Some dreams may elude to one's role in assisting others in their passage between life and death. In my own history, I have, I confess, at times, pooh-poohed people's claims of playing this role. As my own consciousness expanded, however, I came to realized that I played the same role in a dream state.

In the first instance, the dream occurred following my knowledge of a friend's violent and untimely, death. The dream was given on the night after her death, I dream I am called by some imagined others that I have always associated with S. I follow them to a bed. S is being restrained in a bed by them. They say they do not know what to do with her--she is fighting against her restraints, psychotically enraged, and screaming that she is not dead. Her response to being dead, of being no longer of the body, was not uncharacteristic of her way in the world for as long as I had known her. I dismissed this as a fantasy--why on earth would what I imagined were her guides call upon me to deliver the truth and reassure her?

In the seond dream, some months later, I find myself in a space I visit when I meditate. There are thousands of children there, dressed in white, like the people in India. I am frantically running around, feeling responsible for the children, and wondering what I and others with me should do with and about them. Generally, my meditational temple is a space in which I imagine what I call the Council of Seven gather. Although all seven are seldom there all at once, at least one is present to hold the energy of the temple at any time. Most times, the temple is pretty deserted but for the member of the Council holding the energy or a self-professed worldy guru with whom I want to consult, usually about something the self-professed guru has said to which I have taken offence or am trying to get my head around. To find it suddenly overrun with children and me frantic about how to care for them all was extremley disturbing. I awoke that morning to the news of the earthquakes and Tsnami. It would seem the temple I visit is the transitional space between here and the hereafter--a space where people wait to hear to where they have been assigned once their time on earth is done.

The third dream again involved a friend. I took a power nap, something I am wont to do on balmy afternoons, and I found myself in my study with P, someone with whom I had on many occassions discussed the possibilities of shifting dimensions--how it might be possible and what skills would need to be mastered if human beings were to accomplish that. I am talking to a woman with long hair. She reminds me of P because we are discussing how to shift dimensions. I have a terracotta coloured stone in each pocket. She shows me a small figurine with a magenta cloak and black hat that is in her pocket. I recognize the figurine from a painting I created some years before, before I knew P. P seems to be waiting for a third person and is frantically searching the cupboards for a way through. I am trying to tell her that she should simply hold her figurine and think herself there. I try to show her, using my stones, but she continues looking. In her looking, she discovers a pillar. It seems to have ancient script on it, but when I looked more closely, it is simply a pattern of fat figurines dressed in blue cloaks with their heads chopped off. That reminds me of the figure in the same drawing I did, some years before. P died of an aneurism 24 hours before I dreamed of these events. I heard about her death some 72 hours after my dream. And the blue figures--well, like the Gestalt psychologists suggest, sometimes you have to lose your head in order to come to your senses.

        Of course, there is precognitive background to this dream as well. Some weeks previously I dream that two people I know well have died. One's father is weeping, wondering if he will find a church to bury his daughter. I think I hear the name E v T, an unrequited love I knew well when I lived in in the town I find myself in. There is also talk of a Cape Town connection. Having spoken to the one friend's father, I ask him to let me know where and when the funeral is, but my attention is turned to Cape Town. At that point, I awoke. Some weeks later, I heard that a dear friend from whom I had parted rather abruptly had passed on some months before. She lived in the town I found myself in, although she did not go by the name I recalled from the dream. I had also stayed with some mutual friends of hers in Cape Town, and had also departed from them somewhat abruptly. The second friend who would be making the transition between life and death was, of course, P, by virtue of the question about where to hold the memorial service because P, being a committed metaphysician, belonged to no known religious institution.