My dog Sukha has dementia. It's come on gradually, but if I really think about it, her cognitive function has been changing for well over a year. She's always been independent and introverted. And, the more she surrenders to dementia, the more aloof she becomes.
I am careful in my word-choice here. I am not saying she her function is declining, or that she has any kind of dysfunction because I love her too much, and see her as a symbolic representation of myself. I would rather think that she is elevating rather than declining. As she nears death, she is not declining, but rather elevating. Her experience is more ethereal and spiritual than physical. Perhaps this is because she's heading to a different DIMENSION.
Dementia is Another Dimension
Although the word dementia and the word dimension come from entirely different root words, they do sound very similar. Dementia is dimension with the last n-sound missing. So in essence, it is one-N short of another dimension. That makes the most sense to me. That being in dementia is being just one sound short of another dimension. Sukha is walking between worlds. She is existing in the portal between the living world and the ethereal realm on the other side of death.
What's Happening in the BRAIN of Dementia
As Sukha's brain function changes, the deep-thinking research-minded introvert in me has become more and more curious about what is happening inside her little noggin, and what she is experiencing as she ages and nears her time to cross the rainbow bridge. If I better understand what is happening to her, perhaps I can better connect with her, and have more mindful moments with her before her body passes.
Neurologically, the connection between networks in her brain aren't working in the same way that they used to. Neurons aren't talking to each other in the same ways. While brain scans may reveal that some regions of her brain are shrinking or atrophying, I also wonder if parts of her brain chemistry are not readable by any medical technology are enhancing. Perhaps DEMENTIA is the process of the non-dense matter of the body (the soul?) leaving before the body is completely done, and that non-dense matter is absorbed by the energies around it.
What Happens to the Aura in the Dying Process
I've had the privilege of supporting three (human) individuals through hospice care until just before their deaths. In all three cases, over the weeks and days before they passed, I watched their auras and chakra energy dissipate. It was almost as if their life force was evaporating into the atmosphere. The "actively dying" process, as the hospice nurses called it, was when the aura got less and less dense. This was also when they had the most hallucinations and "dementia-like" symptoms.
Sukha's aura has been dissipating for months. It's been such a gradual process, I barely noticed it, until recently. The symptoms I list below got more obvious, so I started paying closer attention, and watching her aura more during her episodes. This is a list of symptoms and what I see.
Symptoms of Doggie Dementia in Sukha
pacing and aimlessly walking with no clear intention of going anywhere (going somewhere in another dimension)
standing at the hinge-side of a door waiting for it to open (in the upside-down world, doors open backwards?)
barking & growling at nothing (there is something there in spirit world!)
getting up in the middle of the night to pace (days and nights are reversed)
not responding to cues or directions (she really can't hear me)
staring blankly (she sees something in another dimension)
quivers & shivers (she's passing through the portal between worlds)
An Alternative View on Reincarnation
Whenever someone asks me if I believe in reincarnation, I say that I don't really know, but I'll find out when I get there. However, one theory I have is that reincarnation does exist, just not in the form that everyone else says it does. Perhaps our soul doesn't stay fully in tact and go from one being to another being, and definitely not within the constructs of linear time. Perhaps, like I see the aura dissipate and get absorbed by the atmosphere IS reincarnation. Bear with me here.
If Sukha is dying now, and her aura is evaporating into the environment, perhaps she is in the active reincarnation process. Perhaps as she "dies" her non-dense matter is being absorbed into all the living beings near and around her. So she is reincarnating in me, in my husband, and in our other dog Tosha! Perhaps we are all absorbing parts of her essence.
Think about it. As our bodies die and we bury them, the body decomposes and gets eaten and breaks down into the soil. It becomes food for critters. It becomes fertilizer for the earth. It becomes part of all these other energies. Isn't this a physical and biological form of reincarnating? Taking a different form, in tinier pieces, in many many many different living beings? Perhaps this is what happens to our consciousness as well. It splinters and becomes part of the whole, just as the body becomes part of the whole earth? Ashes to ashes (our soul to all souls). Dust to dust (our body to all bodies).
That's enough spiritual rambling for today. But keep watching my blog for a future post about how to connect with our ancestors and lost loved ones by connecting with the essence of them that we have absorbed into ourselves!
If you have lost (or are losing) a loved one (through dementia or death) and would like mentoring in finding a way to connect to them on the other dimension, book an appointment with me.