Last night I had one of my more profound dreams. As dreams are won't to do, the details are already getting fuzzy but the general gist was I was dying and I experienced something akin to a near death experience within my dreamscape. I can't remember the details on what lead to my dream death but I can still recall distinctly the sensation of leaving my corporeal self behind and taking flight into the cosmos and space and eventually starting to merge with all of the space and stars around me.

Accompanying this was the sense of losing my identity I had in my previous life almost entirely and a feeling of concern as I had trouble remembering my wife and loved ones as I started to merge into the oneness of the cosmos as the individual me and others of my previous life all melded into the grand cosmic oneness. It wasn't a feeling of panic, just concern. I didn't quite achieve full ego death but I was close and it was a rather emotional experience at that and has stuck with me strongly throughout the day following.

As far as meanings go, I don't have a clue just yet but I have come to a speculation over the past few years that dreams might be the interface that separates (or connects) the human mind from/to the more infinite dimensions that may hide behind concrete consensus reality (call it spiritual if you want or hyperspace or the astral world... it's all just semantics in the end).

Feel free to comment, speculate, pontificate and or relate to the above my fellow travelers.

i have had a few dreams where i decided to merge with a cosmos , however everytime i would merge with the cosmos i would wake up on my bed within the dream , basically a dream within dream and so on

then again getting up from my bed i realized i was dreaming , yet still i decided to merge with cosmos , however again i would wake up in the dream and on my bed

this happened four times however and everytime i would still wake on my bed within the dream , eventually after the fourth time i got scared and started wondering am i really dead because i was'nt really waking up in reality atall

eventually becoming lucid again and still within the dream i decided to just float around and finally i woke up in reality , this has kept me not wanting to play with dreams eversince

There's some interesting research on the relationship between dreams and NDE's. I myself, in the course of lucid dreams and sleep paralysis have experienced some pretty out-there things, although ego-death was never one of them.

Generally, when I lucid dream I just hang out, fly around, and maybe have sex with someone I wouldn't ordinarily get to in waking life. Things only get weird when you're transitioning from a lucid dream to waking consciousness.

All the best
~ND

Yes, the dream state is a weird place, that's for sure. And I have had some of the most meaningful experiences of my life through dreams.

One of them was where Miles Davis was my dad (yes, it is a dream after all) and on his deathbed. He played one long last note on his trumpet as he was dying and to this day it is the most beautiful, heart wrenching sound I have ever heard in any reality. I woke up completely bawling from the intensity and emotion contained in that one held note and has given me something to search for in my own musical expression.

Another time, and I don't really consider it a dream so much as an OBE (or at least lucid) type experience, was when I was dreaming I was at a friends house at twilight (I almost always dream and it is around twilight/between day/night) and someone expressed to me there was an wild animal on the loose downstairs. I went down cautiously to check and was suddenly in the basement of my childhood house in the dark and these tigers eyes came glowing out of the dark and charged at me. At the point of contact I was ripped out of my body, became fully aware and conscious, and was hurtling at tremendous G-forces through a pitch black void, akin to a high velocity base jump or rollercoaster. I eventually slowed down to a stop to find myself lying in my bed completely befuddled and awake. At no time between the points of when I got ripped out of body/dream and then was lying in my bed awake did I feel like I woke up... It felt more like I was transported from my dream state directly into an interdimensional wormhole/OBE state and then back into regular consciousness.

* A funny post script, when I told my mum about that last dream/OBE, she shook her head and told me that my dad used to tell my nephews not to go in the basement when they were young as there was a tiger in there. I had no knowledge of this story whatsoever. My dad passed away a good few years before I had that dream/OBE experience... weird.

Fascinating my fiend I really think that i must start to look more into lucid dreaming etc. since i usually have a blackout when i go to sleep and only occasionally i actually have or remember a dream. I was watching this video where the guy was explaining just how useful can be if you learn to reprogram your self while lucid dreaming. Any of you think that this is possible or have been able to do it in your own experiences?

Here is a link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1i6A7t6L2g

Fascinating indeed hardboiled, my fellow fiend (not sure if fiend was a typo but I dig nonetheless). Dreams are like free psychedelics every night when you can learn to remember them.

I shall check out that link post haste, cheers!