An optical realization of the damped quantum oscillator, based on transverse light dynamics in an optical resonator with slowly-moving mirrors, is theoretically suggested. The optical resonator setting provides a simple implementation of the time-dependent Caldirola-Kanai Hamiltonian of the dissipative quantum oscillator and enables the visualization of the effects of damped oscillations in the classical (ray optics) limit and wave packet collapse in the quantum (wave optics) regime.