Ideas on Death, Perception and Awareness

Recently there was a tragic death in my family. My soon to be brother-in-law (and good friend of 5 years) suffered a brain anneurysm that basically exploded inside his brain and flooded it with blood. He was 24 years old.

Being one of 3 siblings in an extremely close family, an intense shock tore through the family and quickly set in with a seemingly infinite sadness. Within a few days after his death, several strange coincidences have occured - enough to grab my interest. You see, it is part of my human mind set to initially question these coincidences as mere chance, or to disregard them on account of the fact that this desparate family is looking for answers or meanings in anything they can latch on to. But again, enough events occured to such an enlightening degree that my spirituallity overtook my urge to develop a logical reasoning for these.

One event in particular was a duo of dreams that occured. I do not know these people to be frequent lucid dreamers, or even to be aware of the subject. This is only speculation though, because the subject had never been discussed between us.

The first dream was experienced by the aunt (sister of the mother) of my soon to be brother-in-law (I'll call him B). She recalled to the family that B had been there in a very vivid dream wearing a football jersey. She asked B what he is doing here, and he explained that usually in heaven they don't let you come back down, but they did because everyone was so sad. She asked what heaven was like, and he said it's allright, but they make him play hockey and cook, and they make him go to bed early. That was where the dream ended.

When B's sister, my fiance, heard this recollection, she was immediately intrigued. She knew, but didn't think the aunt would know for any reason, that B hated the sport of hockey, and never liked to cook. He also never wore football jerseys as he really disliked the look of them, and loved to party so rarely, if ever, went to bed early.

A few days later, the girlfriend of one of the best friend's of B was visiting with the grieving family and had had a dream she wished to share. She was not around the family all the time, and had not heard the recollection of the dream by the aunt.

In her dream, B was with her in a very vivid experience. He said to her basically the same thing, that he was able to come back down from heaven because everyone was so sad, but usually this wasn't allowed ot happed. She asked what had happened to him, and he said that he was trying to get his spirit back in his body but couldn't, then he tripped and his grandfather grabbed him. His grandfather had passed away about a year-and-a-half before, and the two of them had always been very close as B was the first grandchild.

What makes me particularally interested in this coincidence is one sleep-related experience I had 5 or 6 years ago. I was in a phase of my youth where I took pain pills quite a bit, mainly because I liked the effects of them. One night while at a house party of a girl I had begun dating, we had access to a lot of vicoden and percocet, among other pain killers. I took several pills that night, way more than I had ever taken before, along with which I was drinking alcohol.
When I went to sleep that night I was in the finished basement of a friend's house, sleeping on the floor with the new girlfriend. I remember that just before I fell asleep, there was a strange glow and slight vibration to everything I could see in the dim light. What seemed like almost immediately after I fell asleep, I entered a state of very vivid conscienceness. In this state all my surroundings were just as they were in waking reality, except the glow and vibration of everything had somewhat intensified. The best way to describe what was happening is that my perception was somewhere above where my body was laying on the ground, like some sort of out of body experience. I (in this out of body type state) was being unwillingly pulled upward and away by some strong force. I was trying with all my energy to pull away from this force, back towards my body. I remember struggling for some time, if I had to guess I would say it was around 5 minutes. I do remember during some periods there was a very intense and unpleasant vibration, similiar to that I sometimes sense when experiencing a sleep paralysis episode. Eventually, I was able to break free of the force then instantly wake up from this sleep episode to find myself quickly sitting up, back in by body. Immediately after, I was very troubled and woke up the girl sleeping next to me. I briefly explained what had happened, she didnt understand but she helped me get back to sleep. Nothing else unusual happened as I then slept through the night.

It was this experience of mine that made me really feel like I understand what was said in the dream where B told the friend that he had been trying to get his spirit back into his body but couldn't, then tripped and was grabbed by his grandfather. I will never forget this very real struggle to bring myself - my conscience and/or my spirit - back into my body. I feel that if I would have given in during the struggle that I would have been grabbed away from my body. I give serious consideration to the idea that this could have been a near-death experience due to the outrageous amount of pain pills I had taken and mixed with alcohol that night.

On a seperate and interesting note, the first time B and I ever met, we had a conversation on out of body experiences. He began with telling me about an experience he had after falling asleep from a night of taking alot of exstacy. He slept at his grandmas house, but had left his body and was moving around the telephone wires outside her house. He said the experience was disturbing enough for him to quit taking the drug. I shared some sleep paraylisis experiences, and we both agreed that this was some sort of subject that could be studied as a science.