Before I dive into the weird dream I had the other night, I just wanted to give a disclaimer: I’m known for having bizarre dreams (my friends have heard some real doozies). So don’t be surprised if I make a “dream” post every once in a while. 

Let’s face it, most people’s dreams are weird and there are various theories as to what dreams even are.

Personally, I tend to think of dreams as the product of a metaphorical slot machine – each time we dream, our brains pull down that lever and spit out a random combination of our memories or thoughts. 

Say you dream of slipping on a banana while Demogorgons are chasing after you and all the while your college friends are standing still watching this happen on the sidelines. In my reductionist analogy, the slot machine would’ve spit out: banana (because you ate a banana right before bed), Stranger Things (because you watched an episode the previous night), and college (because you were reminiscing over your college days) in order to concoct that dream.  

But then you have those dreams that seem to come completely out of left field and for that reason alone are scary. Maybe they stem from some deeper thought or fear you currently have in your life. You know the type — these are the dreams that rock you to your core and you can’t believe they weren’t real when you finally wake up. 

Enter my strange dream. 

~

My immediate family and I were sitting outside on a sunny afternoon in an open grassy area. Other families and kids ran amok around us while we continued with our activity (I think it was a picnic?). 

I instantly noticed how gigantic the sun appeared in the sky, almost as if someone could catapult you straight over to it from Earth. Somehow, despite how close it was, none of us were melting.

When I paid closer attention to the sun, I watched incredulously as something started to envelope it. I remember it being a layer of yellow in a much dimmer shade than the sun itself and my dream self somehow knew what this meant: the sun was burning out. 

That’s when I realized the world was ending.

Before any of us could even process our own deaths, my family and I wound up on what felt like another planet. No one else was there but us, not even a host to greet us and explain where the hell we were. 

I took note of the black and grey atmosphere around us. For whatever reason, everything was in monochrome and dead quiet. The ground was black, and the blackness of outer space was staring us in the face everywhere we looked. Whatever planet we were on had no atmosphere, that’s for sure.

As we started to walk around, we found ourselves in an open area encompassed by several different gateways. Above each of these gateways was a purple luminescent sign in cursive writing, explaining what the gate represented. 

One of them said “Rebirth”, another said “Reincarnate”.  

It was then that I finally understood what this strange place was. It was a “staging area” where you determine how to proceed in the afterlife. 

I remember feeling so overwhelmed in this moment of the dream. On the one hand, I finally got the answers to all those burning questions of what happens when you die and whether the notion of having “past lives” and reincarnation even exist. On the other hand, we all had a major choice on our hands.

If we walked through the “Rebirth” gateway, we got to be born again as a human being. If we walked through the “Reincarnate” gateway, we returned to life as another species. 

The other gateways must not have been great options, because these are the only two I remember and that I debated between in the actual dream.

Somehow, without many words being exchanged, the rest of my family seemed to agree on walking through the “Rebirth” gateway. Naturally, I started to follow after them, but then paused.

“But none of us will remember each other…,” I said, quietly.

No one said anything, and with one last breath, I walked through the gateway with them. My eyes welled up with tears as I grasped that these were my final moments with my family. 

I grabbed their hands as we proceeded down a pitch black corridor. Some kind of mist sprayed at us from both sides and we suddenly found ourselves on a spinning mechanism. As it started to spin faster and faster, none of us were able to hold on to each other’s hands anymore. 

When the spinning stopped, we all ended up in an enclosed room with lights on. Most of the walls were made up of mirrors and the ground was a dark green carpet material, the kind you’d see in a workout room.

This is the part of the dream that got completely random. 

As we walked further into the room, there were uniforms laid out for us – a blue gi and black bottoms. 

I would’ve loved to understand how Jiu Jitsu ties into the whole afterlife plan, but unfortunately, that’s when I woke up.