My dog died when I was 13, and his spirit visited me in the dream that I had after I woke up from my anesthesia for my hysterectomy on my 34th birthday.

I'm in my late 30's now, and I had my uterus removed on my 34th birthday 9 years ago. I was child-free, and at the time I had been bleeding for 113 days straight, and my 3rd miscarriage and only male partner had since moved across the country and was engaged to be married to someone else. I wanted that surgery when I was 21, but I was finally able to find a doctor out of 50 that would give it to me at 34. I went under the knife on my 34th birthday, and when I woke up from the anesthesia I had a dream about my childhood dog, Shadow. He's been gone since I was 13, and I hadn't thought about him in years. I don't know if it was part of the anesthesia, or just my mind taking me to a safe place after a traumatic event, and so I told my husband and parents and they said to just rest, I should relax, and and didn't think about it again for years until the night before my mother's death.<br><br>My mother passed away on my birthday, a year ago. And the night before, I had a dream about my childhood dog, Shadow. I hadn't thought about him in years, and I told my husband and parents and they said to just rest, I should relax, and didn't think about it again until the night before my mother's death.<br><br>My mother passed away on my birthday, a year ago. And the night before, I had a dream about my childhood dog, Shadow. I hadn't thought about him in years, and I told my husband and parents and they said to just rest, I should relax, and I went to sleep happy knowing that I would see my mother the next day. She was the one that taught me how to ride a bike, bake, garden, and cook. She was the one that I was so excited to tell that I was pregnant the first time, and she was there for me when I miscarried each time. She was my best friend. My rock. My person. My light. And out of 50 doctors interviews, she found the one that would give me my hysterectomy. My mother was a witch, too, and even though we didn't have the same sign or astrological symbols, we somehow had the same intuition and psychic abilities in our dreams. So the night before she died, I had a dream about Shadow, my childhood dog, and I knew when I woke up that she had been sending me a message through my subconscious. Yet I didn't listen.<br><br>And now she's gone. So I wanted to know more about this mysterious connection between my dog and my mother. <br><br>I have been doing a lot of research about my mother as a witch, and from what I can tell based on interviews, she had a book on shadow work that dated back to the 1990s that she read and then I read when I was a teenager. I took some notes from it, and from what I recall, it was a guidebook for understanding the power of unconscious thought and connecting to the universe in a way that is still inexplicable to me to this day. But I found a different book on shadow work by a different author, and from what I remember of it, Shadow Work is more about understanding your darkness, and the light that comes from out of it.<br><br>But when I started reading the book, I realized that I had been connecting to my inner darkness for decades without realizing it. My inner darkness, and light. Yet, I still feel like I didn't get the message from my mother's spirit when she visited me in the dream before she died. I still feel like I'm not listening to her intuition when it comes to my inner darkness, and light, and the Shadow Work that is guiding me through the universe. And I don't know how to keep it in my subconscious while also making it my focus. Does anyone else have this problem?