Memento mori...

All Saints’ Day and the subsequent All Souls’ Day – the short period cut out from the contemporary life-centred culture when we bring back the memories of the departed ones. We focus on the past, but pass over the thought of what is inevitable for us – one day we’ll also pass away, but this moment is pushed into the distant future by most of people. As in case of all unpleasant thoughts, this one is also driven out of our minds…

For the past seven or eight months I’ve had several dreams of my death. They were usually set in the future. (below my description from the discussion on W-wa Jeziorki blog)

First one: Centre of Warsaw (pedestrian precinct along Centrum Department Stores. I walk slowly and all of the sudden feel the stabbing pain in my chest, somewhere around my heart, the pain knocks me down, I fall over, other passers-by also cringe, a moment later sky starts falling. My explanation - too much reading about the conspiracy theories of doomsday foretold on 21st December 2012 (the Mayan prophecy).

Second: I simply sit behind my desk in the office (I'm no longer a student), again I feel an unexpected pain in my chest, I slump forward on my desk, my co-workers scream something. Possible cause: premature death on heart attack?

Third: summer, sunny day, I mow the lawn in my garden, meanwhile chatting with my neighbour standing behind the fence. Suddenly it's getting totally dark - the big blackout comes, either I'm blinded by something or the sun goes off - impression just like if somebody turned off the light. The engine of the grass mower stops. Neighbour and I still talk to each other trying to comment on the phenomenon. After ten seconds the pain starts penetrating my body, from feet goes up to the heart, then blows me up - I had the feeling of the bomb exploding inside me. Explanation that the blade of mower caught on the extension cord wire doesn't seem plausible(?)

Three dreams had one thing in common - after my the moment I died in my dream I woke up with the real pain in the chest, it eased off after one - two minutes.

These last ones also have another element in common – an apparent dazzling flash I felt in my eyes just before waking up. The feeling resembles a situation when someone puts a camera in front of my eye and snaps, giving off a flash. I think I had two visions when I was crunched by a tree struck by a lightening – it leads me to the next explanation of the flash. Quite often it was accompanied by feeling of sinking into myself…

I still wonder what this all means. As a typically down-to-earth person I approach such things rather sceptically, but what we dream is conditioned on what is hidden is the darkest ends of our mind. It seems such theory is much more convincing than “harbinger” ones. I don’t think those dreams herald an oncoming decease. After all if our fate is written somewhere, we can’t change, so there’s also no need to worry about the future.

Nevertheless a dose of fear creeps up. It’s not the fear of death, rather of the unknown. It doesn’t paralyse my life, actually it doesn’t affect negatively my everyday activities. It causes only two things. Firstly, it doesn’t let me do, what around ninety nine per cent of people do – I can’t take for granted that nothing bad is going to happen. Secondly, it fills me with gratitude for each day which happened without an unfortunate event. I wonder how many other people experience such brainwaves…