This is my piece for the @jerrybanfield contest, sharing personal stories revolving around supernatural, near-death experiences in this case.

Every now and then I forget how meaningful some of my past dreams have been

I forget that there lies a whole world of understanding through them. I suppose they provide us with much more than understanding, they've guided me, showed a deep layer of myself and possibly the next steps I ought to take given my conscious vision at various times of my life may have been blurred. I sense this type of sharing is essential in opening ourselves to each another and potentially create a language of mystical teaching and healing.

I remember ever so vividly my first symbolic dream at the fledgling age of 20. I had just finished the last pages of Siddhartha, with my head full of wonders, I slowly closed my eyes and drifted into the world of the subconscious.
I slipped into a type of dreamworld that awakens you to a whole new world of understanding and your relation to it. Unveiling my eyes...I looked about me, my hands and fingers fondling around my bedsheets in search of a pen and paper. How will I ever write this twisted stream of dreams into something coherent and translate its value to others...?

Slowly gathering my thoughts, I began reliving this reverie I had just awoken from.
I felt a warm rush weave through my breath, the sealed lids of my eyes were searching for that thick, opaque forest, in the middle of a lost and forgotten patch of land. I wasn't alone, we were supposedly all together, which was precisely the anguish felt in the few of us remaining there. We are not united, half of our brothers and sisters were caught astray, in some mischievous, haunting tale of captivity far away in a ghostly, deserted building. But where was this building...surely it was near by, one could sense the tension and fear oozing from its quarters, straight through this pine and oak forest we were in.

We all felt an impending duty, one to save and reunite what was left of us

Amidst our shared leery footsteps and the snaps of crackling twigs, our eyes searched for sudden strikes, potential assaults by these dreadful creatures. My body felt moist, almost submerged in fear of what might happen but somehow ready to fight, to avenge these demons and rescue my people.
It wasn't long until these animals, these vicious, violent monkeys creeped in our horizon, charging at us with spears and clubs. We were standing our ground, combative and with one unanimous purpose. We fought endlessly, getting closer and closer to the abandoned building. With the number of visible monkeys reduced, we prudently neared the entrance of the said concrete structure.
What I could remember that struck me most was that my biggest fear actually resided in the unknown circumstances of our friends. We knew they were held captive on the top floor of this crudely grey building, but were they alive? Were they tortured, hurt, bleeding? How many awaited us there, ready to do god-knows-what to us!!
I wasn't ready to give up, no matter how twisted my insides felt and how tormenting saving them could be, we needed to avenge them! I tried to fuel my fear with combative forces, with heated anger and resistance to the thought of anything going haywire.
As we entered the building, leaks of screams and drops of cries drizzled the lobby walls, making it hard to breath and swallow our heroic momentum. There was an open elevator, waiting for us to enter. Without wasting more time, we all got in, the doors sealed shut and slowly began climbing, floor after floor.
The tension was unbearable, at any moment now these door would burst open, unveiling gruesome realities of what our friend have been enduring and we had to fight, to wipe all these inhumane inflictions away, all the while staying alive!
Suddenly the elevator stopped, the doors violently sprung open and before our eyes lay the most violent scenes imaginable. Hurled brothers and sisters, punching, an extensive amount of fighting, yelling mixed with howling fury came out of these monstrous monkeys. They immediately noticed and hurried at us with all their might, knowing they possessed an undescribable power over us. I tensed my body, felt helpless, without any measurable tools to fight back I grew dreary of what might happen, what if they won, what if I no longer lived...what if this was the end for me? It certainly felt that way, I felt utterly vulnerable.
I had to chose, right there and then, the course of this journey, possibly entailing my own life.
Without ever being able to understand what happened inside of me, what triggered my next step, I hope writing about it will create some transparency. In a fraction of a second, I felt a wave of warmth pass through my entire body, I felt this weighing anchor of my past, present and future slip away from my fingers, my heart grew light, my mind floated above me and I chose to give in.

I chose to surrender

to this resisting force that kept me combative, kept me fearful and enclosed within myself. I accepted my journey as one that needed to pass through this realm. I shed this suffocating layer of retrain because I felt that resistance mightn't be the ruling force in every storyline.
As I let my hands and arms fall alongside my body, I also allowed myself to feel the lightest I would ever feel. And so it goes, that before my eyes, one of these dreaded creatures lent me their hand, grabbed the entirety of my body and embraced me. As did everyone around me, all embracing each other, holding hands, laughter and joy rose to the surface and permeated the entire space we were in. I felt love, unanimous and incontestable, the kind of love that sets in like no other feeling experienced before. It was as though I had finally tasted love and without retrain allowed it to drip all over me.
We all grabbed each other by the hand, like a big united family and started walking forward, into what magically transformed into a living paradise, warm sand seeped through our toes, breeze brushed through tall, dancing palm trees and an expansive ocean batted its mysterious waves at us. We were safe, encompassed in love itself and together.

At the meager age of 20, this meant the world to me. I have lived this concept of surrendering to the unknown, it was possible and magical. Life showed me the depts of the sensations of love...

choosing the path of least resistance will remain an indispensable teacher

The following dreams touch upon some similar traits but bearing greater complexities.

I have, on multiple occasions, dreamt I died

The first dream of this nature occurred many years a go, where I found myself near a cliff and without exact reasons I fell and my physical body ceased to exist. I felt the fall and my body letting go, allowing for a different 'me' to float above, in some strange unexplored world. What is still haunting me today, or possibly what I haven't managed to decipher is that in every dreamlike experienced death, it was always followed by witnessing the mourning of my loved ones. Without being able to communicate to any of them, I had to simply and maybe forcefully watch them grieve my passing away. Many times I felt like screaming, trying to ease their pain by telling them I was still very much alive.
Secondly, I've experienced one of the most painful losses through one of my dreams. I lived, in a dream state of mind, that my father was no longer amongst us, he had disappeared and was never coming back. Besides these painful associations, I managed to feel the loss of a parent in all its complexities, my body ached, my tears were sourced for an unexplored fountain of emotions, the abyss entanglement of my fears and fragility. Through dreams we can, if we allow teachings to come from their destined sources and pass through us, be binding elements to our conscious and subconscious selves. This is nothing trivial and unheard of, but our internal restrains may block potential insight to filter through us. Sharing is essential in promoting an opening and compassionate ease into accessing these powerful tools.

The last dream I wish to share is a difficult one

Mostly because it touches upon the struggles of love and potential harmful relationships. However, for me it shed light into my state at the moment, it allowed me to live an intense experience in order to understand that I needed to make a decision and implement change.
With similar themes still in place, I found myself in a dream with my partner at the time. In sum, it was a challenging relationship, much confusion and seemingly impossible amalgamation of characters. We were waiting in line, queuing for some event which now only surmounts to a blurred, unimportant mission. As we were waiting, tension and spite was already an instrument upon which our interaction was based. I felt trapped and hanging by some very thin threads. I grabbed a banana from my pocket and started eating it, which irrationally sparked a trait of jealousy in my partner. What if someone was looking at me, eating that banana. Absolutely irrational, unfounded and futile energies built up between us, until things got physical. I had never gotten in any physical arguments before but in this particular dream, it was unleashed. We fought, it got ugly and within minutes I found myself on the ground. With the last bit of air left in my lungs, a foot ran over my face crushing my jaw apart.
And at this precise moment, I detached myself from my body. I was dead.
My soul rose above my inert body, completely perplexed and incredulous. I sensed every single particle of this mysterious occurrence of dying, I sensed the cracked jaw...forever speechless. And looking at myself from above, I could of stayed in that bewilderment for an eternity, I could relive my fractured self ceaselessly, because I had never lived anything like it.
It is possible, you can experience your death and with some magical forces behind you, bring yourself back to life, back to your conscious mind and hopefully learn something indispensable.
I ended that relationship and channeled better suited beings around me.

So learning I did. I learned that my dreams were teachers and gave me tools to take with me outside my dreamworld.
Nothing you experience is insignificant, unless you chose to view it that was. And there lies a potential key to open or close inner doors. The choice is yours.

Love and light,
B