Accepting Death

I’m not sure if this question has been asked before, but I was wondering what people’s thoughts were on accepting your death in a dream.

Well, as far as I can remember I’ve fallen off high buildings thrice, had a car tire slam through my windshield, and been hit by a cement mixer twice in one night (man that DC’s a bad driver). In every case, I only have about half a second to recognize my death rushing toward me and react. In most cases, everything goes grey, then black, and usually I wake up.

My brain switches over to a more primitive, animal mode when it happens. I feel different, but in a way that’s difficult to describe. Acceptance is definitely mixed in. There’s also a distinct sensation of having suffered a fatal accident, and you know you can’t survive - a hallmark of a near-death experience… I can imagine from these experiences that actual death will be somewhat similar.

I suspect the same parts of the brain are activated in both waking and dream world versions of this event. That is to say, I’m not surprised about accepting your death in a dream – I’m more interested in why your brain is programmed to accept your death (or experience mystical/religious states, etc.) in general :wink:

ive been eaten my a pack of wolfs, slammed my a giant and killed by a raptor… all those times i wake up just when i get struck… so i cant say i have gotten to the part where i accept my death yet…

I had this one dream before, where the earth was going to explode, and me and my family took a spaceship to mars or something… the thing is, we knew that the landing would be unsuccessful, so I had the choice of staying on earth and dying or going up in space and dying in the landing. I chose crashing into mars.

It was really vivid, I could see the earth coming towards me, and it was like I was counting down the seconds in my mind until the crash. I could see it so clearly… it was so realistic. I was thinking that I don’t want to die, and I was thinking “this is the end” and all kinds of thoughts were rushing through my head… I was thinking that maybe I should have stayed on earth and died there instead, but it was too late, and finally I was just thinking “I’m going to die now” like a millisecond before the spaceship hit mars. Then I guess I must have woken up or I must have passed on to a different dream.

That dream really had an impact on me though, because after that I started thinking a lot about death, and how it’s all inevitable. I don’t know why, before that I always felt immortal and invunerable, but now I think that it’s important to deal with the fact that you’re going to die, before you die. You have to prepare mentally for it. Instead of thinking “if I die” like I used to, I now think “when I die”. Just hope I get a long life before I die…
I still need to go skydiving, that’s the one thing that I absolutely want to do. I refuse to die without having known what skydiving feels like.

i wanna sky dive to :content:

I’ve died a few times in dreams and I’ve always felt accepting of it for some reason. And then I wake up :tongue:

i once died in a dream and spent the entire dream (as a floating soal) searching for my body so i can get back into it and live again.
But we are definitely more accepting of the unusual in our dreams than if it’s IRL. Perhaps at some deep level we know that it’s not true.

I’ve died many times in my dreams, but this one time I like got crushed but I didnt instantly die, but I didn’t feel pain either. And I thought “well, I’m gonna die now. It doesn’t hurt, I wish I could have done some things in my life but I don’t mind going now, it’s so peaceful”

While I thought those things I was surrounded by black, I couldn’t feel my body or sense anything. I was alone with my thoughts but I felt good, like totally calm. I was just waiting what would happen and I slipped to nothingness but my mind couldn’t comprehend it and I woke up.

Well, so far I haven’t died in a dream. I was already dead in one, but that kind of took away the anticipatory issue, lol. :razz: Generally, though, I don’t want to die and that’s no different in my dreams.

Shikihe, that sounds like what someone would go through during the real thing. Did it change your view on death at all?

I was thinking about the dream where I accepted my death. I found it interesting because I had been working on accepting my emotions IRL, and it felt like the same experience in the dream. Maybe I was accepting the fear I felt at the time. Maybe accepting death means accepting the fear you have of it.

Olesia, powerful dream, man. Wouldn’t that be cool if you could acknowledge your death with out being afraid? It seems like that’s the direction your headed since your not in ‘denial’ anymore.

In a dream I experienced about a week ago I was driving with my dad and my brother as he drove us off a bridge and into a line of trees. I was scared for the first few seconds as the car turned and tumbled but the instant before we hit the tree’s I thought to myself “Well, I suppose this is it” and with that the impact brought me into the void, the darkness. I was still conscious, my thoughts remained, but I no longer had physical existence. Shortly after I woke.

I’ve never actually died in a dream, but there have been a few times when I was sure I was going to, and I was pretty much okay with it. In one, a huge wave was coming at me in the ocean. I just sort of lay down under the water (so it wouldn’t knock me over when it came) and thought, “Well, I guess now I’m going to die. I suppose that’s okay, I would have liked to wait a little longer.” Generally, that’s my usual feeling about death in dreams and, to a lesser extent, IRL.

Sometimes, if the dream is becoming particularily stressful or tiresome, I chose to let myself die because in the back of my head I know it’s worth it. Usually my “back of the head” feeling turns out to be horrible wrong, but ah well :tongue:

Same with me - that and paragliding. I want to paraglide pretty soon, though. Skydiving’s still a little scary :grin:

Usually when I die in my dreams I dont wake up right away. I’ll go through feeling it, to falling to the floor, and then after everything goes black I wake up. There was that one time that after I was killed I stood up again.

But I don’t fight it, its more like I just watch it come. And I always know it is going to happen before it does.

Reading this topic evoked an old forgotten dream, actually. Something about death approaching in some way. I only remember the feeling but it was very much one of acceptance. :om: