Heaven and Hell

[Septim741]

So, so you think you can tell heaven from hell, blue skies from pain

Can you tell a green field, from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil,

Do you think you can tell?

Pink Floyd- Wish You Were Here

 

This is a true story, and I have not exaggerated anything at all. This is entirely true, not one bit being made up. This dream occurred early this morning.

 

I slept, and as I slept, I dreamed...

 

I was in Africa. At least, that was my first impression. The sky was a dark blue, cloudy and dark, instilling a sense of unease in me. I look around, and I see the barren ground, a light brown color contrasting witht he sky, no plant life anywhere, only thin reeds protruding from the ground, the last remnants of whatever grasses or bushes may have grown. There is a road to the left, and for the first time I notice people around me, brown-skinned people walking around, carrying out wahtever tasks they must do. I do not see where they sleep or stay, only the people themselves.

 

The next thing I see is a silhouette of a man against the horrible sky. He is standing on a large, rocky ridge, the same light brown color, dry and dead. In my mind, I know I am viewing this from a camera. I am a photographer, taking pictures of people in Africa. The camera zooms in, and I see a middle aged man, in bad health and out of shape. I know he is starving like much of the other people I have seen so far.

 

Next, I am again the photographer, and I take a picture of another slihouette, this one more strange and awkward, standing atop another ridge. I zoom in again, and I am shocked at the sight.

 

It is a little girl swinging. A rope or two is draped over a wood beam, and she sits over them, dangling perhaps four feet under the beam. I am taken aback by her, for I have never seen such a beautiful girl before. Her face is simple, and yet it is perfect. It is nothing special, and at the same time, it is the most special thing in the world. She is dark skinned like the rest of the people, and she has black hair dangling down to her chin and above her shoulders, somehow combed and neat. She swings innocently, her face pointed my way and staring at me. I want to take a picture, but the lighting is bad, and I cannot see her face well wnough. I see the sky next, as it is now, and then it was as if somebody hit the fast-forward button, and I see it turn black, and I understand that this dim, dark sky is as light as it gets during the day. Also, there are no stars, as it is always cloudy. I go back to the camera. I am drawn to the girl, and suddenly, I am not looking at it through that camera, but I am there, my view exactly the same as what I saw through the camera.

 

Suddenly, we are sitting on the ground together. I see she is older now, my age, but still very young. The ground is softer now; we are sitting on grass. We talk, and...

 

I'll stop there. That's pretty much all of it. I cut off a piece at the end, but you got all the details you need.

 

Now, there are two ways to look at the dream. The first one is the one I believed during the dream and for the first few minutes afterward. The second is what I believe now.

• 1: I was truly in Africa, taking pictures and enjoying my stay. The dark sky and terrible conditions were part of Africa.
   
  
• 2: I was not in Africa as I had first beleived. I was in Hell. The dark sky, filled with clouds no light or star could penetrate. The people, damned souls trapped in this land of eternal suffering. No plants, no other sign of life or light. I was taking pictures, viewing Hell as it would be for me.
  The girl though, she was not part of Hell. The place where we sat, on the grass, that was my view of Heaven.
  

So, what do you believe. Do you think I just had a rather peculiar dream of "Africa?" Or, instead, do you believe that I saw Heaven and Hell as it would be for me? Was this a dream or a message from God?

 

Gives you something to think about.

[floggingmolly22]

This is a true story, and I have not exaggerated anything at all. This is entirely true, not one bit being made up. This dream occurred early this morning. I slept, and as I slept, I dreamed...

 

I was in Africa. At least, that was my first impression...

 

Interesting dream. If you are religous, (I am) i would advise praying about it. I cannot interpret dreams so i may confuse an ordinary, entertaining dream with a "vision" if you will. It does seem a most unusual dream though. it could well be something more than a simple dream of a horrible/beutiful/weird place as i gather from the description. by the same token it could be just a dream of "Africa"

[ninja_lord666]

God is a myth. Period. 'He' doesn't send messages. However, no one knows what happens when someone dies. I believe that you just cease to exist, but this is one area where I'm more lenient in my adamant non-beliefs. My view on death is that it's whatever you want it to be. If you seriously believe you're going to Heaven when you die, then you'll end up there.

As for this dream, it wasn't Heaven and Hell. A simple look at your most holy of Bibles will tell you it's not. According to the Bible, Hell is such an awful, horrible place that if a living person were to simply view it, they would die. You aren't dead, thus you didn't see Hell.

My diagnosis of your dream is that it's just that. Dreams aren't special. In fact, the only reason you remembered that dream, is because you happened to wake up in the middle of it. That's why we remember dreams. Dreams are just there to give your mind something to think about when you sleep.

Think nothing of it. If you still think it means something, go to a psychiatrist, s/he'll interpret it for you.

[IamBatosai]

I agree with ninja. Though I can discuss it more thoroughly. This is gonna become a religious debate. And I don't want to take part in it as they are banned.

[Dark0ne]

I don't fall under any faith. I believe my dreams can sometimes be a reflection of some of the things that I wish for, or long for, subconciously. Your dream seems a little too vivid for me; I can never explain my dreams; they jump from one place to another in an instant and I often think nothing of it.

 

Amusingly I had a dream last night where I was trying to remember a friend's surname that I had forgotten so I could tell another friend his name. I phoned up a friend and asked him and he just spoke goble-de-gook, since I actually don't know his surname. At that point I woke up; obviously the dream got to a point where my mind could easily see through the dream's facade.

 

I often have quite horrific dreams, probably invoked by the games and films that I watch. I remember at the time of playing Quake 4 I had 2 quite horrific dreams; one involved watching someone's head and limbs being cut off with a buzzsaw in a church (much like the infamous "stroggification" scene in Q4), and another involved stabbing an asian man in the back of the neck with a fork. Through this, I've come to be able to actually wake myself up from most dreams at "hopeless" points; such as zombie dreams where I can't stop the zombies getting to me, etc.

 

Fun fun :)

[Malchik]

I was under the impression that dreams made unconscious (or perhaps subconscious) links between wishes and reality but in such a way to make it difficult to explain them. At best you can try to interpret them. There are many books on the subject. The question is, does logic apply to the dream, even if the logic cannot be understood when you waken, or is the dream without any logic at all?

 

Another thing is that dreams fade rapidly when we waken and it is highly unlikely anyone remembers all of a dream. Whatever you seek to understand almost certainly has great big gaps in it. For this reason it seems to me to be pointless to seek explanation.

 

If you want to see visions of hell. look up the painter of my avatar - Beksinski - on the internet. Seeing several of those paintings full size together in one room (and I was the only visitor at the moment I saw them) certainly gave me nightmares.

[Switch]

Okay, I'm just going to say two things:

 

If you're religious, pray about it. I don't think you're seeing hell or anything but it could be someone's trying to tell you something. ;)

If you're not, analyse it if you like, but otherwise there's probably not much point dwelling on it... if it really bothers you, talk to someone about it.

 

Sometimes dreams just bother you for a while - in 24 hours you might not think it was significant at all.

[Karasuman]

I believe many dreams are your subcon's way of attempting to tell your conscious mind what's wrong with you. Oftentimes they are a coping mechanism, which would explain why many people report having more dreams during traumatic (or about past traumatic) time periods in their lives. I also think there is more to some dreams than mere chance or whim.

 

I once had one where I was part of a group off twelve people commissioned to participate in an experiment which involved a large laboratory room and a giant dog. This dog apparently tore anyone to shreds it did not like. Strangely enough, the other 11 willingly go in one by one and they promptly get slaughtered one by one too. It was very graphic, probably the goriest dream I've ever had. The room was caked with blood and strewn with body parts by the time it was my turn to go in. Even more strange is that after seeing this occur, I happily went in the room too. I was last. The dog apparently liked me because he didn't kill me. So I sat there petting this giant dog in a laboratory room with blood-soaked walls and 11 dismembered corpses.

 

Quite surreal. It was during a rather turbulent time period, and it was suggested to me that the dog represented grief and/or guilt, which as we know can tear a person down quickly. It was also suggested I sat there petting the dog because even though I had evidence all around me of its destructiveness, I chose to ignore it. I'm not the type that convinces easily at all, but that explanation made a whole lot of sense. I'm not saying every dream has some big meaning waiting to be dug up; rather, I simply think there are some dreams that can't (and probably shouldn't) be disregarded.

 

As far as Hell, it doesn't really matter whether it exists. By the time we find out for certain whether it does or does not, it'll be too late for most of us anyways.

[Peregrine]

Now, there are two ways to look at the dream. The first one is the one I believed during the dream and for the first few minutes afterward. The second is what I believe now.

• 1: I was truly in Africa, taking pictures and enjoying my stay. The dark sky and terrible conditions were part of Africa.
   
  
• 2: I was not in Africa as I had first beleived. I was in Hell. The dark sky, filled with clouds no light or star could penetrate. The people, damned souls trapped in this land of eternal suffering. No plants, no other sign of life or light. I was taking pictures, viewing Hell as it would be for me.
  The girl though, she was not part of Hell. The place where we sat, on the grass, that was my view of Heaven.
  

 

Or how about option #3: your brain took a bunch of random images, threw them in a blender, and dumped the result into your dream. It's a bad idea to read too much into dreams, most of the time they're just complete nonsense. Any deep meaning we attach to them is usually arbitrary and completely unrelated to the actual origin of the images. At most, you'll get some vague images/themes (such as scenes from a video game you were playing a lot recently), but that's just because those images/themes have been present in your mind a lot recently, not because your subconscious has some new insight to offer.

 

On the other hand, dreams are far from useless. They're quite useful if you're the artistic type and looking for inspiration. I, and many other people, have used elements of dreams in our art/writing with a lot of success. If the heaven and hell metaphor is one you like, use it for something. It doesn't matter if that wasn't the "true meaning" of the dream, it's just a useful starting point to work from.

 

 

So, what do you believe. Do you think I just had a rather peculiar dream of "Africa?" Or, instead, do you believe that I saw Heaven and Hell as it would be for me? Was this a dream or a message from God

 

See above. I believe that your mind took some random images from the giant pile in your memory, and this time it happened to be the rare combination that was interesting enough to hold your attention, and close enough to waking up that you actually remembered it.

 

As for a message from god, think about it. Why would an omnipotent being communicate in such a vague way, instead of just doing the echoing voice from the heavens thing? Or maybe some nice stone tablets? If some god wanted you to get some message from the dream, why would they leave any doubt in your mind?

 

 

Okay, I'm just going to say two things:

 

If you're religious, pray about it. I don't think you're seeing hell or anything but it could be someone's trying to tell you something. ;)

 

Wrong. Let's think about this for a second. I'll even be nice and assume that there actually is a god capable of sending dream messages and answering prayers.

 

Now then... most people would claim that any being worthy of the title "god" is omnipotent, or at least so unbelievably powerful that the details of a mere dream are a trivial task. Therefore this god is capable of presenting any message he/she/it feels like.

 

Most people would also claim that any being worthy of the title "god" behaves intelligently, and has a purpose for its actions. If this god gave him a specific dream, it did so for a reason. And it did so in vague terms when it had the ability to be perfectly clear and direct. Therefore this god intentionally left it vague, for some reason it didn't want him to get a clear and direct message.

 

Now ask yourself... what are the odds that he, as a mere mortal, can convince this omnipotent deity to change its mind and deviate from its divine plan, just because he says "please"? Even in the best-case scenario where a god actually exists, praying for answers is a pointless act. If he was going to get any, he would already have them.

[poopgoblin]

I've got about two minutes before I have to leave for work, so I'll make this quick.

 

No, I don't think it was from God, Hell sounds much worse than Africa.

 

 

Anyway, I had a dream the other night where I went to a baseball game, after the game, I was outside the stadium talking to some friends. There was a river by us, and I was leaning on the guard rail above it. The rail broke and I fell in. I was fished out and we all had a good laugh. Later I went to the doctors, where I was diagnosed with AIDs from the dirty water.

 

So, was this a sign about something? NO

 

1. I hate baseball.

2. AIDs is transmitted through blood, not dirty water.

 

The point is, messages aren't sent through dreams, and if they are, I haven't heard about them.