When I was 18, I was very suicidal. I was drinking and drugging. I would pull out in front of big trucks and let them just barely miss me. I was reckless and desperate. I would spend hours in bed staring at the ceiling. I hated school, I hated being broke and I hated the idea of getting a job. I had had many jobs already and was not at all looking forward to working for the next 40 or so years. My mother was mean and my father was already going senile. It was a very stressful and depressing time.

One night I had a dream. The dream was that I was a fortyish year old cop in a town of less than 1000 in a tree filled little hick town in the late 50's. I had been a cop there for 20 years or so. I became a cop because I didn't want to be drafted back when WW II had started. I guess cops didn't get drafted back then or something. I had a bit of a gut and rather enjoyed my easy cop life. I was married to an introverted wife and we had a son and daughter both in high school. I grew up in that town and had known my wife since I was a small child.

I had a lot of pride. I had a strong sense of morality. I wanted to treat everyone fairly and I prided myself in never having removed my pistol from the holster. I felt that most of the people of the town respected me, but I did have some issues I was struggling with. For one, the town butcher used to park his delivery truck illegally and I would over look it for the most part because I didn't want him to hate me. I liked to eat meat, and he gave my wife good deals and cuts. I'm sure it was so I would let him slide with his parking. It was not an agreement I had with him, but I "got it". It bothered me quite a bit, due to my sense of morality and fairness, but I didn't want to pay a lot for bad cuts of meat either, and I didn't really want to confront him on the subject either, because he did have a bit of a point, in that it was an unnecessarily long walk if he parked legally and only a minor inconvenience to other motorists, who would sometimes confront me about his truck, and....well...maybe you had to be there, but I found the whole situation rather annoying. I felt the city should have given him a delivery spot, but I guess the mayor got his meat elsewhere.

One day I got a radio call about this 17 year old kid that was causing trouble again. I had run-ins before with him, and went to his house to take him back to jail or wherever. His house was out in the sticks a bit. There were lots of tall trees on an acre or two of land and an old house where he lived with his alcoholic uncle or grandfather. I had a new rookie partner with me. I had been showing him around for a few weeks already. I had my rookie knock on the front door while I went around back. As soon as I got to the back of the house the kid was standing there, about ten feet away, with a double barreled 12 gauge and shot me in the belly with both barrels before I could even say a word, let alone pull my pistol out.

I fell down on my back immediately on the back porch and he ran off into the woods with the shotgun. I laid there looking up at the treetops and blue sky thinking I was probably going to die right there. My partner came running around the back and stood over me. He moaned and then started to throw up. I'm thinking, "Call an ambulance you idiot!" Well he finally does, but he can't stop being sick and I just laid there waiting for help infuriated by the rookie. I'm surprised it doesn't hurt more. When the ambulance comes, to my surprise they come with a bunch more cops and even the police chief. The paramedics look at me and don't do anything for me. People are just looking at each other and talking. I'm shocked by the lack of help I'm getting. This is when I see a beautiful woman walk to me and stretch out her hand to me. She says, "Take my hand if you want to come with me" (I'm crying as I type this now). I say "Lady, I need a doctor." She said, "The doctors cannot help you. Take my hand if you want to come with me." I'm looking at her and still wondering about the paramedics. What choice did I have? Everyone else was ignoring me. I needed help. I reached for her hand and she easily lifted me up. I looked back at where I had been lying and I was still laying there. I looked back at her and said, "Shit, I'm dead ain't I?" She said, "Do I look dead to you?" I said somewhat shamefully, "No, you certainly don't look dead at all." She said I could stay there or go with her, and that I could always come back. We were still holding hands and I thought it would be best to go with her.

We started to float up in this, what I can only describe as a, gentle rather clear twister like vortex, with her eyes on me and my eyes kinda all over her. She seemed to be humored by my attraction to her. She really was gorgeous. Long flowing hair, slender, soft, warm, angelic, etc. Totally unthreatening.

It maybe took a couple minutes to go up the "twister", and I was still holding her hand when we landed on this cloudy plain. I looked into the distance and started to see maybe a hundred people off in the distance slowly walking towards me. Slowly, I started to recognize them. They came and hugged me or shook my hand. I talked a little to each one of them. I recognized them all, but not necessarily from my life on earth. I recognized them from "different" lives on Earth, and some from places not of this Earth. This went on for an hour or so, and then the lady came to me and said, "How are you doing? Are you alright? The council would like to talk to you. Would you like to meet them?" And I'm thinking, "Council? Oh shit! Judgment day!", but I also thought it was better to go now, while people were still feeling sorry for me, than go later, after the trauma I had gone through had faded a bit. I was looking for some mercy. So I went with her to this rather informal panel of elderly men, maybe five or seven, and stood before them. They said, "Don't be so alarmed, we just want to ask you a few questions." But I stayed on guard and I said "O.K, shoot!" so they were reminded what just happened to me. They asked me, "So, what is it like on Earth?" I wanted to say it was a sinful place, but I thought it smarter to say "Ah, it's pretty crazy down there. There are a lot of really messed up people that need a lot of help." I could see that they were very surprised by my comment and very pleased. The man in the center said "Well, what happened to you down there?" I said, "Didn't you see what happened to me? That damn kid shot me to death!" And their smiles disappeared. He said to me "What do mean by he shot you to death?" I'm a little taken back and I said, "The kid took a 12 gauge shotgun and blasted me with both barrels, and now I'm dead!" A little disappointed, he asked me "So, do you think you are dead?" Now, I knew something was up. I was mad at this kid. He had shot me point blank and ran away leaving me to die, and for what reason? I was not about to give up my anger and lose my deserving mercy from God. I said, "Yes, he killed me, I'm dead and that's why I'm here now." Shaking their heads they asked me another question. "If you are dead...how is it possible that you are talking to us? Do you think WE are dead too?" I retorted, "Well, I guess so. Isn't this the place where dead people go?" They started to look at each other in dismay, and I heard them say to each other "Hey, look at me. Do I look dead to you?" and "No, Bob, you look just fine. Ah, do I look dead to you?" and "No, you're looking o.k. to me too." and they chuckled a little. I was getting pissed, but they had one more question. He asked me, "What do you think should happen to that kid?" I said "He should be punished for killing a police officer in the line of duty". They said "Well, it's been nice talking to you, and we hope to talk to you again soon." I thought, "Cool, I'm out of here." and

I went with the lady out of there.

She took me to another place, and asked me if I wanted to speak with God. Horrified by the thought of facing God, I said, "Maybe later, he must be very busy."

She asked me "What do you want to do now? Do you want to go back to Earth?" I said I was worried about my wife and kids. She asked me if I would like to see how they were doing, and I said "Yes". I took her hand and in seconds I was at my own funeral. It was outdoors in the little central park and there was a big closed coffin, and I was wondering how all this could be happening already. She told me that time was an illusion and that we could go anywhere in time.

I looked at the coffin again, and saw my wife kneeling at the coffin balling her eyes out. Immediately I was devastated. She was so sad for me. I could "hear" her thoughts. She was truly sorry for me and not so much for herself or the kids. I could hear her thinking how brave I was and how she always knew something like might happen because I was too brave and proud to pull my pistol out. I was shocked because I had always thought that she looked down on me and didn't have confidence in me. Instead I find out she looked up to me because she saw I was a brave and true cop. I started to scream at her that I was right here. "I'm alright. I'm right here! I'm fine! Don't worry!" but she could not hear me. I looked at the lady (my guide) and said "Why can't she hear me?" My guide said, "Because she is listening with her flesh, and you are but speaking with your Spirit. The flesh is weak and cannot hear Spirit". I was devastated, but my guide said she would be alright. The state made sure the families of slain police officers were well taken care of... financial wise. I heard my children thinking that they were kinda happy I was killed, because they could now go to college instead of being stuck in that small town. I could hear the rookie cops thinking I was always an old fool who should have been more careful. I had thought those rookies looked up to me. I guess I really was a fool. I heard the chief's thoughts too. He never seemed to like me, but he was actually impressed that I was always a true blue cop. I was just as shocked by everyone else in the town. Their thoughts were shocking. I wondered how I could hear everyone's thoughts. My guide looked at me, and without talking, she telepathically told me that the Spirit hears everything.

We left my funeral and went back to...who knows...outer space like. She held my hand and we floated there for awhile. I was shook up, but not as shook up as I thought I would be. I thought about how I told the council I was dead, and how I tried to tell my wife I was o.k.  I thought a little about my unloving kids. 

My guide asked me where I wanted to go next. I said, "Well, I sure don't want to go back to Earth. What else have you got?" She said that their were all kinds of places to go. Not just Earth, but back to the council, or to go see God, or go see some other worlds, or we could even stay right here. I said "Other worlds? There are more worlds? I'd like to see some other worlds. What have you got?" She said she would take me to the next world that was just one step from Earth towards Heaven to see how I liked it. In an instant we were standing on a grassy area looking around at what looked like the Earth but with a lot fewer buildings. The weather was 73 degrees and sunny. I was told it did not vary very much. There were trees and blue skies. There was an outdoor concert nearby and hundreds were just hanging out on the grassy hillside listening to the bands.

I'm like "So, this looks awful familiar. Is this the same as Earth?" She said "It's a lot like Earth, but it is different too." I said "Well, what's to do? Do they have any arcades here?" (This is weird because if I was in 1958 or so. Why would I be asking about arcades?) She walked me to an arcade place that was empty of people, but full of arcade machines. I walked up to a Pac Man looking machine and asked her for some money. She said "Oh, there's no money in this world. Everything is free". I wondered how this place stayed in business, or even why it was in business. She told me the builders just really liked arcade machines. So I'm looking at this screen, and it's a guy walking down the sidewalk with a flower in his hand. She told me to hand the flower to a person walking the other way. I hit the button and the person got a flower, but now I had two flowers. I handed another flower out and now I had three flowers. I handed three flowers out and now I had six or seven flowers. I said "I don't get it?" She said "To give is to receive. The more you give the more you receive." I said "How do you win this game?" She said, "The concepts of winning and losing are not here in this world." I said "Well then, how do you finish the game?" She said, "You are finished when you don't want to play anymore." It was a rather boring game and I ended up quickly with so many flowers I couldn't see my player anymore for all the flowers. I knew quickly why no one was at this retarded arcade.

We walked out of the arcade and I asked her about where I would live, as in, what kind of house I could have. She said that I could have any house I wanted, but that most people don't live in houses in this world. Most just live in the parks. I'm thinking "Bums?" She showed me that I could build myself a mansion without my hands, but with just my mind. We talked about walls and doors and floors and as I thought about what I wanted, they came to be. Soon I had a rather nice house, and I asked her why more people didn't want a house. Didn't they like to have their own place, and have some privacy? That's when she put her hand through the wall. She explained that I could have a house, but that I couldn't really have any privacy. She showed me how people could walk right into my house no matter how many walls and locks I put up. I asked her, "Well, how do I keep people out of my house?" She said that all I could do was put up signs asking people to not come in. I felt a wall and it seemed solid enough. She said now imagine your hand going through the wall, and sure enough it went through the wall. I said "How come I don't fall through the floor?" She said, "Because you believe you won't".

So I'm a little perturbed again. "Well, isn't there a police force that arrests trespassers?" She said "Well, we have something much like a police force, but instead of punishing people when they act badly, we try to help them." I said, "Why not just throw them in jail?" She said, "Well, if you ask them to, they might stay in jail, but they can always just walk through the walls." "Great!" I said sarcastically.

"Well, how about a family? Who will my parents be? How do I get into this world?" She said sheepishly, "Everyone is your family. God is your Father and you are already here in this world. You don't need to be born into it." I asked about death, and she said, "There is no concept of death here either. You just leave whenever you want to." "Well, what about money?" I asked. She said, "There is no money. Everyone is equal here. There is no real concept of individual possessions here." I said, "You mean to tell me that if I work my ass off, the guy watching TV all day and has no job has the same standard of living as me?" She said "Yup, everyone is equal."

I said, "Well, what about sex? Do they have sex here?" and she said kinda sadly, "There is something like sex here, but it is not with bodies. It is much more a mental engagement, and we feel is far more intimate than sex on Earth" And that did it for me! "Get me out of here!", I said. In an instant I was floating in black space with her again. I asked about other worlds, and she said that if I didn't like that one, I would hate the other ones even more. I asked her if they had another world that did have walls, and she said that there were plans to make another world even more "denser" than Earth, but the actual building was not started yet.

I was furious. I didn't like Earth, and I didn't like the world of sexless, socialist, lawless, familyless, bums in the park, world either.

She asked where I wanted to go now, and in a childish fit I said, "I don't want to go anywhere! This sucks!" So she said she was going to leave me here to think things over, and that she would be back if I needed her, and poof she was gone.

So I'm floating in black space by myself, and I look around, and I don't even have a body anymore. I feel safe for some odd reason, but I'm furious, and I'm bored. I float there for hours holding onto my anger. Once in a long while some stranger stops by and asks me what I'm doing out here. I say, "Earth sucks and so do the other worlds." I ask them where they're headed, and usually I get the, "I'm going back to Earth" line. Once I met someone, and I knew them from like 20 lifetimes ago on Earth, and sure as spit, they were going back to Earth. I think I floated out there for 3 weeks, without a body, while every once in awhile communicating with passing strangers with just telepathy. I couldn't see them or hear them, but still we knew each other's presence and thoughts.

Finally, my guide comes back and says, "We think we found a family for you on Earth. Won't you at least come and look?" Well, I'm bored to tears, and so I agree to look, but warn her she is wasting her time. She says, "Just look. You have no obligation." I think it's another chance to complain, and I do miss her, and so I go with her. I also know black space isn't going anywhere. It'll still be there when I get back. She whisks me away, and suddenly I'm looking at this screen like thing, with another person (the screen operator), and I see an earth and people and stuff. My guide points at the screen and says, "This will be you, this will be your sister and this will be your father. This is where you will live, in California, by the beach. This is where you will be working, you will make a lot of money, and these are some of your many girlfriends you will be having lots of sex with. One drawback is that this will be your mother, she is rather difficult." I was secretly very impressed with the bikini clad tanned bodies I was offered, but I said "What else have you got?" She said "Oh, that's all. If you don't like that I will just take you back to where you've been hanging out. I'm thinking she's got me. Bikini's, money, Southern California Beaches or black space? And I say "Ok, but I don't want to be killed again." She said, "Deal! We will send some angels with you." I'm thinking about those bikinis and I say "Cool, I'll do it", and she asks me, " What do you want to accomplish while you're there. I was thinking about nailing all those suntanned hotties, but I said, "I want to do God's Will." She said "Excellent! It will be done!" and they sat me in this tub like thing, and I went alone down this clear water slide tube, and all of a sudden I'm in a dark and small room. I realize I'm inside my new mother, and it's already time for delivery. I try to make it quick and as painless for my new mom as possible. I come out quickly. The doctor and nurse are there. Everything goes smooth. I get some sleep. The next day I'm eating bottles of delicious milk. A beautiful nurse comes by and straps me to this chair. I think this is weird and she starts cleaning my little penis. I'm thinking "The fun already starts!" She walks away and this man comes in and before I know it, he's cut the little foreskin off me. It hurts like hell and already I don't trust beautiful women anymore.

That's when I woke up from my dream, got out of bed and stared at my bed a few moments, and wondered, "What the f**k did I just dream?" I went down stairs and told my mom that I think I might have remembered being born. I described the quick delivery, the doctor's and nurse's appearances and the way the room looked. The nurse had a big black beehive hairdo. My mom said that it was all exactly like how I described it, and wanted to know if I my dad put me up to this little gag.

I was weird for a week after that dream. There were so many weird messages in it. I think the most important message was that I didn't really want to die. I wanted to be on Earth. I got a job soon afterward, at an aerospace company making good money for the next 21 years. I took up surfing and met a lot of tan women. I got ahead and I got a house with real walls . It was just what I came here for.

Oh and that little thing about doing God's Will. Ya, I,m getting to do that too.

I'm ready for the next world now. I can't wait to just sit in the park and listen to the bands.

I know there is a far greater intimacy with people than just sex. I've experienced the messages I received in the dream. That dream had a hundred, if not more, lessons in it I would learn later in life. I've even had telepathic communications with other people and the Holy Spirit. I know God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, my Guide and my Angels go everywhere with me. I know everyone I meet is my family. I know that after I die, I won't be dead. I know that to give is to receive. I know Karma is real, and not just at the arcades. I know that when people behave badly, that it is wise to help them instead of punish them.

Pretty cool dream. Thirteen years later I came across the book, A Course In Miracles, and became a dedicated student. It was at that time that the Dream came back into my memory and all started to make a lot of sense. I had been an atheist until that point. It took thirteen years for that Dream to make a real impact on me. It confirmed what I was learning in A course In Miracles. The Dream taught so many of the same lessons that it was all just way beyond mere coincidence.

Since becoming a student of ACIM, some 25 years ago, I have lived a very spiritual life. The stories I can tell are endless. We really are living in a matrix. Faith really can move mountains. Everything we see is hinged upon our beliefs about ourselves. And no one is ever alone. Loneliness is the most bizarre experience you can ever have. Relish the moments, because you are experiencing the most impossible moment of your life. 

End