Updated 2022.04.27

What is the difference between a Regular Dream and a Visitation Dream? Below we discuss -

One of the most common signs that your deceased loved ones or pets are trying to connect with you is through visitation in a dream. Often times, you don’t even have to ask for a visitation dream for one to come to you.

After your loved one crosses, they still maintain their form, personality, and identity - only without a physical body.

Where the only difference between yourself and your loved ones is the world that we both operate in - ourselves, in the physical plane, and your loved ones, now in the spiritual plane.

To transcend and cross between these planes, often referred to as over, or through the veil, this takes time, energy, and effort.

Thankfully, our loved ones now in Spirit are living in a world without the limitation of time and energy is limitless. Because of this, they are usually free to visit whenever they want.

When Visitation Dreams Occur

The first visitations after the loss of a loved one usually come about 7-10 days following the transition, known as the crossing-over window.

Though, it's normal to start sensing your loved one anytime during the first 49 days that they've crossed over, known as the Bardo period.

Visitation dreams usually occur once the crossing-over window or Bardo period is complete, and can start to occur anywhere between eight weeks and two years following the crossing.

For many of your loved ones in Spirit, they would love nothing more than to connect with you, and make you aware of their continued presence, even after death.

Many go to great lengths to get your attention, including making noise, producing physical touch, sending you signs and symbols, such as cardinals and feathers. However, in our busy world, this is often still not enough.

When was the last time you stopped to notice a feather in your path and think much of it?

Or, really, I mean *really* listened to the lyrics of the song on the radio?

If we don't notice all the coincidences, that doesn't mean loved ones are going to stop visiting. It simply might mean they may take it up a notch or try out another technique. 

Welcome, the visitation dream.

No matter how busy you are, everyone sleeps at some point.

Even if it's just four hours some nights, you have to sleep.

If you sleep, at some point, you're going to dream. 

The Purpose of Visitation Dreams

In our dreams, we happen to be least resistant to messages from our spirit friends, the humans and animals we know on the other side.

If you get a message while awake, hear a song, or something falls to the floor suddenly, it's easy to shrug it off. However, in a dream, we often stay asleep for the whole message.

Our conscious minds aren't active to sweep the experience away immediately. Meaning messages have more time to simmer and make an impact when they happen in a dream state. 

We can see, feel, and listen to our loved ones - without distraction or immediate dismissal in the dream. The space without an opportunity for dismissal, for each one of us, is in an unconscious sleep.

Even in meditation, we may and sometimes do, stop to question the reality of what we perceive from Spirit - even experienced professionals. 

So if you've ever dreamed of a loved one, you may be wondering, okay, I get that they can visit me in my dreams, but how?

And how do I know it wasn't just a regular dream with some symbolism and pain energy that I've repressed?

Something subconscious, you know?

I get it. I've dreamt of loved ones that included fears. These are not visitation dreams.

And then, I've had dreams where I wake up peaceful, serene and happy to have seen my family member again.

How Visitation Dreams Work

First, it's essential to know that your deceased loved one, in Spirit, now operates entirely on the energy of Divine Light. In Heaven. The Realm of Spirit. The Great Oneness. In that space.

This otherworld space is light, buoyant, and glowing with energy. This energy is what they use to connect with you on many levels.

As your loved ones are no longer in the physical body, they must now use pure energy to connect with you.

This can be the energy of touch and sensation, the energy of thought and ideas, the energy of emotions, the energy of images which they can transfer to you.

Basically in any form of spirit communication, they’re sending energy from themselves to you.

We send energy to each other while alive, and the best case example of this is love energy.

If you've ever been loved by another person, you not only hear that they love you when they say it, but you feel and sense the energy of it. They are sending their love energy, to you, in the form of emotions and thoughts.

Your loved ones can visit you in dreams, by sending you their energy as emotions, thoughts, images, and sensations, and in your open state of sleep, you are able to see it in your dreams.

The Three Main Differences Between A Visitation Dream VS A Regular Dream

1 - Visitation Dreams Make You Feel Good and Comforted

The energy of your loved ones often feels like a comforting blanket, a warm tea, like a coating of love on a winter's day.

All spirit communication is out of love, so if you are visited by a loved one, this means they love you, and you can sense it.

With visitation dreams, when you wake up, you'll often feel an extreme amount of comfort and love, happy to see your loved one again, if only just in a dream.

Many who have experienced visitation dreams express an amount of peace upon waking, not fear. 

In regular dreams, we often wake up confused and curious by the meaning, but not intensely comforted. In visitation dreams, confusion and doubt may come later, but then it has usually been placed on you externally by someone else's doubt of your experience.

2 - Visitation Dreams Often Involve Divine Light or Hyperreality

As your loved ones have transitioned into the Light, they now exist primarily in this energy. While they can often come back to visit us on the physical plane, they are still using the Light energy to maintain their spiritual existence.

Thus, when you have a visitation dream, usually a glow or a light surrounds this person, or the dream itself manifests as incredibly crisp and clear.

As Melanie Jade Rummel also mentions in her Gaia article, visitation dreams feel more real than regular dreams.

The glow or level of Light may vary from soft focus to sunburst, but it's there, and there's a greater lucidity to the dream itself.

3 - Visitation Dreams often include a direct address

In a visitation dream, your loved one is often the direct focus of the dream.

In a regular dream, your loved one is often just one of the many characters in the scene of your dream, not particularly more or less distinct than any other character in your dream.

Visitation dreams nearly always include a direct address from your loved one. They turn to face you directly, sit next to you, touch you directly, smile at you directly, or have a message of words for you, directly.

It does not necessarily mean a serious message, it can be playful and often it is. The direct address may simply include a warm smile, which, in itself, is the entire message. Think of the message a warm smile conveys.

These are the main three factors that stand out to make a regular dream different from a visitation one. It's the most common spirit manifestation technique of deceased people or pets.

Our loved ones aren't the only ones to use this modality, however; any spirit can utilize this message, as long as you allow it. Angels, Guides, and even deceased ones you may not have met before.

And finally, when a loved one crosses, they can also get through to us through songs that we have in our minds right when we wake up during liminal state.

still not sure if you received a visitation dream? 

You can always explicitly ask for a visitation dream as a sign.

I like to ask for a visitation dream when asking for a sign from Spirit. It can be a preferred method of receiving a sign when getting guidance during the day is more complicated. Just remember that you did ask for a dream when you wake up tomorrow. 

Getting a second confirmation sign upon waking up from a visitation dream is pretty standard, too, such as:

• Hearing their song right when you wake up

• Seeing a symbol representing them

• Someone “out of the blue” direct messages you an image of your loved one rekindling memories

If you do get confirmation from a message, keep that person in mind, they would be considered a kindred spirit or a member of your soul group. 

So to recap, to know for sure a visitation dream is a visitation dream

• Visitation Dreams make you feel good and comforted. You might miss them after you wake up and start thinking about it too hard, but you won’t feel fearful or worried after a visitation dream.

• Visitation Dreams often involve Divine Light or hyperreality. They tend to be very lucid, very vivid, and very crisp dreams.

• Visitation Dreams often include a direct address. They usually involve some sort of direct exchange between you and the deceased, not always words, but some sort of back and forth between you and they.

Visitation dreams can be magical experiences. So if you experience one, soak it in and share it with others who are willing to hear. They don’t happen that often, so definitely consider yourself lucky when you have received one.

These dreams, and receiving signs in general, always leave me smiling for the rest of the day, and I hope they bring you the same joy, too -

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Other Articles You May Enjoy:

• 10 Most Common Signs From Your Deceased Loved Ones

• What Do Spirits Feel Like? A Guide On How To Sense Spirits

• The Gift of Presence: How to Sense a Deceased Loved One When They Visit

• Clairvoyant Dreams: 3 Types Of Information You Can Receive In Psychic Dreams