Dreams about your own death

[Victoria]

Has anyone ever had an unusually prescient-feeling dream of their own death come to mind suddenly and repeatedly many years later because you found yourself in comparable surroundings or atmosphere to the dream?

or have you had recurrent dreams about dying through the years?

Decades ago, I dreamed what I couldn't properly understand or decipher then with limited experiences and perspective. The dream felt different enough at the time to leave a lasting impression, but all I knew in any certainty was from the view of what seemed to be lying on my back, apparently dead (or invisible), while vaguely sensing what transpired nearby.

It felt cold; Moreso, oddly bereft of any fluctuation in temperature or pressure. It was night... and I could see or sense the sky above and hear muffled sounds of traffic and voices passing by with a whooshing blur.

I was immobile, on the ground, or in a ditch, so that everything was elevated on either side and as a flow of lights passed from my head toward my feet, the only thing I could interpret was that maybe I was underwater and floating, headfirst downstream, on a lively weekend night.

The lights that kept gliding in succession made me think of a busy evening downtown, caught in a current; a throng of people and streetside diners... as though I was drifting directly through their midst, yet somehow completely separate and unseen.

Nobody knew I was there. They were carrying on, sifting by, as though I was low set enough to be out of their view and yet still able to watch movements and silhouettes through peripheral vision; the trails of voices, echoes of engines, a wavy radiance steadily dimming. My eyes were concretely fixed skyward. Nothing was focused.

The only way I could put it into familiar context back then, was likening it to being at the bottom of the Intracoastal, floating under the surface as people dined. The distorted sounds and view were engulfing but hazy.

Staring up through perimeter motions, it seemed like towering vessels swayed past in the swinging glow of restaurant lanterns. The dancing shadows and golden trails. Canopies of trees laced with what looked like fairy strings gliding by through fog on either side.

I wondered... Was that going to be me, apparently watching as friends and tourists ambled about oblivious that a body was just beside their feet? Would it be someday soon? My life then was intense and always exciting enough that during those days, it could well have happened at any point.

I remember seriously questioning if I would somehow end up at the bottom of New River, somewhere near Las Olas in the evening, staring skyward in peaceful silence, feeling the world go by.

It's so silly that would be my first conclusion, but it made an odd sort of sense, because that was life back then. Zipping along the intracoastal and being out on the ocean were more common than driving a car. Waterways wove between restaurants where we would dock for lunch, dinner and clubs. For a while after the dream, every time I went out became a game of hit or miss, is tonight the night? Then time passed and I all but forgot it.

Obviously, the dream death state never came about, but it stuck in the back of my consciousness for nearly 20 years. Occasionally it reemerges and I struggle with why a dream that was so uneventful, and nondescript was so memorable. Enough that standing across the country last Christmas, staring down a cliff over wintery hills at night to watch faint headlights of cars weaving between rocky mountain trees would bring back the same curious apprehension.

Almost like seeing black streams flowing down below; ribbons of pitch between farolitos and the warm lights of distant homes. Looking over the valley evoked the same cold familiarity as the dream, except viewed from above. I imagined the winding roads were canals, recalling the eerie garbled void of lying there.

It doesn't happen often. Once every few years it will come to mind while looking at something similar.

Until last night. I was driving through a heavily wooded frontage road, with tall trees bowing over the car. Along my right side, on a parallel highway, semi trucks passed about 15 ft above the grade in the opposite direction; their yellow headlamps skewed the trees' branching shadows and my view of the road. It hit me swiftly with an overwhelming feeling of Déjà vu that the old dream was actually from the vantage of laying back on a black stretch of asphalt at night, the same dark sky and undulating lights.

There was traffic passing by vehicle after vehicle, with light filtering through the trees above me and an infinite shadowy stretch ahead and behind. It was a eureka moment, an astounding knowing, and an "Oh! by the way that's your death. That's how you die in the middle of nowhere on a dark road."

When I got to my destination, I sat down at the computer to recompose and look at the time. It was my perennial number sequence for unusual occurrences, 3:30a.m.
54696

Having had one too many premonitions come true, and more than a few foreboding dreams play out, this one has been difficult to dismiss as plain symbolism. For a long time, I thought I was seeing through someone else's eyes.

Recognizing they were my own eyes last night felt like coming home or putting on the correct shoe without looking. It finally fit with perfection. Enough to slow the vehicle down drastically and whisper out loud, "I see."

If you are shown your death, are you shown enough to recognize it for what it is? Enough to avert it? Would you even try?

I find the dream fascinating... an ominous curiosity. Bizarre, but an otherwise unremarkable dreamscape with reverberation that spans 20+ years. It makes looking at life a bit like watching a movie. I guess I get to wait and see.

Has anyone else had this type of dream death? In which you only recognize the context and placement a long time later, when you suddenly happen upon them in life?

[Vicus]

A Life of Philip K. Dick: The Man Who Remembered the Future

Article EXTRACT:

Uncanny Precognition

In early 1974 Phil started a long-term correspondence with a graduate student called Gloria Bush. As time went on Phil described to Gloria some of his deepest thoughts, including his fascination regarding his own precognitive abilities. In a letter dated 9 May of that year he described to Gloria a particularly strange recurring dream he experienced in November 1971. In the dreams he always saw what looked like a Mexican city with “square arrangements of streets and yellow cabs.” The yellow cabs suggested to Phil a location in the USA rather than Mexico or Latin America. At the time of these dreams he was living in Marin County, north of San Francisco. In 1974 he was living in Fullerton, a southern suburb of Los Angeles. Right next to Fullerton is a place called Placentia which is a strongly Hispanic area. Phil explains to Claudia that he was convinced this was the place he saw in these dreams.


"I was up to 5 a.m. on this last night. I did something I never did before; I commanded the entity to show itself to me – the entity which has been guiding me internally since March. A sort of dream-like period passed, then, of hypnogogic images of underwater cities, very nice, and then a stark single horrifying scene, inert but not still; a man lay dead, on his face, in a living room between the coffee table and the couch."

On 9 May 1974 he wrote another typewritten letter to Claudia stating that he felt “scared.” He didn’t elaborate on this comment but at the bottom of the letter is a handwritten note that states the following: “p.s. What scares me most, Claudia, is that I can often recall the future.”

Almost exactly seven years later Phil had failed to answer a series of phone calls to his condominium. A group of neighbours then found his front door open. One witness, Mary Wilson, entered the condo and described how she initially thought nobody was home, but then she spotted Phil’s feet sticking out from behind a coffee table. She immediately asked her mother to phone Phil’s close friend, science-fiction writer Tim Powers. Powers jumped on his motorcycle to see what he could do to help. In his introduction to The Selected Letters of Philip K Dick Volume Four Powers describes what happened next:

As I was putting the key in the ignition of my motorcycle I heard the sirens of the paramedics howl past me down Main Street. When I got to Phil’s place the paramedics and Mary Wilson were already there and the paramedic had lifted him from between the coffee table and the couch and carried him to his bed, and Mary and I answered a few hasty medical questions about him before they got him into a stretcher and carried him downstairs to the ambulance.

Phil’s February 1975 dream had come true in stunning detail. He had seen the circumstances of his own death.

https://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/newscience-consciousness/a-life-of-philip-k-dick-the-man-who-remembered-the-future

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

I hope nothing like this ever happens to you, Victoria! and it turns out to be nothing but a dream.

Although, have you considered the possibility this was a past-life death?

I've never dreamt of my death, in this life or any other (that I recall), but I have experienced dream-fragments involving past-life events. These are nothing like regular dreams. They play out like a memory and stay with you like a memory. They don't fade even one tiny bit, not even after years/decades, let alone minutes after waking. Which is why I make the above suggestion. This 'dream' could be a memory from a previous life.

[Ratszinger]

Usually dreams of experiencing your death usually means that big changes are ahead. You are moving on to new beginnings, saying goodbye to old settings and leaving the past behind with death showing the permanent nature of it all. These changes does not necessarily imply a negative interpretation. It signifies dying as a termination to your old ways and habits or life. So, dying does not always mean a physical death, but an ending of something in waking life most always.

To cover all the bases, speaking about it on a more negative side, to dream that you die may represent involvement in deeply painful relationships or unhealthy, or destructive relations or even destructive behaviors. You may be feeling depressed or feel overwhelmed by a situation or person or job in your waking life. So, if that is your mind as you are preoccupied with those things before dosing off? You have such a dream after. Alternatively, you may be trying to get out of some obligation, responsibility or other situation you wish you were not into in waking life. It appears you are trying to escape from the demands of your daily life or at least some aspect of it that will be hinted at in the dream usually and this is the usual interpretation of such a dream.

[Victoria]

My apologies, things have been so busy in the last many weeks that it's been hard to find the way back here. For some reason these subjects, though I love them, take a lot of energy that tends to directly derail other efforts..so although there is a pressing need to respond timely, I can't always seem to muster the verbal ability to put associated thoughts into writing. Does that make sense? It's an energetic thing that is strange.

Vicus, 
Thank you for posting about P.K. Dick!  I really enjoyed and appreciated reading that and am amused by a funny detail of what you shared: that Phil was friends with other science fiction writers. Of course, but I am glad for it. I imagine there was camaraderie and comfort bridged between like minds, a kindred connection needed to buffer the strangely isolating abyss of knowing what comes before it does- just enough to buoy the despair that often comes from staring into that dark expanse where writers and artists draw material like channels from the sea. 

Reading his experience feels very familiar by way of how the voice connected to him and the specific things which occurred to him over the years. It's fascinating to learn about his circumstances, but also because of the "pink" light that beamed to his head! Despite another Avalon member relating the generalities of P.K.Dick to me, I must have completely overlooked the color mentioned, which struck a chord inside.

30+ years ago, someone told me I had a beam of pink light emanating from me. A little bit reversed from what happened to Dick, but possibly similar...reading about his awakening and perception, opened a flood of memories.

When I was in high school, our dearest family friend and guide to my sisters, mother and me while we lived in Italy was an extremely clairvoyant woman named Lesley Lestini. She was one of the first people who ever spoke directly to me about altered consciousness, auras, spirits, ghosts and magic. She tried to tempt my interest in the otherworldly and insisted I had a soft pink light which emanated like a beam.

Those years ago, preoccupied with stupid things that didn't matter, I honestly thought she was full of it. Sadly, I didn't even stop to wonder. She was always there to keep an eye on my sisters and me to the point that all of our antics were consistently foiled. So much so, that I considered her the bane of my existence as a teen. If I wanted to do anything out of sync, I had to sneak around her- which was virtually impossible.

:(Now, I very much wish I could go back to speak with her again and ask her dozens of questions in depth.

Daughter of Jerzy Kluger (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Kluger) and family friend to Pope John Paul II, Lesley passed away in 2011. She raised John Paul's goddaughter, Stefania, and had so many unique and incredible insights regarding spirit and the unseen, as well as the underbelly of civilization in modern day Rome.

Though I doubt she knew much about American literature (especially sci fi authors),  if I had shared with her what you posted in this thread, she would have had mountains upon mountains to expound upon. She was always full of advice that I wasn't conscious enough to hear. Hindsight is such an odd thing.-------------------------------------------------------------

Mark- that is very nice of you! :sun:Thank you. I will intentionally consider it more thoroughly because of what you wrote. I didn't know the way that you describe is how it feels to recall past lives. Thank you for explaining- because it is very comparable to how the dream affects me on deep and resounding, echoic level. 

I hadn't ever thought the dream could stem from past memory simply because there seems to be this innate "knowing" that it is still on the horizon. I hope not, though. There is a lot to finish before that point!!! 

I have been learning a good deal recently and putting things into context, but the more that I look at my past, the more confused I become about whether I am recalling my own personal background, someone else's experiences ( through osmotic learning?) or possibly tapping into some other aspect and parallel life. The prospect of past lives comes up repeatedly for all sorts of questions I can't seem to answer when I talk with family...and all the perplexing memories that just don't make sense.

As with the recurrence of the dream, there is this perpetual drive inside - an urgency to pin the experiences down and be able to distinguish concretely what they represent in order to warn people... it's that need to do something that makes me think: future, not past. 

Similarly, I have this crazy, screaming internal prompt to divulge everything all at once and pour it all out, but I find myself fighting tooth and nail against that, because even though I write a lot, it's just not my nature to share extensively in a way that builds any kind of contiguous story for others.

--------------------------

Ratszinger,

YES. Thank you. What you describe was my life 20 years ago when I first had the dream. Going through the motions in a lifestyle that I despised, but which encompassed me completely with deleterious ways surrounded by cruel people proudly lacking values or depth. I was always along for the ride, complicit by proximity and it ate at my soul. It was a wasteful, spoiled, stupid mentality with no limits and no repercussions. I was a silent observer for too long and cut ties completely with every single non-family person I knew in 2009-10, to gladly never look back.

It was wonderful to do, but yes, everything you wrote applied to my life perfectly then. It does not seem applicable at all, now.   

However, there is a permanence to the dream and a lastingly inexplicable comprehension that the essence of dying is more assured and real than life.

If anyone who sees this thread would like to contribute their dreams or musings along any of these lines, and the questions of mortality, please do... I'm curious what our dreams can tell us about our presence here and if we can use them to steer our lives or how many outside influences attempt to do just that. Where do we go when we dream...who do we connect to... and what is the correlation to death?

[Casey Claar]

I missed the original posting of this thread.

I have a very good relationship with the concept of death. I have many dream-time moments I later step into in life, huuuge deja'vu feeling when this happens. I often seem to experience my life simultaneously in reverse and forward. Since I was a child I could sense/feel when someone around me was going to depart. It always felt like I, myself, was going to die. It took decades before I realized I was sensing into the field for when others were about to depart. My ground-level character was doing it, I should say, I could just feel it all way the way through to my ground-level self. What we call 'death' has A LOT to do with my current life, I soon discovered. I would be called by multiple dozens to be present through roughly their last year and at their moment of passing. Hospice would become a specialized aspect of my caregiving *as would rehab. I will have to back through and read this thread from the beginning, but, Victoria, can I ask?, (sorry if you have answered the question is premature) - have you discovered anything about why you've had the experience you posted on? I know these things can take years and years to unpack.

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

I hadn't ever thought the dream could stem from past memory simply because there seems to be this innate "knowing" that it is still on the horizon. I hope not, though. There is a lot to finish before that point!!!

If it is the future, let's hope it's a long way off! In my case, I know my dreams/memories are of the past because the times were 'ancient', not modern. One particular life in my soul history, a life of great power and privilege, places me in Egypt in the court of Pharaoh Seti I, and later his son, Rameses the Great, no less, a figure I went on to resent. This isn't the place to share those details, but suffice it to say, the dreams were lessons. They served as a gentle reminder: that which we despise now (politics and power and the abuse of that power) has been around forever, and as souls, we've experienced both sides. At one time or another, we've all been the bad guy. They've taught me to be less judgmental.

[Mike]

My apologies, things have been so busy in the last many weeks that it's been hard to find the way back here. For some reason these subjects, though I love them, take a lot of energy that tends to directly derail other efforts..so although there is a pressing need to respond timely, I can't always seem to muster the verbal ability to put associated thoughts into writing. Does that make sense?

Well the verbal ability you're mustering here is great Victoria. You express yourself beautifully. It's a joy to read (note: I had no idea what a "frontage" road was until just now:))

My interest piqued a little when you mentioned Lesley being a family friend to Pope John Paul II. I find it interesting that someone who appears to be heavily involved in what we might call the "occult" had this connection to such a prominent religious figure. Am I reading into that needlessly or is there something more to say about that?

[Victoria]

]Yes, it is interesting about Lesley...I've thought about her a lot since then, how close her father was to the pope, their family dynamic, that she had really incredible personal experiences and a unique heritage..she and her family joining the pope for brunch regularly on the weekends or for travel. It was a childhood friendship for her father and a number of books have been written on the Jewish and Catholic implications between them (which I was not even aware of at the time.)

There may be nothing at all amiss, but yes, I have questioned the correlation, too.

She knew of witchcraft and spells and different kinds of magic. She could put people into trances and cure them of various ills, see their auras, remove curses, and protect them from the evil eye. She loved to interpret dreams and tell futures.

Maybe it is possible the pope and her own family did not know of these characteristics.

I don't know if her proclivity for the occult was a familial aspect, or learned, so much as something exclusive to Lesley.  She seemed to innately be aware and capable of everything along those lines...which is almost more fascinating.

It led me to question how people are placed in life, what really is the percentage chance things are random and not carefully planned? She could not have been more opposite to her sister Linda and often seemed to be a misfit in her family to some degree, marrying a very jovial but soft spoken Italian man named Carlo. Lesley broke the mold in a number of ways.
55360
  As I recall, she was born in either Sherwood Forest, or the Black Forest.  I cannot remember which one she said. Both have such mystical, supernatural backgrounds and lore associated with them. In any case, she proudly attributed her birth and the mythology of the region to being connected with her abilities to perceive.

Lesley's tremendous understanding about Italian occult practices in tandem to the various old sectors and families in Rome was intriguing. I just didn't pay attention to the dichotomy of that with her proximity to the pope when I was in high school. 

It truthfully never occurred to me during those specific years that there should be anything terribly notable about her or John Paul II, they seemed to be as they were supposed to be...though I did sense the ancient and dark undercurrent in some quadrants of the eternal city, like she said. It was always strange to me that the Holy See would be embedded in the midst of an eons-old magical and ritualistic center.

Often in a sort of spell, myself, during those years, it's taken all of this time to recognize what I couldn't see in plain view when young. 

I remember in the brief interim of morning while people slept- during the fragile, earliest hours, there was a quiet to the city that made existence seem more profound. More so than anywhere else I have ever visited. In that space, the soul of Rome felt thick and incredibly alive, with air like an energetic soup.  You could literally drink it in and run your hands over stonework of antiquity to absorb the primordial, being invigorated as much as when scanning the magnitude of stars in any remote expanse of the world. There was a sense of being so small, dwarfed by the vestiges of numerous pasts and yet infinitely connected and real.

Certain rioni (divisions to the city) seemed like a chronicle of all of human and civilizations' convergence, astral planes and doors waiting in one place, appearing to predate history...one could just sense it, especially at night. In the lower layers of exposed ruins, near the pantheon and the oldest unearthed parts in town, it was easy to be caught up in something so preternatural if given the rare opportunity to stand there, alone. 

I paid attention to little else and didn't analyze meaningful things thoughtfully, but instead got stuck in the emotional confluence of energetics in Rome. Which is to say, the remarkable nature of Lesley was completely (and regrettably) overshadowed.

There were equally curious connections between prominent families there that seemed to vie for importance within my limited teen awareness/comprehension. Just part and parcel of those years.

I didn't know then or suspect such darkness, as is associated with the Vatican now.

My family and I were a bit jaded to the umbral aspects of Rome in listening to her and maybe mistakenly thinking the amount of ritualism discussed had something innocuous to do with Italian tradition, the birth of an empire and the beginnings of the church. American myopia. It was a new culture to us with so much historical significance that I was overwhelmed. I took everything in without question as a factor of that and just accepted it all in being the way things were. 

It really wasn't until a couple of years after moving abroad again and hearing about the tumultuous time my boyfriend was facing under Vatican tutelage that things started to make a bit less sense and beg examination.

I intensely distrust the connections now, similar to what you have touched upon. Other things are involved in that, but not for mentioning here.

  ...and thanks, Mike. These subjects bring up so much extraneous information  sometimes that I have to write out literally everything which comes to mind; all the connected thoughts and memories that trail on, and then parse back through them to find what is relevant and hopefully not too much to read.:facepalm: I get really lost at the end trying to ensure it stays on point...so thank you for the encouragement and asking the question.

[Victoria]

In my case, I know my dreams/memories are of the past because the times were 'ancient', not modern. One particular life in my soul history, a life of great power and privilege, places me in Egypt in the court of Pharaoh Seti I, and later his son, Rameses the Great, no less, a figure I went on to resent. This isn't the place to share those details, but suffice it to say, the dreams were lessons. They served as a gentle reminder: that which we despise now (politics and power and the abuse of that power) has been around forever, and as souls, we've experienced both sides. At one time or another, we've all been the bad guy. They've taught me to be less judgmental.

* lost the reply I was writing to you- twice!:blushing:: will probably add more as I remember what I had written! *

Mark,

That is an amazing memory to recall and an important life assignment. Incredible to fathom living then in a land of such prominence and feeling the power behind so monumental a historical figure. I would love to read more about your past lives and the lessons you gained from them or how they affect you and your perception in this one. You have such an even handed and kind way of interacting with people and seeing into their experiences.

It has to be a large part of why we're here: to see through different iterations of existence, learn how to make the appropriate responses in each and foster greater responsibility for ourselves and one another. The great school. Though, it's a difficult lesson to not be judgemental when we see injustice or abuse of power...I think I would fail that perpetually.

Maybe some of us are not reincarnated? Might some of us be completely new? or is it just an amnesia barrier? the same amnesia after death that makes us forget dreams? and faces?... So many questions...just the way that we can easily remember or forget anything and everything in this material existence, where we erase and forget our own histories on such a finite, superficial level compared with the potential to do the same between entire lives is mind-bending.

It makes me question a fractal nature to all that we know... compounded by the notion that different human and earthly entities compete to influence or control our ability to perceive clearly, daily during our waking hours.

I was pouring through some of the Avalon threads yesterday on reincarnation and members recanting their past lives. As yet, it feels like I don't have that at all. There's a conspicuous void which makes it difficult to wrap my brain around having lived previously.

But I am extremely glad for the dialogue and grateful to be learning from these responses. :sun:

[Victoria]

I have a very good relationship with the concept of death. I have many dream-time moments I later step into in life, huuuge deja'vu feeling when this happens. I often seem to experience my life simultaneously in reverse and forward. Since I was a child I could sense/feel when someone around me was going to depart. It always felt like I, myself, was going to die. It took decades before I realized I was sensing into the field for when others were about to depart. My ground-level character was doing it, I should say, I could just feel it all way the way through to my ground-level self. What we call 'death' has A LOT to do with my current life, I soon discovered. I would be called by multiple dozens to be present through roughly their last year and at their moment of passing. Hospice would become a specialized aspect of my caregiving *as would rehab.

Thank you, Casey Claar. What you've shared is very comforting and significant. It is incredible to know you have dealt with such empathic insights and the symptoms of other people's suffering for so long. Was it frightening before you knew what was happening? or were you born able to see things as they are and the comprehension of what and why then came into understanding over the years?

I truly enjoy what you write and have been following your videos while keeping them in mind when experiences take place. Thank you, for weighing in on this.

The idea that you live in a way for which it has become normal to experience going forward and back through life regularly, including passing through death , is going to sit with me for a long while...it's mind boggling and reassuring at the same time. I marvel at how well adjusted you are to all of it happening. Seeing how you segued into caring for others near death after developing a sense of when people would die, maybe this is a preview toward something similar?

As to the presence of death in my awareness:

Quite often little synchronicities occur, and one of those things that happened is when a wonderful friend I hadn't seen in forever returned from California. We worked together caregiving years ago, and she has thrown herself wholeheartedly into becoming a death doula, which I had never heard of. Her news struck as a complete surprise, but also a deep curiosity for me.

The same day, another remarkable person who runs a very sweet rescue/hospice for elderly dogs came in with her new book, Why Do Dogs Die? She brought in a copy and wanted to share about her experiences with the death of loved ones. The book is all about her life journey and transmuting grief when animal companions leave us. It applies to human departures, as well. She's quite the intuitive empath. 🌞https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.instagram.com/mindbodypower316/p/C4mPKSLuybc/%3Flocale%3Dde%26hl%3Dam-et&ved=2ahUKEwiY_PXBioKNAxXGLUQIHSy4PcIQFnoECBcQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0r5lgBZsF7jAB4TlSu0Sml

Then several other friends in the community came into the office to speak about people who had died close to them, including a different woman who runs animal rescue.  She told about her friend that she cared for until he passed, but then she oddly had been questioned for his murder.  I had to wonder out loud why there was so much conversation in one afternoon about dying and perceptions of death. It was very strange. 

Maybe death has been  more of a reality for people in the aftermath of covid, along with an increased cognition of loss and needing to help others. I didn't apply it to anything in my own life, but the subject of death has definitely been more at mind in a noticeable way since then.

In just the most recent days, my sister and I have been actively discussing opening a nursing home on a piece of property somewhere in the south and starting an organic farm there with enough homegrown, nutritious food, nature and animals to keep residents healthy, amused and happy- including a goal of having multiple RNs on staff around the clock, at least one doctor in house and real nutritionists present (or near) who can keep the residents' best interests in mind. (Not the phony industry nutritionists that seem to think high sugar, chemicals and a GMO laden SAD diet created by big pharma are in some way wholesome.)

We gathered that most of those things are lacking or completely absent in many eldercare places, despite facilities advertising otherwise. It's as though such homes have outsourced mediocre telemedicine and remote doctors; whose medical professionals never actually talk with and examine the patients, or monitor drug interactions and physical progress.
Similar to what you mention in your own life; I have been called during final days near death for just a few people in recent years, which seemed fitting as per my heart for them- but strange, considering my lack of experience there. I hope that I held them in the right way,  consoled them and guided what little I could with the dignity they deserved, in the right direction for them as they would have wished during healthful times.  I am more of an advocate during life than one who knows how to guide after.

Though, I used to be the employee who volunteered to stay with animals as they passed when I worked in veterinary hospitals... all those instances when clients and staff would not wish to see death. When our veterinarians would be callous to the process, it was unbearable to let the animals go alone, or be unloved and unappreciated as they departed. Sad to say, there appears to be a numbness in the medical world where human and animal doctors have acquired a detachment that is perhaps necessary to perform the job, but which can be crushing to the patient at the moment when compassion, love and assurance is most needed. They look to us to know everything is okay.



can I ask?, (sorry if you have answered the question is premature) - have you discovered anything about why you've had the experience you posted on? I know these things can take years and years to unpack.

Oh, please no need to apologize!:heart: I have not determined why I had the experience, except to find a little in each of everyone's replies fitting in various ways.

I love how thinking and speaking about things (even putting them to paper), or having the matters introduced by others and then focusing on them seems to literally bring them into fruition. It is interesting to witness and acknowledge. Maybe after all of this, the actual reason for the experience will become clear.

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

As yet, it feels like I don't have that at all. There's a conspicuous void which makes it difficult to wrap my brain around having lived previously.


I know exactly what you mean.

Spiritual amnesia is there for a good reason. If we could all remember who we were in the past, we'd never find who we are right now. All those other selves would cripple our consciousness and our ability to live our lives. Just imagine being plagued by the memory of a thousand deaths! We enter these lives with a clean mental slate. We wouldn't be able to function otherwise.

But those past life memories do exist and are available, they're just not in our brains. Those other lives were experienced by other brains, in other bodies, and to access them, we have to ascend the physical and touch a higher level of consciousness. For me, these memories arrive in the dream state. Meditation is another way to unlock them, or through mediums who specialise in past life readings.

About ten years ago, I had an extremely disturbing dream. I think I had it twice. They were so bad, I'd wake with tears in my eyes. In this dream, I witnessed one of my closest friends burning to death in a fire. I couldn't bear to watch it, but I felt like I had to. It was just terrible. And so real! The paralysing horror and distress I experienced was absolutely real, too. I naturally assumed it was a premonition, so I spilt it all out to my friend. I framed it as a warning. He went kind of pale, took me by the shoulder, and looked me dead in the eye. He told me that it was real, but that it had already happened.

He's a spiritual person like me, where karma, past lives, and reincarnation are matter-of-fact realities.

At the time, he was good friends with a clairvoyant, a powerful lady with tremendous talent and insight. She read us both (separately), and several times. He told me that in one of his readings she had touched on a past life. Sometime in the Middle Ages, he was a wealthy landowner and, then as now, was an independent free-thinker. This in a world by and large controlled by the Church. I don't recall the exact details, but he came under fire from the Church on ideological grounds. As an influential man, this was very dangerous. In this reading, it came through via his guides that the Church threw him in prison for what we would nowadays call 'wrong-think'. All he had to do to get out was recant and agree to the Church's decree. He refused. So they tortured him. He resisted. They tortured him some more. Eventually, they burned him alive at the stake for heresy.

I never heard a word about this reading until I told him my dream. In that dream, I saw it happen. I saw him burning. As his friend in that life too (maybe a compatriot or fellow-conspirator) they forced me to witness it.

My dream confirmed that reading. And that reading confirmed my dream.

Today, we agree (and so did his guides) that this event was one of the reasons why, in this life, raised as a devout Christian, he turned his back on the church. We would both do that, and long before that reading and before I had that dream. We both grew up in Christian families and were choirboys together as kids, and we both left the church as adults, choosing a spiritual path instead. Religion was wrong, religion was fake. Our own intuition informed us, though at the time, we didn't know why.

We carried the same trauma, wrought by the Church long ago.

I've had other dreams, too. I believe everyone has them -- glimpses, flashes, of events from previous lives. Have you ever dreamt of somebody that, in the dream, you seemed to know very well? You may even have strong feelings for them, but on waking, you cannot place them; it's no one you've ever met in your life.

Not in this life you haven't. This is confirmation of a previous life.

[JackMcThorn]

This is a very interesting thread. While I have not dreamed of actually dying; I have had some weird dreams where just before getting hurt by something, I would wake up in a cold sweat. These dreams and sometimes nightmares were of the problem solving kind and if I was about to get hurt, it was a failure on my part to solve the problem. I have written about some of these several years ago on the PA site in other threads. My lucid dreaming state seems to continue, but I make more of an effort to forget, than to remember.

[Victoria]

Mark,

That is profound. Very glad you are together again in this life.

I love what you have written and how you spelled the process out so carefully. Thank you. I understand now...and I'm actually printing out what you wrote to keep in my office as a reminder, to consider it when things are quieter...to remember more clearly.

Yes, there have been many dreams where I am repeatedly with a team of people. Not one person, just a team. We have each other's backs through some very bizarre and dangerous scenarios that seem like different worlds, completely, but they are the same people. Our lives seem always at stake. I cannot place them in this life at all. I never see their faces, but I hear their voices which are more familiar than my own family here. I am absolutely strengthened and feel at home when with them in those dreams, no matter what insane thing is happening...it's like my heart is with them... wherever they are. I have always rationalized that can't be from me...that must be someone else's life I am peering into and then wondered who they are and where they are and are they feeling it at the same time.

Sounds silly, but sometimes, when I look at the stars, or out across the ocean, only at night- faced by the dark expanse, I can't keep from crying as though missing someone across that darkness, "out there"...the imprint (?) of whoever they are being WAY beyond and I honestly wonder if stars falling are not remnants of some war that we've all been taught to look up and wish upon:stars: ...good grief. Typing this is bringing tears. okay..well...gee..

...you must have helped have touched on something.:sun: Thank you, Mark.

[Russian Bear]

https://sun9-56.userapi.com/impg/LH8J6e7AuIcATUQSfj5dQkYtjNeFu3OfMxJgRw/pe6DuDssF-0.jpg?size=650x831&quality=95&sign=bcad6c2ce5a884b2c90e25d382c3c739&c_uniq_tag=-aj1MxGUH3xE8n3HG4HDN4DWi53X8FlS4hCyW12u6bM&type=album

I can only say what the Orthodox Church teaches us. Let me share this.

You need to have the chastity of the Old Testament Joseph and the purity of the New Testament Joseph to dare to discuss the meaning of dreams.

If a dream is obsessively “standing before your eyes,” you must immediately switch your attention from it to prayer.

Should we believe dreams?
Answers from pastors
The Holy Scriptures often tell us how God reveals His will through dreams. And there are stories about this in the lives of the saints. So each of us can easily remember how he or his loved ones had a “prophetic” dream, or even more than one. How should we treat such phenomena? Should we trust what we see in a dream? Pastors of the Russian Church explain.

Archpriest Igor Shumilov:

– It is not that often that the Lord reveals His will through dreams. And these are always events of extraordinary importance, and not ordinary at all. And the people who receive such revelations are also not quite ordinary. In addition, this is more typical of the Old Testament times.

The attitude towards dreams should be extremely cautious. The patristic tradition teaches this. Without spiritual reasoning, and for this you need to have a highly spiritual life, it is very dangerous to trust dreams.

Priest Peter Guryanov:

– The Holy Fathers said this: "Do not reject and do not accept!" Wake up, wash yourself, go to work and do not pay special attention to sleep. But those who are too carried away by dreams are in great danger, because through dreams the devil can begin to control a person if he sees that this person has some kind of addiction. The devil will start showing certain images, and the result may be spiritual death. Therefore, believing in dreams is a very dangerous thing.

It happens that saints appear to people in dreams, even the Lord Himself! If the dream is from God, then He will find a way to explain the essence to a person.

YOU NEED TO TRUST GOD MORE THAN DREAMS!!!

Priest Dmitry Shishkin:

– The Holy Fathers say that a dream is a complex phenomenon from a spiritual point of view. That is, a dream can be both divinely revealed and a consequence of the natural work of a person’s mind and heart, but it can also be suggested by demons, who, as we remember, strive to take on the “appearance of a bright angel,” that is, they try to seduce a person with this or that appearance of good, and in a dream it is especially convenient for them to do this, because a person controls his reactions in a dream to a lesser extent than in reality.

So it is difficult for an ordinary person, not experienced and not “honed” by an ascetic and sober spiritual life, to recognize the origin and even more so the meaning of his dreams. Therefore, many holy fathers advise not to attach any significance to dreams, not to understand them, not to “dig into” them. And if upon awakening it becomes clear that some dream is obsessively “standing before your eyes”, then you must immediately switch your attention from it to even a short but attentive prayer, turn entirely to the Lord, and, as a rule, after a few minutes this dream is either completely forgotten or leaves a weak and insignificant trace in the soul.

In general, both in relation to “spiritual visions” and in relation to “spiritual dreams”, the well-known monastic formula is relevant: “do not accept and do not reject”. And even if the dream really was inspired from above, but we wisely and humbly refrain from believing it, but also do not dare to reject it as delusion, then we will not sin by this, but show commendable prudence. And if the Lord really wants to instill this or that thought in a person through a dream, then such a dream, as a rule, is repeated, and the Lord finds an opportunity to convince a person of the truth of this dream vision. This was the case, for example, with the girl Matrona, who found the Kazan icon of the Holy Mother of God in the ashes. And we know many other similar cases from the history of the Church. But these are still exceptions, and a restrained and cautious attitude to dreams can be recognized as a generally accepted norm. We should not forget the simple truth: we are not biblical characters, we are not righteous

Priest Mikhail Gaponenko:

– The Holy Fathers do not recommend believing dreams and making any conclusions based on dreams, because dreams can have various reasons. We must be very wary of dreams that do not remind us of repentance and the coming Last Judgment. Yes, the Lord sometimes reveals His will to a person through a dream. But in this case, the one who received such a revelation, after waking up, as a rule, has no questions: to believe or not to believe? Is this dream from God or not? Everything is extremely obvious and clear.

Priest Svyatoslav Shevchenko:

– The Holy Fathers suggest that Christians be careful about dreams and divide them into three types. The first category includes dreams that are a physiological feature of the brain, that is, these are incoherent pictures without any deep meaning. The second category includes dreams that are the influence of fallen spirits. Their main goal is to catch the viewer of these dreams in their nets, manipulate them through dreams or plunge them into spiritual delusion. The third category includes dreams-revelations. It is these dreams that the Holy Scripture mostly speaks about. But such dreams are available in most cases to righteous people who have a pure heart and have pleased God in some way. We, sinful people, often have access to the first two categories of dreams, the second of which is fraught with spiritual danger, therefore, in the tradition of Orthodox Christianity there is mistrust of dreams and their various interpretations.

Priest Georgy Merzlikin:

– There is a monastic principle regarding dreams, full of patristic wisdom: “do not accept and do not reject.” Of course, a person’s spiritual life continues in sleep, but you need to have the chastity of the Old Testament Joseph and the purity of the New Testament Joseph to dare to discuss the meaning of dreams. Expect from the night only “weakening of the soul and body” and do not attach any mystical meaning to dreams, because dreams are sometimes just dreams.

Priest Pavel Konkov:

– Dreams are given too much importance in modern society. Many people think that dreams are an echo, if not of a higher “providence,” then at least of intuition or the subconscious. We often hear that after this or that dream, some bright event in life happened, and as confirmation they cite biblical stories about prophetic dreams or fragments from the lives of saints. This is all well and good, of course, but people forget a simple truth: we are not biblical characters. In the Bible, the Lord through a dream (and then very rarely) indicated His will through His messengers. And are we His messengers, prophets or apostles?!

In order for a dream to be truly prophetic, several conditions are necessary: ​​the sanctity of life, a clear command from God and an extraordinary situation. And in those cases when a person is looking for some kind of connection between his dream and a life situation, there is often no sense at all. Even modern ascetics do not believe in all dreams. Example: an angel appeared to a hermit monk in a dream and told him to go deep into the desert and do one thing. The monk woke up and did not go. The next night, the angel appeared to the monk again and told him to go urgently and fulfill his will. The monk ignored this again. And only after the third appearance, when the angel almost tearfully asked him to fulfill the will of God and read the Creed, only after that did the monk go to fulfill that order. But we saw something incomprehensible in a dream and immediately look for some supernatural meaning!

There is no need to complicate your life. A dream is just a dream!

Prepared by novice Nikita Popov

August 17, 2016

https://pravoslavie.ru/96187.html

There is also an article that tells what happens to the soul after death, for every Orthodox Christian this is a serious revelation: https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?129536-Orthodox-teaching-on-the-soul-after-death&p=1664206&viewfull=1#post1664206

[Victoria]

Thank you, Russian Bear. I appreciate the information you've shared and am reading through it.
If the dream is from God, then He will find a way to explain the essence to a person This is something I agree fully with. So many people do not test the source of their dreams, or the voice, or the contact. I have had instances where I was afraid during an experience or in dreams, and even for experiment, I prayed. The experience stopped immediately. In one particular dream when I realized something was twisted, I knelt to pray and heard a voice ask, "What is she doing?" Somebody else answered, "She's doing what the other one did." There was an exasperated frustration in these voices that hadn't been previously present in the dream. Then I woke up.
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JackMcThorn, I have seen some of your older posts and respect that forgetting the dreams serves better. Your experiences sound chilling...and to read them and the extent you had to go to is sobering. You've had intense pressure to gauge and respond in way most people couldn't while both waking and sleeping. I would guess it's with good reason you haven't died in dreams; lives have depended on your constant vigilance and precision during waking/working hours...and that stays with a person.

[JackMcThorn]

This is something I agree fully with. So many people do not test the source of their dreams, or the voice, or the contact. I have had instances where I was afraid during an experience or in dreams, and even for experiment, I prayed. The experience stopped immediately. In one particular dream when I realized something was twisted, I knelt to pray and heard a voice ask, "What is she doing?" Somebody else answered, "She's doing what the other one did." There was an exasperated frustration in these voices that hadn't been previously present in the dream. Then I woke up.
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JackMcThorn, I have seen some of your older posts and respect that forgetting the dreams serves better. Your experiences sound chilling...and to read them and the extent you had to go to is sobering. You've had intense pressure to gauge and respond in way most people couldn't while both waking and sleeping. I would guess it's with good reason you haven't died in dreams; lives have depended on your constant vigilance and precision during waking/working hours...and that stays with a person.

Thank you for your thoughts, indeed. I am glad I jotted down some of this experience; although it doesn't make for easy reading. I should have thought of using spirituality to help counter. After another night of lucid dreaming waking up to a thunder storm about an hour earlier than usual. What I have been doing lately is thinking of a song I like as soon as I wake up and the dream dissipates into the fog.

I mean sometimes I wake-up completely exhausted from the evening when I should be waking up relaxed or well-rested.

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

I am absolutely strengthened and feel at home when with them in those dreams, no matter what insane thing is happening...it's like my heart is with them... wherever they are.

That's wonderful Victoria! I do believe this is your 'soul family' you're remembering here, being those you were created alongside, and have grown alongside, lived alongside, and adventured alongside for countless incarnations. It's not always the case though that we share each of our lives with these intimately connected family members. For some, we have to go our own way. It could be for a specific mission, or just to work on ourselves. Parted for a while, but always together in spirit, and we always reunite in spirit when our life lesson is done.

If you've ever read Michael Newton's Journey of the Soul [thread here (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?3644-Michael-Newton-Past-Life-Therapy-Journey-Between-Lives)] it talks a great deal about soul life on the spirit side, and the relationship we have with our extended soul family. A highly recommended read if you get the chance!

[Victoria]

Thank you, Mark, and for the recommendation. I will begin to read about these soul families. It's a beautiful notion to think there might be more family than what we know here. Perhaps it would explain a good deal about my own material family, too. Seems at least one person in each generation on both sides broke away from familial traditions and norms, feeling strikingly out of place in their birth environment.

I'm still very curious about people's experiences with dreams of death...despite appearing dismal to examine, it feels almost cathartic and important to look at them more closely.

I found another one that had nothing of the same impact in my mind or life as the original post's dream, but did seem to be a direct message which I have yet to decipher:

"1 October 2023:

I am in an empty room, dimly lit with natural light, and a girl with very long black hair and jade green eyes is looking intently at me while standing 5-7 feet away, directly opposite, head tilted slightly down so that her eyes are only partly visible.

She draws a symbol on the floor between us of an approximately 5' x 3' rectangle with an "x" in the middle, while still staring toward me - never breaking her gaze. I am becoming unnerved..she is staring with intent...she's communicating and I'm not comprehending what is happening.

I look at the symbol on the floor, unsure of what it means when she raises her arm from her side slowly to point a gun(?) at me. She fires three shots directly at me and I awaken from the dream."
55111

At the time, I had made a new contact. She was someone from the Findhorn community (which I had never heard of previously), who is very gifted but seemed conflicted and filled with turmoil from possibly negative attachments. With blonde hair and pale blue eyes, she looked nothing like the dark haired girl in the dream, except for being very slight in stature. I wondered if it was her, being expressed in the dream world with intensity, although in reality we were working together quite well on an animal case...

I never did discover what the symbol meant...but felt a bit apprehensive about having been shot directly in my chest/face region like that.

I found this dream while sifting through an old grouping of sketches, photos and dream logs, and thought it to be a slightly different perspective of death. Though the subject is morbid, I'm viewing these instances as lessons, or messages, or information that can be incorporated into a broader understanding during waking hours.

By all means, if anyone else has dreams of their own demise, or of near misses and would like to contribute how they interpreted and felt about it; what they learned afterward, or if the dreams had any impact in their waking life, please do.