What Happens After
I can usually remember my dreams, normally nonsensical garbage, but very occasionally I have quite vivid and complicated dreams - the sort with plots, sub-plots and colourful characters, all of which making some kind of logical sense. About five or so years ago, I had a dream a few levels of vividness above the aforementioned complex dreams, that unnerved me to my core, and to this day, it still creeps me out just a little.

Normally, I am at least in some way aware that I am dreaming, quite how, I can't really explain - I just am. In this instance, I had no idea until I awoke, it was that clear. To this day I can remember all the detail, the feelings - everything, just like the memory of watching a brilliant movie, or having read an excellent book. I was on a cruise ship, standing on the deck at the bow of the ship. Below my feet were light-brown wooden slats that made up the deck, around the edge were metal railings painted white about 6/7 foot high (three rows with vertical bars every metre or so). Behind me would be the cabin area, but I never turned around to look at it - I was just aware it was there. The ocean was unnaturally calm - just very fine ripples. No land was visible, and it was getting late in the day. The sky was a beautiful shade of pastel blue, but was still quite bright. The sun was reflected across the silent water.

The reason I was there was to wait for the end of the world. There were some hours yet to go, but it was going to happen. I wasn't feeling upset, regretful or anything else - it was just like that moment you hear someone else’s bad news "oh, I'm so sorry to hear about that!" but inside you really don't connect with it. It's just an abstract concept.

Time passed - there was now an hour to go. A few people were now up on deck, milling about. I did not recognise anyone, and in all honesty, didn't care. The sun was lower in the sky - the day was dwindling and fine wispy clouds were picked out in a pastel pink, all reflected in the still calm sea. It iswas peaceful and wondrous, yet I was feeling somewhat sad - I was going to die.

More time passed; there was now 30 minutes to go. More people had appeared on deck, a few were up on the railings looking out, some were in groups, others, like me, stood on their own. Everyone was silent, maybe contemplating their demise. By now it has really begun to hit home, my life would be over and I started to think of my family - none of whom were there with me. Over the next 20 minutes, I thought not only of my family, but about the things I should have done, the things I should have said, the things I should not have said. Opportunities I had missed and choices I had made. For the first time in a long time, I cried.

Soon, it came to the end. 10 minutes to go, 5 minutes, 30 seconds.

10, 9, 8,

Still silence.

7, 6, 5,

There was no sun, yet the sky was still the same pastel blue,

4, 3, 2,

Resigned to my fate, I stood and watched.

1.

In the distance a flash of unimaginably brilliant white light - the only thing that it could be was some form of nuclear explosion - that is the only explanation I can think of.

Darkness. There was no pain, no heat, no force knocking me down, just an all-consuming darkness. I had no body, I was dead.

No pearly gates, no St Peter at the door like a halo-ed bouncer asking if I'd lead a good life, Nothing.
Now I am not a particularly religious man, in fact not at all. I was brought up as a Catholic, but since my mid-teens seriously doubted that heaven, hell or even God, exists. Still, I am gutted. Throughout my life I've been lied to . There is nothing - when you are dead, that is it. Goodnight, folks, that's all you get. Show's over.

Hmmm. Something clicked. A thought - a nagging little nugget of concern. I struggled to bring it out of the sub-conscious and into my conscious thoughts.

"If I'm dead, and there is nothing, how the hell am I discussing this absurd situation with myself?"

It was like I had dug around in my pocket, produced a key, stuck it in a mysterious lock and found that it fits. Something was about to open. That one thought, that one concept was monumentally important. Suddenly I had the realisation that everyone has to come to that conclusion. That simple notion "I'm still here" is like a pass, a ticket allowing you to move on. I knew that whatever happens "after" was about to be revealed - it was like the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. I was about to understand everything... An immense feeling of wellbeing descended on me - now I was about to learn whatever it was all about....

And that was when my alarm went off. I sat bolt-upright in my bed and yelled out most of the expletives I knew, plus a few I didn't realise I did. I was drenched in sweat, out of breath and was shaking like a leaf. So what the hell was supposed to happen? What was I going to discover?

For the following days I was a bit out of sorts - quite shaken by that dream. I was questioning life, my feelings on death, and what happens after.

A few weeks later, however, I was back to normal, having dismissed it - it was just a dream, that was all. Occasionally I remember it, like now for this QOTW, and how real it seemed, like no other dream I've had before or since, and that still creeps me out just a bit. I would love to know quite how my brain would have dealt with the "what happens after" part of the dream, but I guess one day I'll find out for real, just as we all will.
( theoriginalsteve <this space intentionally left blank>, Fri 8 Apr 2011, 14:36, 12 replies)

Holy shit.
I read this through my clenched teeth. Nice one, have a click for all eternity.
(judgetheobscure used to sweep in butchers' shops., Fri 8 Apr 2011, 14:46, closed)

thanks :D
it was pretty damn freaky at the time, but I can never really call it a nightmare...
( theoriginalsteve <this space intentionally left blank>, Fri 8 Apr 2011, 14:50, closed)

Yeah, very well written
made me want to read on - Nice imagination!
(bROKEN aRROW PUA HVI Master, Fri 8 Apr 2011, 14:50, closed)

cheers!

( theoriginalsteve <this space intentionally left blank>, Fri 8 Apr 2011, 14:50, closed)

It's entirely possible
That the dream ended some time before the alarm. Or, that the entire experience happened in the split second between the alarm making that little clicking noise, and actually sounding.

Someone famously dreamed an entire life, lasting several years, in a period that he was able to conclusively prove was just two hours.*

* Numbers may be wrong, that's from memory
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Fri 8 Apr 2011, 15:17, closed)

Bobby Ewing?

( SteamedCleaner, Fri 8 Apr 2011, 15:23, closed)

You were about to discover...
...that our planet is an electron in a galaxy that is an atom in the milky way that is a molecule that is one of billions in the fluid that makes up the moist gusset juices of Vanessa Feltz.

Luckily your alarm woke you up.
( brown-wings Made with three kinds of butter, Fri 8 Apr 2011, 15:30, closed)

I would have needed years of therapy

( theoriginalsteve <this space intentionally left blank>, Fri 8 Apr 2011, 15:32, closed)

The MIlky Way
is the colloquial name either for our galaxy, or for the bit of it that's visible to the naked eye. Either way, it's not something of which our galaxy is a part.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 8 Apr 2011, 15:58, closed)

Appears to be a few of us on here
who dream of meeting their end at the hands of a bucket of instant sunshine.
( Colonel Boris "...a desperate Buzzfeed imitation...", Fri 8 Apr 2011, 15:34, closed)

The clarity of dreams
I've had a couple of dreams that I couldn't remember when I woke up, but left me with a profound feeling of calm and peacefulness. The feeling was something along the lines of everything having been explained or I'd worked it all out and everything was going to be ok.

How I wished I could remember what that solution was...
(Sir Itchalot has a very self-referential signature, Fri 8 Apr 2011, 17:14, closed)

I've had similar lucid dreams
Most notably where I was onboard a space shuttle that was sent out to an interstellar city that made our comprehension of 'MASSIVE' sky scrapers seem laughable.

As per above when I awoke I was calm and everything in life seemed somewhat irrelevant for a couple of days.

Dreams are acez.
(Galahad is out of his gourd on yellow bentines, Sun 10 Apr 2011, 11:01, closed)