After-Death Communications From Non-Human Animals: Suggestions of Post-Mortem Survival: Interpreting the Data

Abstract

An earlier study of 442 after-death communications (ADCs) from non-human animals revealed animal ADCs to be remarkably similar to human ADCs in their types. Moreover, as with human ADCs, there was a dramatic fall-off in incidence over time, with the majority of communications coming in the first days after the death of a pet, when their owners’ grief was at its height. This follow-up study added 587 accounts, for a total of 1,029. The findings of the earlier study were replicated, and the combined sample permitted the investigation of several less common, although recurrent, features. The great majority of animal ADCs in both earlier and later samples were perceived externally rather than internally. A fifth (20.5%) were perceived by more than one individual, sometimes by living animals as well as by humans. Of particular note was a highly significant (p < .00001) difference in the timing of visits associated with grief versus greeting dying loved ones, providing support in times of need, or warning of danger. Grief-related visits tended to come within the first week after an animal’s death, but visits of other kinds came weeks, months, or years later. The overwhelming response to the visits was positive; in only six instances was a negative reaction reported. The study’s findings are evaluated in terms of three major interpretations of ADC phenomena: (1) that they are hallucinations, produced in the minds of the bereaved as responses to their grief; (2) that they are hallucinations, informed by the psi of the human percipients; (3) that they are actual communications from deceased animals. The findings arguably support the third interpretation, which is the one adopted by the accounts’ contributors. This conclusion is consistent with recent studies of animal emotion and cognition. Sheldrake’s notion of social fields is invoked in connection to a modified continuing bonds model of bereavement that acknowledges the post-mortem survival of animal consciousness.