Waking from the Dream: Reflections on Mortality and the Beyond
Finding peace and happiness in the face of mortality is a profound spiritual and emotional journey. It involves embracing life’s impermanence, finding meaning in the time that remains, and cultivating gratitude, love, and acceptance. Lately, death has been weighing on my mind, as news of friends, a former classmate from elementary and high school, acquaintances, my own mother-in-law, Mama Ludy, and even the children of close friends has surfaced in my consciousness. Public figures, too—people I never knew personally, yet whose passing serves as a reminder of life’s fleeting nature.
I have often shared my thoughts on death with listening friends. To me, it is like waking up from a bad dream.
One night, I dreamt of losing my motorbike. I distinctly remembered parking it near our house, but when I went to ride it, it was gone. My heart pounded—I was all too aware of bike thefts happening in our area. Then I woke up—and immediately realized I had never owned a motorbike. I have a car, but no bike. And that house? We actually live in an apartment. The overwhelming sense of relief in that moment became my perspective-shifting analogy for death.
Perhaps we have dug so deep into the rabbit hole of life that we have convinced ourselves there is no consciousness beyond it. But if life simply ends in decay, why all the fuss about its sacredness? Why did we ever entertain the idea of immortality or eternal life? Why do we honor the dead with elaborate burial rituals instead of just leaving them to decompose where they fall?
Such epiphanies may be our connection to the divine—the mental equivalent of fog clearing to reveal a beautiful landscape, unexpected, enlightening, and unforgettable.
The philosopher-king Marcus Aurelius once said, “It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.” I understand why adrenaline junkies feel most alive when they are inches from losing their lives. The brink of death has a way of illuminating life itself. That’s why I sought the deep.
Last year, I became PADI-certified for open-water diving. As I slowly descended into the abyss, fear gripped me—the uncertainty, the unknown. But the deeper I went, the more my perspective shifted. The ocean, once ominous, became a world teeming with life. The changing colors of the water, the breathtaking beauty—it drew me beyond the ordinary, transcending mere surface encounters. I surrendered to the moment, letting go of fear, trusting that I would rise again. And perhaps, in the great mystery of life and death, the transition is no different.
While there is no definitive answer, intriguing studies suggest that some level of awareness may persist for a short time after clinical death. Perhaps this is the transition from one portal to another. Consider near-death experiences—stories of people traveling through a tunnel of bright light. Fiction? Maybe. But why do neuroscientists continue studying these phenomena?
Whatever answers we seek in this life, maybe—just maybe—we will wake up on the other side and realize that this, too, was only a dream.
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Those who would give light must endure burning.
-Viktor Frankl