Dream #2 - The afterlife

A postcard from somewhere in Mexico

It began in a kind of nothingness, and then I was in a lovely meadow being greeted by my dad and my dog, Mr. Otto, from my childhood. In a bit, my mom and others joined us. The whole dream was about being oriented to what life after death was like, being taught the ropes about that.


The main feature was that you could have whatever you wanted by just deciding you wanted it. It was all very pleasant and totally benign. You got to decide how you would appear; most people selected themselves as healthy middle aged adults. But you could change anything you wanted. Hair, eyes, glasses, height, weight, whatever. So most people looked attractive, but most were also not stunningly gorgeous. You could wear whatever you wanted and change it just by changing your mind.

You could own things as you wanted. You could have your house or some house with your things or things you wanted. You could have money, but you didn't need it because you could get things just by deciding to get them. Most people didn't own things because they figured out things were baggage they didn't need. Why have a closet with clothes when you could just decide to be wearing any kind of clothes you wanted at any time?

Wanna go to Paris? Just decide to go.

 You could go to any place or time by any means just by deciding to do that. You could visit the past or the future. You could just be in New York, or you could drive to California, or you could walk to Mars or you could show up at the first Olympic games, or whatever you wanted or could imagine.

You did not experience things like hunger, thirst or fatigue, but you could eat or drink anything you wanted, and you could go sleep in any bed anytime you wanted. Most people used food and drink socially. Someone would decide to get together with friends in a coffee shop, say, and that would happen if the friends also decided to do that.

There were infinite parallel worlds, so you could be in many "places" at the "same time" doing whatever you decided you wanted to do. But really there were no "real" places and there was no time.  You could decide to experience places and time if you wanted, but you didn't have to. You could just "be."

You could learn anything you wanted. You could make any kind of thing or art you wanted. There was lots of art of all kinds around the place. There was also lots of nature of all kinds. You could be in any environment you wanted. Animals could be there if you wanted ... your pets or just animals that you wanted to be there. Plants of all kinds were all over the place.

Your animals on either side of the rainbow bridge
would join you, if you want

One of the key features was that you could do whatever you wanted to do, but you could never compel anyone else to join you. So, you sent and received a series of invitations for any number of things. You invited people to go to a ball game. Someone invited you to join her in Paris. All the invitees might show up at the ball game. You could decline going to Paris.

You could send out requests for help. People could send you requests for help. Most of the time you and others responded positively, but it was always up to the helper to decide what help would actually be given. So, for example, someone on earth could tell you they wanted you to send them money. It was up to you if you did that or not. Most people knew how to be wise about helping.

People who had done or wanted to do bad things could decide to do bad things still, but the key to that was the fact that no one else could be compelled to join in. So, a suicide bomber could ask for the 73 virgins, but no virgin had to actually show up. Mostly the virgins would decline the invitation. Or if they did show up at first, they would decide not to stick around for very long.

If you ever found yourself in a bad place or circumstance by accident, or because you decided to just see what it was like, you could always get out of it instantly just by deciding not to stay. Or to go someplace else instead.

I saw several examples where a person (or maybe a very few people) was wandering around in some sort of place saying that he/she was living in, say, the Islamic state on earth. But the person was always alone. The thing about "the Islamic State," for example, was that every individual's idea of it was different. So people might join you for awhile in your Islamic State, but they would not like your idea of what that meant, so they would leave. You could enforce any rule for living you wanted, but, most of the time there was no one around to enforce things upon. Or the others would go along with it ,and so there was no enforcing to be done.

Generally the people doing bad things all got bored or lonely and decided to try other things instead. That solved that problem. Genius.

You could return to earth if you wanted, but there were rules. If you wanted to do that, you had to do it the whole way. You had to begin as a random fetus, get born, grow up and live out however long your life would be. You would bring along no memories of the after world. You had to relearn everything you needed to learn or that you already knew.

You also had to have a reason why you wanted to go back, and someone or thing had to say your reason was OK. I was told about an example. There was a fellow who figured out in the afterlife about how to make the very best kind of battery ever. He wanted to bring it back to the people on earth. That was OK, except for the living the whole life thing. As a fetus and child he did not know anything about the battery. He needed to learn enough stuff on earth in order to have the tools to "invent" the battery. But by the time he grew up, other people on earth had already figured out the battery thing, so he had to find some other purpose for his new life on earth.

Maybe a lot of art is a gift from those who
have decided to return to give is gifts

On the other hand, there were many kinds of artists who had asked to go back to bring their art work to people. That worked out pretty well because the art could wait for the whole growing up part.

Another kind of rule was that you could not ask to go back in order to be THE individual who would bring about something like "world peace" or "equality for all people." Those endeavors were not allowed to be individual. They had to be accomplished by many many people together. So you could go back to help in the endeavor for world peace, knowing full well that you as an individual would not bring it about by yourself. That had to be enough for you.

And you were not allowed to go back if your intentions were evil. The reasoning was that humans did that just fine on their own and didn't need the extra help, thank you very much.

Most people would begin by trying out all the cool things that you could make happen just by deciding. So you could take care of all those things you never got the chance to do. You would take all the trips you had wanted to take and see all the places you had wanted to see. You could talk with all the people in the past whom you wanted to meet or to see again. You could spend time doing all kinds of things you enjoyed.

Never got enough beach time? No worries.

But eventually people would figure out they didn't need to keep doing those things. Most people ended up going into the realm of pure being. But the two way "radios" to others always operated. So even though you were just hanging around being, you could always decide to go do something and invite others along. And others could always send you requests or invitations for anything, and you would decide to respond or not.

So what does this all mean? First of all, I am clear that this vision is made by me out of my experience, thinking and imagination. There is no TRUTH to be found here. What I dreamt may or may be have anything at all to do with what actually happens after someone dies on earth. All of us just have to wait and find out what that is.

And it is what it is. I see no point in worrying about it, or even thinking much about it. Using the Buddhist principle that the past and the future don't exist, there is only now .... that's a good idea.

But if this were some vision of what will happen after I die, it's not a bad vision at all. The vision tells me a few things. First, the universe is benevolent. Things will be all right in the right way in the end. I will figure it out, and things will be OK.

Next, don't waste time with regrets; I will have an infinite amount of "time" to take care of whatever I don't get a chance to do or whatever I want a "do-over" for. And don't fret over what the people with bad intentions do. The benevolent universe will take care of them just fine.

Then, what I already know, things are not very important. Things are useful on earth and can be pleasant to have and use, but in the end they don't have much of anything to do with anything.

Finally, what is important and what lasts, are relationships with other people. If you want others to join you in doing something nice or fun or pleasant, chances are they will, and you will return the favor. If you want or need help, ask for it and chances are you will receive help .... although the kind of help may not be what you exactly requested. And finally, give help when asked or when you see the need, but learn to be wise about what you actually do.

I can actually go forward and live with all this .... right here on earth.

Enjoy the now. It's a gift.