This morning I woke from one of my weirdest dreams. I have had stranger dreams, of flying and teleporting and time traveling and various other unlikely things. But this was … disturbing. And not in a sexy way.

In my dream, I was with friends in the Faith. I am not sure what faith it was, and I can’t remember my friends there after I woke up; they may have been local to the dream. We were by the seashore. From where the dream started there was a short walk down to the actual shore, where there was a small beach in a narrow bay. I was at two minds about going there. The thing was, there was a pretty solid rumor that from there you could go directly to Heaven.

Well, more exactly, you would get a light-body. That is to say, your body would be transformed into a body of pure light and pass on to the other world. While no one had come back from there, many had seen others of the Faith transform into light-bodies and then fade out of this world.

I rather liked living in this world and would prefer to do so for some decades yet. On the other hand, I was not entirely sure of my afterlife if I died, and sooner or later that was going to happen anyway. If I got a light-body, then it was pretty obvious what direction I was headed. And if my friends got one and I did not, well, then it was obviously time for some serious repentance. So I reasoned that overall it was probably best to go with them, but not be the first in line.

And indeed, a while after we arrived at the shore, the first who waded into the water began to glow. We all watched their bodies changing into pure transparent light, rising from the sea and fading from this world. The rest of us began to follow them, and one by one became changed.

But before it was quite my turn, I found it difficult to breathe, and woke up. I cleared my throat and turned over on the side, but immediately returned to the same dream. Except … for a brief heartbeat or two as I descended back into the dreamworld, I saw something else than I had seen while I was there. I saw bodies in the water. The bodies of my friends who had gone first, the ones I had seen changing into a new form while still alive. For a moment I saw them lifeless in the sea. And it occurred to me that what I was seeing was not what was really happening, but what I expected and believed and hoped. Trapped in a narrative we were dying in an illusion, and we did not know any more than we ever had done what would happen after our death.

Then I was back in the dream fully, seeing my friend being transformed into light. I waded deeper into the water. How deep was it really? It was getting harder to breathe again. And once again I woke up, gasping for breath, and once again I returned to the dream. But by now I was aware that I was dreaming, that I was trapped in an illusion, and it occurred to me that if I passed over in the dream, I would also do so in real life. Being in no hurry to test the afterlife for real, I withdrew from the sea, and once that decision was made I woke up.  I stayed half awake until the portal to that particular dream closed, then went back to sleep for a while.

This morning I had a dream I remembered, even though I did not sleep as long as I prefer. Usually I remember my dreams best when I sleep in. Also in this dream I was myself, only younger. Often in my memorable dreams, I am someone else who I have never heard of, and their friends and family are also complete strangers to my waking self. Not always, but very often when the dream is not completely trivial.

In my dream I was in my 20es and living in Kristiansand. And so was the girl that was more or less my best friend for a while during that time. However, in my dream she was already a young adult, not the young teenager she was when I was actually that age; it seems the age difference between us had shrunk to something like 5 years, or at least I hope so. Jacobsen, who was Youth Leader in our Church at the time (both in the dream and in real life) was helping me pick an engagement ring for my upcoming engagement to Old Friend. But the ring he found was very big and colorful and frankly did not look like an engagement ring anywhere in the western world at least.  It seems the Youth Leader had negotiated the engagement (if it wasn’t his idea entirely?) because I realized somewhat belatedly that perhaps I ought to talk to the girl about it before the big party, and hear whether she really was OK with this. Since it was still kind of unofficial, we talked about it very vaguely and generally, but she did not seem to mind. This was when I woke up, highly amused by our dialogue. We were beating around the bush like professionals. Or as we say in Norway: “Like the cat around the hot porridge.”