (16.5%). Negative reactions, such as a woman who
said she would rather her cat not come back, were report-
ed only in two accounts.10
e top section of Table 2 shows the numbers of
ADCs of dierent types in each of our samples in order
of prevalence in our Combined sample. By and large, the
distribution of types is consistent across the ve sam-
ples, although the proportions of visual and tactile appa-
ritions are reversed in the Lit sample versus the others.
e variations across our samples may be attributable to
sampling error or (in the Lit sample) selection bias. ere
is considerably more consistency across our samples than
across studies of human ADCs, perhaps an artifact of the
dierent methods, questions, and sample sizes of the lat-
ter (Woollacott et al., 2022, p. 428), which was evened
out by coding all accounts we collected.
Accounts assigned to the Borderline/Questionable
(B/Q) category, and therefore not included in the present
analysis, comprise a small minority (only about 5.2%) of
the total number of accounts (ADC + B/Q) in our collec-
tion.
EXAMPLE ACCOUNTS
Examples of the types of animal ADC in our S/S and
M/H samples appear below, with citations to the corre-
sponding record number in our database. We preface the
narratives in each category with reference to human ADC
analogs. In editing the narratives for publication, we have
retained dierences between American and British vo-
cabulary, spelling, and punctuation.
Visual Apparitions
Streit-Horn (2011) concluded that visual apparitions
were one of the three most common types of human ADC.
Indeed, almost half (46.4%) of the respondents to the
survey of Elsaesser and colleagues (Elsaesser et al., 2021;
Woollacott et al., 2022) reported having seen apparitions
of deceased loved ones. In his literature review of animal
accounts, Edward Anderson (2021, p. 167) says that visual
apparitions were “by far” the most common form of ADC.
Although we cannot say that visual apparitions are “by
far” the most common type of ADC in our collection, they
are the most common type, representing about a quarter
(25.3%) of all ADCs. Visual apparitions frequently co-oc-
cur with ADCs of other types, and they may be collectively
perceived. Oen, they are recurrent. e following narra-
tives are drawn from our collection.
When our beloved pit bull passed away from kid-
ney failure, we were so heartbroken. We cried
like babies, we loved him so much. His name was
Judge. Judge liked to go to bed, in our bed, by
9:00. If we went to bed too, then all was well.
But if we stayed up later, he would go ahead
without us. When you walk out of the living room
and pass through the dining room, you pass by a
set of windows that allow you to see the living
room if you’re in the dining room, and if you’re in
the living room they allow you to see the dining
room. Every night when Judge went to bed early,
he would stop in the dining room and look at us
for a few seconds as if to say, “You sure you’re
not coming?” en he would walk on by and go
to bed. A couple of days aer he passed away, I
saw him pass by the windows on his way to bed. I
saw something and when I turned to have a bet-
ter look, I saw him “going to bed,” just as clear as I
see my own hands. My husband said he sees him
almost every night in same place (M/H, Record
14).
e visits from my dear llama Al E. were for a
time frequent and very comforting. Al E. chose to
leave aer his companion llama Grandpa died of
old age. Al E. and I were both heart-broken. Al E.
was only 7 and Grandpa had been his only friend.
I quickly arranged to have two more llamas de-
livered to keep him company; llamas being herd
animals. Al E., still grieving for his friend, would
spend his days sitting on Grandpa’s grave. Two
weeks aer Grandpa’s death, Al E. stripped all
the bark o all the cherry trees in his eld and
died of cyanide poisoning with me by his side.
Devastated by the loss of my two best friends, I
would drag myself across town early every morn-
ing before dawn to feed the new llamas. I would
make the long trek through the eld and up the
hill to their barn. On the trip back down the hill,
I would nd Al E. sitting in his favorite spot un-
der the evergreens watching me. It was such a
comfort. I saw him every morning for nearly two
weeks, until I guess he gured I was OK (S/S, Re-
cord 239).
Woollacott et al. (2022, p. 427) remark on the various
forms visual apparitions of humans may take. Sometimes,
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AFTER DEATH COMMUNICATION FROM ANIMALS Matlock et al.
they look as solid as in life, whereas on other occasions,
they are indistinct; they may represent the complete body
or only a portion of it, and they may appear in a variety of
locations. Our animal accounts reveal similar variations.
A short while aer our cat Penny died, she was
sleeping on our bed, then at other times lick-
ing my face and purring as usual. She visited us
many times; sometimes she was solid just like
in life, and at other times she was “see through”
(S/S, Record 222).
Tatty was my rst cat – or, rather, he adopted
me. We became great friends aer he used to
visit me in my garden very oen when I was tiny.
When it became apparent that his former own-
ers were no longer interested in him, my mum
persuaded my dad to let me ‘keep’ him. He would
stay very close to me and would give up whatev-
er he was doing to come to me when I came into
a room. He was a tabby, of unknown age (peo-
ple in the village claimed he was over 20 when
he died), and very much a ‘philosopher’ sort of
cat. He gave the sense of being a very wise old-
er soul – or to me as a toddler, he felt innitely
wondrously old and clever.
About two weeks aer Tatty died, my moth-
er and I saw his tail. is happened several times
o and on for about a couple of years aer he
died. I only once saw the whole of Tatty many
years later, in 2020, when I was ill. He stood still
until I recognised him, and then disappeared. He
was easy to recognise, as he had one very ginger
back leg amongst his very tabby fur (M/H, Record
397).
As with humans, animal apparitions are sometimes
reected in mirrors.
My dog died aer 14 1/2 years. A month or so
aer his death, I was looking in the bathroom
mirror, and I noticed something move. I looked
into the hallway, and the white shadow form of
my dog walked by. He stopped and turned his
head to look into the bathroom, and walked on. I
thought perhaps I was imagining all this, and as I
thought about what had just happened, he came
back the other way – totally white form (he had
been dark brindle) –stopped, turned his head to
look at me, and moved on (S/S, Record 230).
I had an Eclectus parrot who was run over by a
car. He now rarely appears to me; however, aer
his death in early 2017, he was with me all the
time for months. He was etheric and occasion-
ally appeared visually in a mirror, at other times
ghostlike (S/S, Record 259).
Woollacott et al. (2022, p. 428) received the report
of an apparitional image projected on a screen, similar to
the following account from our collection.
Recently my goldsh died. I found him sick one
Sunday morning (he got fungus overnight) and
died that Sunday aernoon. I’d had him for 6
years plus. His friend, the other sh, was very sad
and lonely, and it showed. On Tuesday morning,
I fell asleep on the couch and suddenly woke up
around 3 a.m., still having my glasses on. Some-
thing made me look in the direction of the sh
tank. I saw this “enlarged” vision of my little dead
sh on the “surface” of the tank glass, as if it had
been “beamed” onto it. at was there for a few
seconds. It looked very peaceful, so I think it was
telling me to let go (S/S, Record 268).
As reported with humans, apparitions of animals may
portray the animal as younger or healthier than at death.
Our family introduced Trixie, a cocker spaniel,
into our home when I was three years old. I grew
up with her and became very attached to her, al-
though she was very much my mum’s dog. Aer
a very happy life, Trixie died when I was 16. A day
or two aer her death, something woke me in
the night, so I got out of bed and switched on my
light. Trixie, looking totally real, although much
as she did when younger – her coat was glossy
as it was before her illness – was sitting in the
middle of my room. She was looking up at me
and appeared anxious. I said, ‘It’s all right Trix-
ie, it’s all right’, and she relaxed. Feeling that she
was reassured, I switched o the light and got
back into bed. To this day I really believe she was
there, although I wonder why she came to me
and not to my mother (S/S, Record 149).
is story doesn’t relate to a person, but to my
beloved horse, Shannon, who went to sleep on
11 June 1997. I rescued Shannon when he was 24,
and kept him happy and healthy for another 12
years. We spent hours together each day, as he
was stabled in our garden, and out at grass in
the eld adjoining it. e bond between us was
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Matlock et al. AFTER DEATH COMMUNICATION FROM ANIMALS
incredibly close – Shannon could sense what
I wanted, like which hoof to pick up as I was
grooming him, or which way to stand when he
was being rugged up. I always knew when he was
feeling poorly, or if he wanted anything in partic-
ular for his feed – we belonged together. When
he was diagnosed with cancer, it broke my heart,
and I spent as much time as possible with him
until the day the vet came to put him to sleep.
I cradled Shannon’s head in my lap as he
started to pass away, and whispered to him that
I’d always be with him, and I knew he’d also be
with me. He let out a little whicker, and his heart
stopped. I spent hours each day at his grave, as
he was buried in our eld next to our house. I
still le him a biscuit on the paddock fence ev-
ery morning because I couldn’t bring myself to
stop the routine, which had been with me every
day for 12 years. A month or two aer he passed
away, I was in the kitchen and glanced out of
the window and saw him, clear as day, stand-
ing under his favorite tree, looking over at me,
ears pricked up and looking as beautiful as ever. I
blinked, and when I looked again, he was gone. I
know how much I wanted to see him, and thought
I might have conjured the image up, but when I
mentioned it to my mum, she told me she’d also
seen him in the eld – same place, looking at the
kitchen window where I used to call him from on
my way to feed him (S/S, Record 225).
Tactile Apparitions
Tactile apparitions involving humans have not been
reported as commonly as visual apparitions (Strait-Horn,
2011), but almost half (47.8%) of the respondents to the
survey of Elsaesser et al. (2021) reported being touched
by the deceased. We dened a tactile apparition more
broadly than Elsaesser and her colleagues did, to include
any tactile sensation, not only direct touch. Tactile appa-
ritions represent over a h (23.5%) of the ADCs in our
collection of animal ADCs.
When I was a child my dog was hit by a car and
died. at night in the wee hours of the morn-
ing I awoke to my dog sticking his snout into
my armpit, which was something he did to get
your attention. I was shocked and began to cry
and gave him a snuggle, then I fell back to sleep
(M/H, Record 50).
My Wee bird came back and pecked me on the
face hard. Before he done that I was in a hell of
grief. I didn’t know where he was and was way
too heartbroken (M/H, Record 48).
Aer an address on animal ELEs in Germany in 2023,
an audience member told Nahm of an incident combining
a tactile apparition with a sudden surge of energy before
death (a type of ELE Sheldrake et al., 2023, termed a “last
rally”). A moribund cat that had been too weak to move
much had managed to jump onto its owners’ bed while
they slept. e woman awoke when she distinctly felt
something moving around on the blanket. At that time,
however, the cat had been dead for several hours, its cold
body lying beside her husband across the bed.
Many of our accounts include mentions of phantom
cats and dogs jumping on beds at night and snuggling up
to their people, just as they did in embodied life.
I had an old calico that had renal failure and I took
her to the vet who euthanized her. I brought her
home and buried her in the garden. She would
sleep at the foot of my bed and for two weeks
aer her death, I would feel herjump on the foot
of the bed. Aer those two weeks, I didn’t feel
her anymore (M/H, Record 13).
I would like to tell you a story about our long-
haired dachshund, Bobby. We had to put him to
sleep 25 years ago, because he suddenly could
not walk anymore. My parents and my son, then
13 years old, were able to say good-bye to Bobby,
but my daughter, then 16, did not have the op-
portunity, and always felt hurt somewhat.
About ve years later, my daughter came to
me tear-stained and perturbed and told me that
Bobby had been lying on her bed in the morning
and she had felt him. e rst thing I asked her
was whether she was awake or had been dream-
ing. She wept and said that she was certain that
she was awake because the dog had huddled
against her and this was the second time already.
I told her that if it happened again, she should use
the opportunity to say good-bye to him, because
this must be the reason for his appearance. And
this is how it came to be—when he was there the
third time, she said good-bye to him, and he nev-
er came back (S/S, Record 215).
Auditory Apparitions
Auditory apparitions occur frequently with humans,
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although they are not among the most common types of
apparition (Strait-Horn, 2011). In the study of Elsaesser et
al. (2021), 43.4% of respondents reported auditory appa-
ritions, placing them in fourth place in terms of frequen-
cy. Auditory apparitions ranked third in our Combined
sample, accounting for 21.8% of animal ADCs.
My cat Oreo was hit by a car and I heard his very
distinct meow three times in the week aer he
died. He got hit and his kitty spirit just kept on
running, not knowing he was dead (M/H, Record
17).
We lost our cat just before Christmas last year.
en just recently I’ve heard her bell and I swear
I’ve seen her in the kitchen (M/H, Record 75).
My dog Hardy comes around. I’ve had a lot of
pets; Hardy could be the annoying one. I spent
too much time and money trying to save him, but
when he died, I put him in his little bed. Set him
on a table. at was 7 a.m. I le him ‘til the next
morning. Talked to him, crying. en prepared his
grave, set his bed, covered him with his blanket.
Less than a week later, he was running around as
usual, and barking. I thought I was grieving, but
it’s happened too many times. People don’t be-
lieve me, but I KNOW WHAT I see and hear! en
he just goes away❤ (M/H, Record 95).
Dream Visitations
e appearance of deceased humans in dreams is
one of the earliest recognized types of ADC, as report-
ed by many indigenous tribal societies (Lincoln, 1935). In
his classic Primitive Culture, Tylor (1871) proposed that
these dream visitations were one of the bases for a belief
in post-mortem survival. Dream visitations also appear
prominently among modern populations. Almost two-
thirds (62%) of the respondents to the survey by Elsaess-
er et al. (2021) said they had experienced ADCs during
sleep. Dream visitations appear in our samples, although
less frequently than some other types of ADC. Dream vis-
itations from animals account for only 11.2% of the ADCs
we collected.
Tuppance was an Old English Sheep Dog mix. He
was owned by my best friend, who lives about a
half an hour from my house. Aer all the children
had moved away and it was just Jim and the dog,
she and I became very close friends. When she
died, she was at the vet’s where she was merci-
fully put down with Jim and me in attendance. I
had this huge sense that she was so happy that
we stayed until the end as we know it. One week
later, I was at Jim’s house sleeping and I dreamt
or felt or saw her walking towards me with a hap-
py expression on her face, tail wagging. I believed
I could even hear her panting. e vision was so
real that I reached to pet her, and as soon as I did,
she disappeared. I woke up and sobbed. It really
was like she was right there, as if to say thank
you for everything and be happy, as I am happy
(S/S, Record 147).
In my most recent dream of my dog Wheels, I
remember being lost and her encouraging me to
follow her. We travelled a long way together, and
when we reached the end of the journey, she le.
I subsequently told someone in the dream how
much she had helped me and what a great visit
we had had. is person scoed at me, telling me
that she was dead, but I was able to point her
out to this person as she ran across an open eld
with her fur ying, as if she was ying herself. In
reality, she had been killed by being run over by a
car. It was particularly comforting to see her run-
ning again. is was a feeling I had in the dream.
I knew throughout the dream that she had been
killed, but that she was alive again (M/H, Record
34).
In some dream accounts, the animals are represent-
ed as talking. We coded these as telepathic messages, al-
though separate from the telepathic messages classed as
a subtype of Other ADC Phenomena (see below).
In 2006, my old White Shepherd passed away. He
came in my dreams the following three nights.
He was sitting on his grave in the free spaces of
the wood. He had on an old man’s hat, like my
grandfather had many years ago. He explained so
many things, like why he passed away, why he
had to leave me, why he was my special friend,
why he wore a green scarf, and so on. He visited
me three nights in a row. I can visualise him in a
minute, how I was with him in the dark woods,
and how he sat on his grave with the hat on. His
voice was a wise man’s voice (M/H, Record 3).
I was 15 and Puss was my rst cat. She bonded to
me intensely as a kitten. I had her until my 30s,
so she was my familiar through all the good and
bad of my 20s. Within a few months, I had a se-
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Matlock et al. AFTER DEATH COMMUNICATION FROM ANIMALS
ries of visitation dreams. First one, I see her still
ill and her thoughts are, “Do you really want me
like this?” I said yes. Second one, I nd her run-
ning round my house. I grab her and hug her. e
message this time is, “You are not supposed to
see me.” ird dream, she shows up glowing and
healthy and walking down a hall to me: “Just vis-
iting.” en something regularly started jumping
on my bed for quite a while. A big thump! Noth-
ing there (M/H, Record 22).
e next dream is unique in our collection in that it
apparently represents the deceased dog’s point of view.
My father and his wife had a big dog named Pan-
da (a Bernese Mountain Dog) who died of a brain
tumor while still a fairly young dog, but I knew
her from when I’d visit my father and his wife.
e dog died shortly before one of those visits.
When I went to bed the rst night of the vis-
it, I had a vivid dream that I was a dog. I don’t
know what kind of dog, because in the dream
I was the dog, so didn’t see it from an observ-
er’s perspective. Or, seemingly, from a human
perspective, as it was an experience dierent
from any dreaming I’d had before. In the dream
I was in the bedroom (the same in which I was
sleeping), but my view of it was from dog-height,
beside the bed. I remember things feeling very
weird, starting to blur; feeling scary; anxiety, my
head not right, my body losing coordination and
feelings; ashing on an image of my dad’s wife.
en everything going black. I pulled myself out
of the dream and woke up feeling disoriented
and strange. Next morning I told my dad and
Louise (his wife) about the dream and learned
from them that Panda had gone into that bed-
room (a guest room) and died there, at the same
place beside the bed that I had been in my dream
(S/S, Record 263).
Sense of Presence
In her review of 35 studies of human ADCs, Stre-
it-Horn (2011, p. 51) determined a sense of the presence
of the deceased to be one of the three most common
types of experience. About a third (34%) of the respon-
dents to the more recent survey conducted by Elsaesser
and colleagues (Elsaesser et al., 2021) reported a sense
of presence. By contrast, a sense of presence gures in
only 6.7% of our Combined sample, making it one of the
less frequently reported types of animal ADC. is may be
because we coded a sense of presence only when respon-
dents explicitly stated that they felt a presence distinct
from other types of ADC.
Just thought I’d let you know that aer my 6-year-
old mare died, she stayed ‘connected’ with me
for quite some time. She was my best friend, a
kindred spirit, someone I could trust and depend
on. Lacey was always there for me when I need-
ed a shoulder to cry on. We knew each other’s
thoughts and emotions and although she’s been
gone now for two years, I can still feel her gentle
soul near mine. When I’m sad or lonely, her soul
lovingly comforts me and she reassures me that,
although she is gone physically from my life, her
spirit is with me always.
Last summer, while I was out in the pasture
xing a fence, I thought one of the other horses
had come up behind me (to see what I was doing,
of course) so I turned around to see which horse
it was, and there was no one there. I saw the oth-
er horses—they were half a pasture away—and
then I felt Lacey’s presence. It was so strong that
I could even smell her sweet horsey scent. She
put her head over my shoulder and I wished that
we could have hugged, just as we used to do. I
closed my eyes and just enjoyed that peaceful
moment with her (S/S, Record 130).
Our beloved pet cat ompson died of a tumor.
ree days aer he died, my husband, not a man
to believe in the supernatural, was upset. He
swore he saw ompson run across part of the
room behind the settee. Two days later, I was
ironing, when suddenly, without thinking, I put
out my arm as if to push a cat down from trying
to jump up onto the ironing board. I was shocked;
there was nothing there, yet I felt sure ompson
had come. I felt it; the sense was too strong. I
loved ompson, but I don’t want him to come
back (S/S, Record 205).
One of our dogs came for walks with us for about
two years aer she died. I found I was continually
counting four dogs (three live and one in spirit),
as her presence was so strong. I never saw her,
but could somehow tell where she was (M/H, Re-
cord 47).
Psychokinetic Eects
Psychokinetic (PK) eects apparently have not been
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AFTER DEATH COMMUNICATION FROM ANIMALS Matlock et al.
reported in questionnaire surveys of human ADCs (they
are not mentioned by Strait-Horn, (2011) or by Elsaesser
et al., 2021), although they gure in the accounts collect-
ed by Guggenheim & Guggenheim (1996, pp. 195–210)
and in some investigated cases. Green and McCreery
(1975, pp. 204–210) devoted a chapter to the subject, fur-
nishing several examples from publications of the Society
for Psychical Research (SPR). Although not a major type
of animal ADC, apparent PK eects were reported in 5.7%
of our Combined sample.
Phenomena we coded as tactile apparitions might
equally well be considered PK eects, as might some of
the claimed ADCs we have classied as Borderline/Ques-
tionable. In coding PK eects, we were careful to avoid
double-coding the same phenomenon, as in the following
account, which we coded as tactile but not as PK.
In the mid 90’s, my cat disappeared. One evening
I saw him walking down the lane, and that was
the last time I saw him. I searched everywhere.
Several months later, on a hot summer night, as
I was lying in bed, I felt something walk up my
bed, and pull up the sheet. I felt spooked at the
thought of something invisible on my bed, but
my dog was lying asleep in the room, so I thought
I’d imagined it, and lay down. As soon as I was
comfortable, something pulled at the sheet,
brushing my cheek as it did so. I froze, then sud-
denly realised it was Jim, my cat, come to tell me
he was dead, and I didn’t need to worry anymore
(S/S, Record 204).
Phenomena we coded as ADC PK eects included im-
pacts on the material environment.
My son was playing with the dog, with two balls
attached to a rope, and he threw it so high that
the toy ended up tangled on an electric wire way
up high. at was 5 years ago. When the dog
passed 6 months ago, I found my son crying. He
said that the dog went up high to the electric
wire and got the toy down for him aer the dog
was dead (M/H, Record 54).
Several accounts describe the manipulation or mate-
rialization of objects associated with the animals in ques-
tion.
When my mother’s German Shepherd dog, Lady,
passed away, my mom would awaken in the
morning to nd the oven mitt that Lady oen
chewed on or snuggled with lying in the middle
of the kitchen oor. My mother always made a
point of putting it away at night to make sure it
wasn’t a uke, but lo and behold, there it would
be in the morning. is went on for a long time
aer Lady died (M/H, Record 51).
I lost my dog baby June 17th of 2021, due to dia-
betes complications. She was my soul dog, that
once in a lifetime dog. We had a very strong bond
that I believe could not be broken. Even aer
death she has sent me so many signs, and I still
receive many. At times, I even feel her presence.
e rst sign I got a month aer she passed. I was
awoken by her bark, and believe me, it was very
real. I receive signs of randomly nding—still
to this day—blood glucose strips like the ones I
used to check her blood sugar levels. And we had
we cleaned every one of those out of our house,
as it was too painful to have those reminders of
her being sick (M/H, Record 5).
A large subgroup of PK eects are indentations on a
bed or other surface. Oen, these indentations are said to
be warm to the touch.
When my dear Puss cat died, a long time ago
now, I just couldn’t get over the grief that I felt
for her. I thought about her all the time, and used
to get very sad. Aer a couple of years of this, and
not being able to get over it, one aernoon I lay
on the bed for a nap, and dreamed strongly that
Puss was cuddled up to my side. When I woke up,
my arm was bent in a curve, as if wrapped around
Puss; there was a dent on the bed as if she had
been lying there, and the spot was warm. I feel
absolutely that she came for a visit, and although
I was still sad, was able to try and put things into
perspective (S/S, Record 176).
No one can see the cat in the traditional sense,
but everyone in the house is aware of what it
does. I can let all the cats outside and we’ll still
feel a tail brush against the back of our legs. Or
I’ll shut all the cats out of my room and still feel
paws walk across my back when I lie down, or
feel random warm cat-sized spots on the bed, or
hear a purr with no cat visibly present. I believe
it is either my mom’s old cat Opal from before I
was born or a cat that was here before any of us
moved here, but the temperament reminds mom
a lot of Opal (M/H, Record 32).
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Matlock et al. AFTER DEATH COMMUNICATION FROM ANIMALS
Olfactory Apparitions
Olfactory apparitions are an unusual, although far
from unknown, type of human ADC. Some 27.6% of re-
spondents to the survey of Elsaesser et al. (2021) report-
ed having experienced an olfactory apparition. Olfactory
apparitions account for only 2.8% of animal ADC phenom-
ena. Smells frequently accompany other types of ADC, as
described in previous accounts. Here are some additional
examples:
Recently my dog (who had been living with my
son and his wife for a few years) died of old
age. I was sitting at home on my new sofa and
I smelt the smell of a dog very strongly. I snied
all around and there was no other odor, but I
thought of Rosie. A few days later, I smelt it
again (not as strong this time), but I felt sure it
was Rosie that had come to visit and say she was
happy – we all loved her so much, she was a very
special animal. At the time, I was not thinking of
her, so I don’t think it was as a result of my wish-
ful thinking, but instead it was a real visit. It was
very comforting. (S/S, Record 132).
We had a dog called Kelly who died in August and
on Christmas Eve I ‘dreamt’ she came into my
bedroom and stood by the bed wagging her tail.
I stroked her and rued her behind the ears. I
didn’t feel asleep and could feel her fur and smell
her. e next morning my dad told me he had the
exact same experience that night (S/S, Record
129).
Both my wife and I have felt the presence of our
rst cat. Waking up one morning I could feel her
sitting on my chest purring away as she used to;
I could also smell her. My wife has also felt her
on the bed. It gave great comfort to know that
Teddy was still about (S/S, Record 127).
Other ADC Phenomena
Although the foregoing types are the main types of
ADC with both humans and animals, Woollacott et al.
(2022, p. 428) received a few reports of other phenomena
in addition. Similarly, we received 22 reports (3.0% of the
total) of ADC phenomena that do not t under one of the
major headings. We classed these together under Other
ADC Phenomena.
A large group of these other phenomena are apparent
telepathic communications between deceased animals
and living humans. In order to avoid double counting tele-
pathic messaging, we excluded telepathic interchanges
in dreams from the Other category. A major characteris-
tic of these telepathic messages is their representation
in words, as if the animals had spoken to or carried on
conversations with our respondents. Interestingly, Wool-
lacott et al. (2022, p. 429) report that, in some of their
cases, an apparitional communicator had not spoken
during his or her lifetime. For example, “A mother noted,
‘My daughter died at the age of two days, so she didn’t
yet know how to speak; the voice that I perceived seemed
neither masculine nor feminine’ (F363).” Telepathic mes-
sages accounted for 54.6% of ADCs in the Other category,
about 2.7% of ADCs overall.
I meditate a lot, using 432hz music to relax. Sev-
eral weeks aer my dog’s death, he appeared in
my mind while I was meditating. He looked great,
like a healthy young dog, told me don’t worry,
don’t be sad, everything is OK. He had to go. at
he will be back again as a dog somewhere and his
name will be Sam. en he showed me a beauti-
ful place but hard to describe, with a lot of dogs
who all seemed happy. Before I could ask the
question, he told me that the same place existed
for horses. I just looked back to see a beautiful
pasture with a lot of horses (M/H, Record 6).
I lost my beloved pet dog Rex, over ten years ago
now. When he died, I was distraught. I was in the
bath crying my eyes out, when all of a sudden Rex
came to me and I heard him saying, ‘It’s alright
now, I’m not in pain. I’m happy, so don’t worry.’
And I felt so calm by that. I still grieve for Rex,
but thinking of that night, I feel better. e calm I
felt that night I’ll never forget (S/S, Record 272).
In one account, the ADC was conveyed through a
burst of energy, similar to the pre-mortem burst of dog
energy in the account collected by Nahm, quoted above.
My friend drove us to the Meeting for worship
and brought me home aerward. As I unlocked
the kitchen door, I felt deep sadness: Maxie
wouldn’t be there to greet me. I opened the door
and stepped in. I was shoved against the cabi-
net at my back with a tremendous burst of dog
energy: Maxie! She was bouncing and joyous. To
my astonishment, with her were the ve children
she and I had gotten to know while we were liv-
ing alone in my cabin in Petrolia CA. ese were
children who were in what are called the astral
planes, now they were joined with Maxie. e
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AFTER DEATH COMMUNICATION FROM ANIMALS Matlock et al.
combined energy was literally stopping me from
moving in the narrow corridor. I laughed in de-
light. Maxie was asking me if she could go with
the children (S/S, Record 216).
A third sub-group of other ADC phenomena consists
of the feeling of electric currents coursing through the
percipient’s body. Woollacott et al. (2022, p. 429) com-
ment on the “ow of energy” that sometimes accompa-
nies visual apparitions. “One woman shared, ‘I felt most
profoundly in all my being an enormous energy moving
through my spine’ (F152). Another said, ‘[ere was a]
wonderful ooding of energy all over, and on specic
body parts when touching, caressing, kissing me’ (E211).”
is ow of energy was reported in several of our ac-
counts, sometimes accompanying the sense of presence
of a deceased pet.
My husband and I experienced the presence of
our cocker spaniel aer her death last November.
She had lymphoma and aer doing chemothera-
py, she relapsed. Aer much soul searching, we
had her put to sleep when she started having
problems. Even though we knew it was the right
thing to do at the right time, we struggled with
the decision.
She had been gone about 2-3 weeks. I was
standing in the living room talking to my hus-
band, who was in the next room, when I sudden-
ly became very aware of a presence beside me.
I stopped mid-sentence and turned around, but
I could not see anything. Yet I felt a familiarity
with everything in me that it was Ali. e pres-
ence seemed to radiate upward from the oor,
beside me to almost eye level, then I felt her
energy ow through me. e only way I can de-
scribe it is to say that it was an overwhelming
sense of being with her, and a sense of nothing
but love and peace. I felt a warm, tingly, heavy
feeling pass through my body. I have never ex-
perienced anything like it. I was immediately
brought to tears. is warm feeling lasted about
20 minutes, fading gradually until it was gone
(S/S, Record 141).
I want to tell you about my pet cat, Perky. We
were very close and had 17.5 years together. I had
someone else take him to be euthanized, as it
was too painful for me. He had developed a can-
cerous tumor. I was at work for the day, teaching
Grade 3. All day I was very irritable and struggled
to keep my patience. At 1:20 pm, I felt a cleansing
rush of energy from my legs up through my body
and out the top of my head. en I felt peace
and I knew he was sending me his relief from
pain.(S/S, Record 146)
A fourth sub-group of other reported ADC phenome-
na concerns the supposed inuences of the dead animal
on the behavior of the living, either humans or another
animal in the family. e following example continues the
story of Perky.
Perky sent us two homeless kittens. My daugh-
ter found them wandering in a eld. When we
had had them for three years, I was feeling ill
and lay down. e male cat came and jumped up
on the bed and lay by my legs. en, I thought,
“Perky, I miss the way you would curl up by my
neck to comfort me when I felt ill.” e male cat,
Kipper, got up and came to my shoulder. en, he
curled up by my neck and stayed with me for a
while. I knew Perky had heard my prayer and en-
couraged Kipper to lay the way he used to (S/S,
Record 146).
A h sub-group of phenomena we assigned to the
Other category consists of events that are recognized
as signs or synchronistic occurrences. We coded most
signs and synchronicities as Borderline/Questionable,
but when they were reported along with other ADC phe-
nomena, we coded them as a subtype of Other in order to
avoid double coding ADC and B/Q reports.
My cat, Salem, was seriously my soul mate. We
shared such a pure bond and connection. He
seemed to love the song, ‘Sky Full of Stars’, by
Coldplay. I lost him in 2015 to congestive heart
failure; he was 14 years old. e night we buried
him, I begged him to send me a sign that he was
okay. As I turned to walk away from his resting
place, I saw a shooting star. Mind you, I’d never
seen a shooting star before that moment. I went
in the house, sobbing and exhausted. Before I
went to bed, I stood in the window, staring at
his grave, still inconsolable, when I saw anoth-
er shooting star. Two shooting stars on the very
night that he passed away and we laid him to
rest. I haven’t seen a shooting star since. I have
seen him and felt him many times since. My Sa-
lem watches over me. I just know I’ll hold him in
my arms again (M/H, Record 55).
Two years ago I had to let my dog die. He had
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Matlock et al. AFTER DEATH COMMUNICATION FROM ANIMALS
been sick for a very long time and suered a lot.
Aer his death, it was as if I tripped over him in
the house. Sometimes I had to make a sudden
strange move to ‘avoid’ him, that’s how it felt.I
went to see a friend to meditate together to
lessen my grief. e moment I thought about my
dog,he jumped at me and started to lick my face.
at was strange, because it was a Tibetan Mas-
ti and those dogs (and mine) never act like that.
It became very clear that he wanted to thank me
for making the decision to let him die. For me as a
Buddhist that was a great comfort, aer months
of considerations. He stayed with me to comfort
me and was now free to go.
I noticed aer a while that his ‘presence’ in
the house was gone aer that day. Months later
in my garden (at the spot he was buried) grew
two big, at, bright orange mushrooms, very
beautiful. I had never seen them before nor af-
terwards in my life.I like to look at this as a gi
from Buddhi (my dog) to me (S/S, Record 220).
We assigned all of our Other ADC phenomena of to
one of these ve sub-groups.
Borderline and Questionable Accounts
e following accounts were submitted to us as
ADCs, but we consider that interpretation particularly
uncertain or dubious, so we have set them aside. We pro-
vide examples here so that the dierence between B/Q
accounts and accounts we included in our ADC analysis
can be seen. We classied 24 accounts as B/Q—about
5.2% of the total number of accounts we collected if com-
bined with the ADC accounts summarized in the top sec-
tion of Table 2.
A large subgroup of B/Q accounts are those that in-
volve purported symbolic signs or synchronistic occur-
rences. Elsaesser et al. (2021; Woollacott et al., 2022) did
not include questions about these in their survey, but they
were reported to Guggenheim and Guggenheim (1996, pp.
211–228), and Strait-Horn (2011) acknowledged signs as a
type of human ADC. Vlahos (2023, pp. 34, 40) describes
two examples.
Signs and synchronicities gure large among animal
ADC signs in the popular literature (e.g., K. A. Anderson,
2017; Gutro, 2017; Ragan, 2015), but we passed over these
in building our database. e numbers in the bottom sec-
tion of Table 2 and therefore, omit the Lit sample. None
of the accounts with signs and synchronicities we have
classied as B/Q include ADC phenomena other than the
perceived signs and synchronicities.
When my dog went missing for 7 weeks and
turned up dead in someone’s pool, I was incon-
solable. Every day I cried over everything, but
my heart was broken and I blamed myself. One
aernoon aer Lockdown, I was stood out front,
crying and missing my girl as usual, when sud-
denly a beautiful red admiral buttery (my fa-
vourite) landed on my top and just stayed there,
looking at me. I thought it was just having a rest
and I stared at it and said, ‘Kizzy, if that’s you,
please open your wings’, and it opened them re-
ally wide. I felt elated, and it just stayed there for
ages (M/H, Record 63).
My beloved Airedale, Daisy, was hit by a car one
evening. By the loud sound (as if a big tree had
been hit), I knew it would be fatal. She wasn’t al-
lowed near the road, but was allowed back in the
meadow behind my house. is is where I found
her, barely standing.I carried her home and com-
forted her for a few minutes while we said our
goodbyes. e next morning I awakened very,
very early. I went out on the back step and a very
large gray dove slowly ew down right in front
of me. en it slowly ew away. I felt instantly
comforted and knew it was Daisy in symbolic and
non-frightening form, back to give me a moment
of comfort. ere wasn’t another bird awake or
chirping, too early. And I have never ever seen
another dove around here (S/S, Record 273).
About one week aer my dog died, I was driv-
ing my car. I didn’t want to hear the radio, but
thought, “What if Feisty is trying to get a mes-
sage to me through radio waves?” So I turned
the radio on. It was music I didn’t like. So I said
to myself, “Okay, one more try and if there is no
message from Feisty, I will just turn it o.” In my
heart I knew there would be a message on the
next channel. Sure enough, the next channel was
a woman singing a song named “I Love my Dog.”
I felt a wave of peace come over me while I drove
listening to it. I used to always tell my dog I loved
him at least ten times per day. He knew what it
meant; his eyes would half shut in response and
a grin would come on his face (S/S, Record 267).
If not simply coincidence, some uncertain ADC
claims, such as the last, might be mediated by the per-
cipient’s psi.
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AFTER DEATH COMMUNICATION FROM ANIMALS Matlock et al.
I had two part-Burmese sister cats, Rocher and
Koo Koo. I had had them for about ten years,
since their birth to my ex-boyfriend’s cat, their
mother. ere came a stage where I had to move
to a place where I could not have cats and my
step-mother said that she would mind them for
me. I probably le them too long with her, but
she professed to being a great animal lover all
the time and seemed happy to have them. How-
ever, she wasn’t. I dreamt that they were in great
danger and awoke in a sweat. I rang her the next
day and said that I can take the cats o her hands
now, because my then-boyfriend would take
them, but she said that it was too late, that she
had given them away to a nice old lady. But be-
cause I had the dream, things started to click in
my head. I called her vet and I found out that she
had had them put down. (I haven’t spoken to her
since, by the way) (S/S, Record 187).
e deceased animal’s PK might be responsible for
the following account, but because it could also be due
to the human experiencer’s PK and is accompanied by no
other ADC types, we have classied it as B/Q.
My email to you relates to a powerful experi-
ence I had a year ago when I euthanized my dear
horse. We had a strong bond developed over 11
years. Without going into unnecessary detail, the
experience I am “haunted” by occurred some mo-
ments aer the vet declared him dead. I walked
alone back to his stall and suddenly there was a
substantial temperature drop, followed by a sud-
den and strong wind gust which unhooked his
upper stall door and slammed it shut with some
considerable force. Nothing else was aected by
the wind, which subsequently disappeared. It
was notably odd because of the protection that
his stall was aorded by a tall hedge, low over-
hanging roof, etc (S/S, Record 278).
An important kind of potentially living-agent-psi-me-
diated ADC occurs coincidentally with deaths. We coded
30 accounts (6.8%) as having death coincidence. Most
of these accounts include elements that seem to direct
attention away from the percipient’s psi as a factor, but
there are exceptions.
I am 14 years old, from Austria. I had a hare all
my life. Her name was Schneeöckchen. She was
old and weak and I knew she would not live much
longer. A year ago, she died. One night I dreamed
of my friends, and in the middle of the dream, a
picture of my Schneeöckchen appeared like a
ash. en it was gone and my dream continued.
When I woke up in the morning, I knew that she
had died. I went out to her hutch and saw it was
true (S/S, Record 366).
I seemed to achieve excellent rapport with one
indigo snake, an elderly creature that just did not
move except for me. en in the early hours of
January 1st, 1995, I awoke from a very vivid dream
of this creature, in which it was plainly trying to
tell me something. Having had just the same ex-
perience with my brother when he passed away
in June 1989, I guessed what the snake had been
telling me and, sure enough, when I next visited
the zoo a few days later, I was informed that it
had died in the early hours of January 1st (S/S,
Record 365).
I was deeply connected to my cat Brigit, who died
in 2005. Four years ago I was leaving the country
for a number of months and a friend who loved
Brigit adopted her. Upon my return to Canada, I
moved 2,500 miles away from Brigit. One night
last year, I was awakened in the night from a
dream with an explosion of light, bolting upright
from a deep sleep. I then felt pain throughout my
body, but I had no sense why I had such an expe-
rience. e next day, I experienced diarrhea and
actually lost control of my bowels. at had nev-
er happened before. at day my friend e-mailed
me to tell me Brigit had not come home from her
nightly roaming. She never returned. I feel that
that Light was Brigit communicating her sudden
death to me. e loss of bowel control was due
to the shock to my system, for I was so deeply
connected to her (S/S, Record 274).
We collected three accounts with photographic
anomalies believed to be related to deceased pets. Due to
the considerable controversy surrounding photographs
with anomalous features, we feel it is better to classify
these accounts as B/Q rather than under Other ADC Phe-
nomena.
We were able to assign all of our B/Q accounts to one
of the three sub-groups: Signs and Synchronicities, Liv-
ing-agent psi, and Photographic anomalies.
DISCUSSION
e similarity between human and animal ADCs is
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Matlock et al. AFTER DEATH COMMUNICATION FROM ANIMALS
remarkable. Not only are the experiences of the same
general types, but the relative incidence of the types fol-
lows the same pattern, with visual apparitions among
the most common and olfactory apparitions among the
least common. Several ancillary features, such as appar-
ent telepathic communications between the dead and
the living and strange electrical sensations in association
with the phenomena, appear in both human and animal
ADCs. Additionally, both human and animal ADCs have a
strong tendency to appear in the rst hours or days af-
ter death. Deceased pets have sometimes been perceived
during near-death experiences (NDEs) as well. Examples
are given by Atwater (2007), Randall (1950), Rivas et al.
(2016), and Serdahely (1990). Occasionally, animals per-
form the same role as human loved ones in directing the
NDEr to return to his or her body before it is too late (Ser-
dahely, 1990, p. 34). ese NDE animal encounters may
be considered another form of ADC, thus highlighting the
interrelatedness of dierent death-related phenomena,
although we have not extended our coverage to include
them here.
Since the pioneering paper of Rees (1971), much
human ADC analysis has focused on the experiences of
widows and widowers, who frequently report the sense
of presence and apparitional encounters. Still, the dom-
inant position in bereavement theory (and grief coun-
seling) for much of the 20th century was the idea that
the surviving spouse needed to cut ties to their depart-
ed loved ones, the better to invest in new relationships.
Klass et al. (1996) made a theoretical advance with the
concept of “continuing bonds,” according to which ADCs
are normal and healthy. Marwat and Klass (1996) stated
that “the role(s) played by the inner representation of the
deceased provides a theoretical framework for thinking
about the place of the deceased in the ongoing lives of the
living,” making clear that “inner representation” included
“a sense of presence, hallucinations in any of the sens-
es,” and “belief in the person’s continuing active inuence
on thoughts or events” (p. 298). Silverman and Nickman
(1996) remarked that the relationships thus constructed
“can be described as interactive, even though the other
person is physically absent” (p. 349).
e continuing bonds model was developed further
in a collection edited by Klass and Steen (2017). Elsaess-
er et al. (2021) cite the model, adding that the ongoing
contact :
is typically interpreted by the recipient as con-
veying (explicitly or implicitly) one or more of
the following sentiments (which we have termed
the ‘four Rs’): ‘reassuring’, I’m ne, don’t worry
about me, the troubles I had at the end of life are
now behind me; ‘resolving’, settling old conicts,
allowing space for apologies and providing clo-
sure; ‘rearming’, continuing bond, aection-
ate, I love you, I will always be by your side, we’ll
meet again one day; and ‘releasing’, don’t be sad,
pursue your life, don’t hold me back by your suf-
fering (Elsaesser, 2001, p. 2).
It is easy to identify examples of each of the four R’s
in the animal ADC accounts we collected. Grief over the
loss of an animal to which one was tightly bonded closely
resembles grief over the loss of a spouse. Rees (2001, pp.
256–262) made this point in a chapter on “e Death of
a Pet,” although he supplied no ADC examples. Kowalski
(2012) reported that for some people, the loss of a pet can
represent the greatest loss they have ever encountered.
We are not aware that the depth of grief in connec-
tion to ADCs has been investigated with either humans
or animals, but from the accounts we collected, it would
appear that the people most likely to experience animal
ADCs are those who feel the loss of their pets most keenly.
is association may be interpreted in one of two ways—
either the humans’ grief caused them to hallucinate visits
from their animal friends, or the animals responded to
their humans’ emotional state by coming to ameliorate
their suering. Several of the narratives presented above
demonstrate that percipients understood visitations in
the latter manner. Nonetheless, in some of the accounts
in which ADCs seemed to coincide with deaths (which
we coded as B/Q and excluded from our ADC analysis),
the content of the experience is dierent and oen de-
scribed as unsettling or frightening—just as it is the case
with ADCs among humans (Nahm, 2011). ese cases can
plausibly be regarded as “crisis telepathy” initiated either
by the dying animal or living human agents, and this rais-
es the question of whether all ADC accounts might best
be regarded as grounded in the percipients’ psi (Nahm,
2010).
Woollacott et al. (2022) discussed the bearing of their
ndings with human ADCs on three hypotheses: ADCs
(1) occurred internally in the minds of the percipients as
hallucinations; (2) were mediated by the percipients’ te-
lepathy; or (3) were “perceived as being sensed externally
through the senses or through extra-sensory means in the
physical environment” (p. 430). Woollacott et al. (2022)
concluded that all things considered, their ndings were
“more compatible with hypotheses 2 and 3 than hypothe-
sis 1” (p. 430). e authors of Klass et al. (1996) and Klass
and Steen (2017) appear to be committed to Hypothesis
1, however. eir version of the continuing bonds model
takes ADC experiences into account but assumes them
to be internal hallucinations—albeit non-pathological
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AFTER DEATH COMMUNICATION FROM ANIMALS Matlock et al.
ones—rejecting and trivializing the perspective of the ex-
periencers themselves. e continuing bonds model thus
formulated remains the dominant position in human be-
reavement studies, but there are dissenters (e.g., Fenwick
& Fenwick, 2008; Guggenheim & Guggenheim, 1996; Vla-
hos, 2023), primarily from the clinical side, who take the
view that these experiences signal the survival of human
consciousness aer death, and the theoretical consensus
may eventually shi again.
Given the many parallels between human and an-
imal ELEs documented by Sheldrake et al. (2023), it is
perhaps not surprising to see the parallels extend from
peri-mortem to post-mortem phenomena. ADC accounts
raise the same questions about the nature and evolution-
ary development of consciousness as the ELE accounts,
elevated to a new level by the suggestion that animal as
well as human consciousness survives bodily death. In a
follow-up paper, Matlock and Hilton (forthcoming) will
delve deeper into our data and consider implications for
the understanding of consciousness and the prospect of
post-mortem survival of animals as well as humans.
IMPLICATIONS AND APPLICATIONS
Sheldrake et al. (2023) showed that the end-of-life
experiences of animals are very similar to those of hu-
mans. We have taken the next step, demonstrating a close
resemblance between aer-death communications from
animals and from humans. at people grieve their pets
in very much the same way they grieve their human loved
ones suggests that human bereavement studies would
do well to take into account the animal data to which we
have drawn attention. Doing so may help clarify issues
regarding the fundamental nature of the experiences—
determining whether they are best regarded as internal
hallucinations, as living-agent-psi-mediated subjective
or objective phenomena, or as actual contacts with the
deceased—which in turn carries implications not only for
academic studies of bereavement but for clinical practice
with the bereaved.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Our thanks to those who contributed accounts of an-
imal ADCs in response to our appeals. We would like to
thank Steve Sims, Beth Hilton’s husband, for suggesting
we use Microso Access for our database and for assist-
ing with the conversion from Excel and the creation of
queries in Access. Rupert Sheldrake and Pam Smart thank
the Watson Family Foundation and the Planet Heritage
Foundation for nancial support.
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
James Matlock (ORCID: 0000-0003-1280-2476):
Project conceptualization, data collection for M/H and Lit
samples, coding, writing – rst and nal dras. Bethany
Hilton (ORCID: 0009-0009-6259-4696): Data collection
for M/H and Lit samples and integration with S/S sample,
combined data curation, coding, database queries. Rupert
Sheldrake (ORCID: 0000-0001-8814-4014): Project con-
ceptualization, data collection for S/S and PL samples,
comments on paper dra and substantive contributions
to revision. Pam Smart: Data curation and categorization
of S/S sample. Michael Nahm (ORCID: 0000-0003-1930-
9692): Project conceptualization, data collection for Lit
sample, comments on paper dra and substantive contri-
butions to revision.
Supplementary Materials
A Microso Excel spreadsheet containing the essen-
tial data of this study is available on Sheldrake’s website
at https://www.sheldrake.org/research/ADC.
ENDNOTES
1 Henceforth, we use “animal” in the sense of non-human
animals.
2 e term “aer-death communication” was introduced
by Guggenheim and Guggenheim (1996).
3 We follow Matlock in distinguishing an account from
a case. In Matlock’s terminology, a case is “a set of
events that have been investigated or closely observed.”
By contrast, “an uninvestigated account is a story or
anecdote about whose reliability we can say nothing”
(2019, p. 91). Matlock here is concerned with cases and
accounts suggestive of reincarnation, but the same
applies in principle to any realm of experience.
4 ese groups were Aerlife Awareness and Aer-Death
Communication, Re-incarnation, Pet Reincarnation, and
Signs of Reincarnation.
5 Although Bozzano’s book is written in Italian, he
translated most of the accounts and cases from English-
language sources.
6 Ten accounts were taken from the blog posting, and 65
from the associated comments
7 Elsaesser et al. (2021) say that they use “hallucination”
in an “ontologically neutral” sense, but since this term
more commonly implies illusion, we prefer “apparition”
as the more neutral term, following Streit-Horn (2011)
and the bulk of the ADC case literature. Apparitions in our
terminology are externalized perceptions that may have
a visual, auditory, olfactory, or tactile basis. Apparitions
contrast with the more internalized ADCs involved in
dream visitations and the sense of presence. Woollacott
et al. (2022) employ the term “perceptions” to cover both
77
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Matlock et al. AFTER DEATH COMMUNICATION FROM ANIMALS
internalized and externalized ADCs. Gurney et al. (1886)
appear to have been the rst to contrast internalized and
externalized hallucinations or apparitions.
8 Accounts we classied as Borderline/Questionable
included those consisting exclusively of symbolic signs
or synchronicities, phenomena that seems equally well
or better interpreted as mediated by living-agent psi,
and accounts relying on photographic evidence.
9 Flammarion’s (1923) graph was inspired by an earlier
and simpler version of such a graph contained in Frederic
W. H. Myers’ monumental treatise on the human survival
of bodily death (Myers, 1903, vol. 2, p. 14). Apparitions
perceived “before death” were of individuals in a weak or
comatose state but not yet deceased.
10 We coded grief as present only when respondents said
they were grieving. We did not code grief as present in
instances in which it could be presumed. It should be
remembered that these gures represent only what was
recounted spontaneously. e true gures for grief and
relief were almost certainly higher, or would have been,
had we asked about these factors in a questionnaire
format. Rather her cat did not come back, were reported
only in one account.
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