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What in the world? When I was very young I had a seemingly healthier view of death. I have memories of consciously thinking to myself in the morning that I may not come back to my bedroom that night. That there was a distinct possibility I would die over the course of the day, and I accepted it. I didn't fear it even though it seemed I often thought about it. I don't know why exactly I felt that way. Perhaps I didn't have as strong of a concept of self, I was detached from it. This attitude progressively shrunk as I got older and death became more of a reality, or at least a fear of it became more real. After my grandfather died when I was in 2 nd grade, I was consumed by fear. Suddenly the world was a much scarier place, and no one could really protect me from it. I no longer could accept the prospect of death. Up until about five years ago, or maybe longer, I would often ask myself the question: Who am I? And as I repeated the question to myself I would sink back away from my identity or my sense of being an individual. My personality and body would suddenly seem foreign, that there was something separate from them. Everything about me would seem much more random including my parents and friends. It's hard to express the sensation itself, especially now that I can no longer return to it. As I recently learned about the three bardos or stages of death from the Tibetan book of the dead, the first struck me as very familiar. This one referred to as ego death, in which you stop thinking of yourself as I, seemed strikingly familiar to this feeling I would often arrive at when I was younger. I think the bewilderment that most characterized the sensation I felt when I repeatedly asked myself who I was, implied perhaps a connection to this idea of ego death. Not complete ego death, but a sort of halfway point. I know now that it was a kind of meditation that I found myself engaging in when I repeatedly asked myself that question over and over again. It wasn't so much the question, but the focus required to really ask it. I can't regain that focus anymore, I am too closely tied to my individual self and all it's trappings to really step away from my consciousness. This is all the more frustrating given that I have never been more at a loss for who I really am than now. I recently had a dream in which I was dying of a terminal disease. The sense of dread that I often felt in dreams where I was dying was present, but much different. Many of my dreams involve natural disasters, and most recently the onslaught of zombies. But this one was different. It was very slow and detailed. I remember being diagnosed in this dream with a disease and after leaving the doctor's office being forced to go along with my mom to the mall. So here I was dying, and my mom was making me wait for her to finish looking at the new arrivals at Dillards. I began to feel myself fade here, like my death was approaching, and my mom frantically lead me to a line that appeared to be going into a bathroom. In my weakened state she fought for a place in the line for me as I merely watched, aware of my approaching demise. Then it seemed I was in line, going into a kind of chamber with an airtight door. In the dream I seemed to recognize this as the established place where people go to die. It appeared to be much like an amusement park ride and I strapped myself into one of the chairs. And I remember having the sensation that this was it. That this was where I got off. I remember there being some conversation between everyone in the chamber, and one of them being a celebrity, someone like Ben Stiller, who was looking at his watch like he had somewhere else to be. And that's all I remember from it. It's not the most outlandish dream I've had recently, just one that's really stuck in my head. The casualness of everyone's attitude towards their or someone else's death in this dream was very unsettling. An acceptance, not entirely different from what I felt as a very small child, that death was inevitable and not something to really be afraid of. I once saw my meditative sessions as proof that there was something beyond me and have almost always felt that there was a god. But now when I think of death and life in general, I see the unknown, and find it very unsettling. I need to accept the temporary nature of life and the perhaps the permanence of death, if there is nothing beyond it.

What in the world?

When I was very young I had a seemingly healthier view of death. I have memories of consciously thinking to myself in the morning that I may not come back to my bedroom that night. That there was a distinct possibility I would die over the course of the day, and I accepted it. I didn't fear it even though it seemed I often thought about it. I don't know why exactly I felt that way. Perhaps I didn't have as strong of a concept of self, I was detached from it. This attitude progressively shrunk as I got older and death became more of a reality, or at least a fear of it became more real.

After my grandfather died when I was in 2 nd grade, I was consumed by fear. Suddenly the world was a much scarier place, and no one could really protect me from it. I no longer could accept the prospect of death.

Up until about five years ago, or maybe longer, I would often ask myself the question: Who am I? And as I repeated the question to myself I would sink back away from my identity or my sense of being an individual. My personality and body would suddenly seem foreign, that there was something separate from them. Everything about me would seem much more random including my parents and friends. It's hard to express the sensation itself, especially now that I can no longer return to it. As I recently learned about the three bardos or stages of death from the Tibetan book of the dead, the first struck me as very familiar. This one referred to as ego death, in which you stop thinking of yourself as I, seemed strikingly familiar to this feeling I would often arrive at when I was younger. I think the bewilderment that most characterized the sensation I felt when I repeatedly asked myself who I was, implied perhaps a connection to this idea of ego death. Not complete ego death, but a sort of halfway point.

I know now that it was a kind of meditation that I found myself engaging in when I repeatedly asked myself that question over and over again. It wasn't so much the question, but the focus required to really ask it. I can't regain that focus anymore, I am too closely tied to my individual self and all it's trappings to really step away from my consciousness. This is all the more frustrating given that I have never been more at a loss for who I really am than now.

I recently had a dream in which I was dying of a terminal disease. The sense of dread that I often felt in dreams where I was dying was present, but much different. Many of my dreams involve natural disasters, and most recently the onslaught of zombies. But this one was different. It was very slow and detailed.

I remember being diagnosed in this dream with a disease and after leaving the doctor's office being forced to go along with my mom to the mall. So here I was dying, and my mom was making me wait for her to finish looking at the new arrivals at Dillards. I began to feel myself fade here, like my death was approaching, and my mom frantically lead me to a line that appeared to be going into a bathroom. In my weakened state she fought for a place in the line for me as I merely watched, aware of my approaching demise. Then it seemed I was in line, going into a kind of chamber with an airtight door. In the dream I seemed to recognize this as the established place where people go to die. It appeared to be much like an amusement park ride and I strapped myself into one of the chairs. And I remember having the sensation that this was it. That this was where I got off. I remember there being some conversation between everyone in the chamber, and one of them being a celebrity, someone like Ben Stiller, who was looking at his watch like he had somewhere else to be. And that's all I remember from it.

It's not the most outlandish dream I've had recently, just one that's really stuck in my head. The casualness of everyone's attitude towards their or someone else's death in this dream was very unsettling. An acceptance, not entirely different from what I felt as a very small child, that death was inevitable and not something to really be afraid of. I once saw my meditative sessions as proof that there was something beyond me and have almost always felt that there was a god. But now when I think of death and life in general, I see the unknown, and find it very unsettling. I need to accept the temporary nature of life and the perhaps the permanence of death, if there is nothing beyond it.