One odd experience I can relay. Sorry that its a bit long...

Being apparently the big softy that I am, I took the passing of both of our dogs Lilly and Mabel very hard, even though it wasn't a surprise. They were both on borrowed time, having had their first bouts with congestive heart failure, so once they had their initial event it was essentially a countdown. And the doctor's estimate was correct. Even with hundreds of dollars a month in meds, they both lasted just about a year.

After Lily passed away, I had an interesting thing happen. I sleep poorly much of the time, and I will end up climbing out of bed at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning and going out to the couch so I can have the TV hopefully lull me back to sleep. For various reasons, once I'm awake I can't generally fall back to sleep in bed as it's too quiet and too all sorts of things.

Anyway, as I was sitting on the couch, I had a strange feeling come over me and this thought came to my mind at that moment, "the veil is thin".
And at that moment, on the back of the couch behind me, I felt Lilly there much as she used to be, creeping up and nuzzling behind my ear as she always did until I called her down to my lap. In all my life I don't recall having anything happen as a vivid as this, and it was absolutely VIVID. It was so shocking that I bolted straight up and sat there with tears filling my eyes.

Tracy explained it as something called lucid dreaming which I was unfamiliar with. I don't have vivid dreams in that fashion and have not had such again. I suppose I could sit back and attempt to do so once more, but the reality was it was way too sad for me. I sure miss my pups