This site uses affiliate links to Amazon.com Books for which IANDS can earn an affiliate commission if you click on those links and make purchases through them.
1. Dream and NDEs as Symbolic or Metaphorical Experiences
Both dreams and NDEs often contain symbolic or metaphorical elements that can be subject to interpretation:
(a) Dreams: Dreams are frequently understood as expressions of the subconscious, using symbols and metaphors to reflect emotions, unresolved conflicts, or psychological issues.
(b) NDEs: NDEs, too, often contain symbolic elements, such as tunnels (representing the journey to another realm), life reviews (symbolizing self-reflection), or encounters with deceased loved ones or spiritual beings, which may be seen as metaphors for death and the afterlife.
2. Darlene Holman’s Dream NDE
The following is Darlene Holman’s dream NDE testimony sent to Kevin Williams by email.
I have had the ability to dream like deja-vu in advance since I was 16 years old after a paranormal happening in my life. Before that happened, I did not really believe in God, you could say I kind of believed there was a God along long time ago but that he was not real now. I started seeing things like visions awful things of loved ones doing bad things so I went to my mother and I told her I needed to go to a shrink because I knew this was not normal and I was losing it. Plain and simple, you see, I was still very logical about all this then and I knew this was absolutely nuts.
She told me the next time it happens to say, “In name of Jesus Christ, leave me.” And I am thinking all the while that she is saying this to me, “Thanks a lot, Mom. Here I come to you for help and you tell me something so ridiculous.” I was mad at her for that advice.
Well, it did happen again and I said the words she told me to say and the problem left me for a short while and in my 16 year-old mind I’m thinking, “Wow,” Jesus Christ’s name is a magic word?
After a second time of the magic word working for me, I got to feeling a bit more confident. After all, it had worked twice before and each time I had successively dispelled the problem. So armed with my new magic word I demanded that the vision or thing that was causing these visions to leave me in the name of Jesus Christ, its Lord and master!!!! All at once, I hear this horrid soul piercing growl … not only did I hear it; I felt it!!!!! I know this all sounds kind of weird and it was indeed weird, no doubt about it.
To explain it a bit better, I had terror run through my body and soul at the same time in a split second … I ran. I got as far as the frig when I thought, “If I go in there and tell them (“them” being my family) that something had just growled at me, they are going to put me away. So I started to rationalize it all out: Okay, this is either real or I am crazy. Plain and simple. Sooooo, if this is real then God has to be real. Taking the chance that, just maybe, it was a possibility that he was indeed real too.
I asked Jesus to come in to my heart and show me his reality. At this point I had an encounter of love and peace enter into my body and soul in its highest form.
The next day I started having a whole different kind of dream and I never had any more bad encounters like that one. Thanking God earnestly this time. You could possibly say, “Wow, They are just dreams!” and I was obviously disturbed. Maybe…? But those words cured it and they are not just dreams. The dreams I have now do come true. Not all of my dreams thankfully … but at least 3 or 4 a year. At first this really freaked me out, but I started telling my family and friends about them to which they were convinced that I indeed had lost it .
When they witnessed my dreams happen (though it started freaking them out just as well) my dreams were very ordinary almost dull dreams — normal things — but one or two weeks later the very thing that I had dreamed of happened.
What was more bizarre now was that my family could no longer believe I was losing it. Great for me; but hard on people who believe they have it all figured out. And things like this don’t happen. So they were freaking out about it just a bit as well. I was always sure to tell my family about my dreams because I didn’t want to look like a total “nut job” to the rest of the world. These people in my life know I speak the truth and they are all the proof I need in that area. They have heard me tell them weeks or days ahead of time of things that did indeed happen.
I have had dreams of this nature since I was 16 and, at first, about 7 to 8 a year. Now, not as many. About 3 to 4 a year and even less when I find my life is more stressful. I am now 39 years old.
Now, on to my NDE which was over 5 years ago. (Sorry, but I thought you might need some background on me.)
That’s how I started with my abilities since that time. I have become quite reliant on the Holy Sprit in all things and I try to pray and meditate at least once a day. This is not to say that I do not screw up every day — sometimes twice or more — on all kinds of things. I am very, very human.
In fact, I tend to get corrected a lot. For instance, I am in the remedial program at school (or something). Anyway, in this particular incident of correction, I had some bills I couldn’t pay and I was worried about them. I prayed to God and said, “I need a break. I try very hard. You know that. I can not handle all this. I am doing the best I can. I want out. I am tired of trying to make it.”
I was angry with God while I was saying these things … because there was no question in my mind that he is real, after all of the things I have experienced. (But my understanding as to why we have to go through these things, at times was very much lacking.)
I went to bed and I had this dream. But this dream was extremely different. I felt things in it — physical things. Well, first I felt myself moving like in a vacuum and I saw blackness all around me. Then I saw a light in the distance which I was fast approaching. At first I saw the very edge of the light like a complete cut-off of light and dark. Then I was in the light completely.
I saw this great line of souls — thousands of them — on top of this billowing cloud neither young or old and I thought to myself, “How strange?”
I was also very aware of a new sense of freedom. I felt like I could do anything or go any where with just a thought … I felt weightless the light that was all around me was also a part of me. I could feel it was a part of me. I noticed when I would think of something the light would answer my thoughts like it was talking to me or something. The light was all encompassing in this place. It was alive. The light was knowledge, truth, and love. It was everywhere. It was so white. But a different kind of white and hard to explain because there are no words to explain it. We don’t have any words that can describe this.
I was made aware the light was God. Later I came to understand it was God in his omnipresence … ( I had always put God in the form of a man in my thoughts, so I found this very strange) but when I thought of something, it was answered immediately. Almost at the same time. I could hear everything telepathically but I could also feel the emotions and thoughts of the other spirits around me as well. When I would talk to a spirit I would feel their thoughts as well as hear them. I was kind of in awe about all this and I thought to myself, “Wow! They never told me this stuff in church.” Then it was impressed upon me how religion, and any one certain belief, is not important because all religions have a place and anyone in that religion is on the path of learning which is important for that particular soul. It was as if the answers were the simple and unapproachably known truth.
I could feel it was the truth, as well as know it was the truth. … and I kept feeling like, “Oh, yeah. I forgot about that” like I already knew these things but had forgotten some how.
So I saw these souls and they were waiting for their chance to come to Earth to learn. I felt their desire to come to Earth. It was overwhelming — very powerful — almost like a hunger to the soul. Then I felt everything everyone of them was feeling when they were chosen. It was like winning the lottery, only ten times greater. The elation I felt was the strongest I have ever felt in my life. There is not even a word to describe it. And the soul that was picked was extremely special because it had been chosen.
It was explained to me that not all souls are chosen — precious few — and that not all souls come to Earth. Some stay there and learn. It just takes them a lot longer to learn like that.
So coming to Earth is a great gift — a very special gift. Others come more then once. Some just one time. This was hard for me to digest because being the strong Christian that I was I didn’t believe in that or reincarnation. I had a very strong belief system and that went against everything I believed to be the truth. I was made aware that some things are true whether you believe them or not. I watched and felt everything the soul did from the perspective of the soul chosen to come to Earth.
The chosen soul was brought forth and prepared by two other spirits in white robes. I think they were angels but I did not see any wings. Then the chosen soul was brought before God and had to take a vow not to remember anything. Then it passed through this gray misty looking curtain thing. It looked like mist falling down. I thought to myself, “Why does he have to forget about all this?” God answered my thought and stated that, “The soul could learn more effectively and faster and that this is the most and only important reason for us coming to Earth — either learning or teaching — and most times both — and all the bad things we go through here are either for our own learning or someone else’s.
Then all of the sudden I was transported to this dark city street. All around me was a city like here on Earth such as New York or a big city of that nature. I was standing on the city block. It was all dark looking — like night time with a full moon out. Then God asked me, “What do you see?” I looked and I saw a homeless man laying on the street slightly setting up against the building. Then, one at a time, there were three people that passed by him walking on the side walk he was laying on. — a lady and two men.
When the first man walked by I felt everything he was feeling and I could hear what he was thinking in my own head like it was my own thoughts and feelings. He was disgusted by the homeless man. He hated the degeneration of society. It sickened him and he felt like that person should get a job.
The next person to walk by was a woman. As it was with the man, I felt all of the emotions and could hear the thoughts she was thinking like they were my own thoughts. She was afraid and scared that the homeless man would hurt or rob her.
The last was a man who walked by and was angry at the homeless man because he owned property in the area and he felt that these low lifes were making his property values go down.
Then God said to me, “Now I am going to show you the truth of it.” I turned and watched the homeless man and all of a sudden from the top of his forehead to the middle of him he began to split apart revealing a huge, beautiful, brilliant, bright light. His flesh just tore straight down the middle in half and fell away and I saw his spirit as he truly was. I knew who he was by reputation.
He was a huge spirit in heaven “in terms we can better understand” like a celebrity that we would chase after to get their autograph. Everyone in heaven wanted to be like this soul. This was one of God’s finest!!!! and was given this task here on Earth because it took the very best to teach in this manner and to sustain the suffering that went with it.
It was explained to me like this, “How can compassion be taught if there is nothing to feel compassion about? The pain and suffering which happens to us here on Earth is allowed because of its purpose and the importance for learning.
When all the people who walked by this homeless man finally died, they will see this act again in their “life review.” All of us will have a life review. Only this time we will know the truth and feel the emotions and hear the thoughts of these “special spirits” and see ourselves for the truth of who we really are and learn from it … like a report card. We have chosen this path of learning … we are victims and victimizers … sometimes both on this Earthly plain. But in reality, we are all learning or teaching.
It was explained to me that we must believe in consequences (cause and effect) so that we can learn faster and understand more. We needed to believe in the pain, hardship, and suffering to look inside and to understand and choose to love and care for the right reasons and to look for the truth in ourselves and others above all else.
A handicapped person is a very high teacher. People who suffer greatly come down here to teach the rest of us.
Then I was brought back to these green landscapes and Roman type buildings. It was really quite beautiful. Everything was very vibrant. There is not a word to describe it. It was like everything we have here on Earth is a washed-out version of the truth of what it really is.
I was shown things such as who people actually were in heaven. “Not the same as here on Earth mind you.” I was told by these two lady spirits that I should be nicer to my husband and that he actually did not have to come back to Earth. He was just doing me a favor of which they did not go into detail about; but they both were connected to him. I felt their connection one was like that a mother figure and the other was a significant other. They shared deep connections with him in the truth of our real reality which is not what we cling to as reality here.
I saw all he was; but I can’t remember all of it and they told me I would not be allowed to remember it because my learning would suffer if I did.
Then this very important spirit who emulated authority, with a file in his hand, walked up to me.” He was male, heavy-set with a salt and pepper hair and beard, in a grayish white looking robe. I knew it was MY file in his hand. It was strange how this felt familiar to me. And he said, “Come with me.” He took me to this room. It was all white and gray. And I got into trouble and was corrected of (self). He wanted an accounting of my actions. He showed me how I had been worrying to much and how worrying is a selfish emotion and a waste of time. At this point I was actually reliving parts of my life and seeing how he was right about me with the proof right before my eyes no wiggling out of it or blaming it on some one else. This is the “life review “and seeing the truth of me was kind of hard to take a bit. I was very disappointed in myself but not for the things you may imagine. It was for things that I didn’t even realize were an issue at all.
I felt extreme shame for depression and worry — directly connected to my faith. It was explained that joy, love, compassion were holy emotions. Hate, worry, depression and all other negative emotions are selfish emotions. By them being selfish emotions, I feel I need to explain it a bit better. Depressed is when we feel down. Here, it is no big deal because all of us have experienced it.
But in reality, it is an inward thought which has repercussions. You see, we have energy inside of us and some of that energy is projected outwards and gives energy to the world such as joy, love, kindness. Some of that energy is projected inwards, such as hated and sadness, and it can drag us down and others around us if we linger too long in it.
Depression is one of those emotions that hurts us and others. This is a better way to describe what I trying to describe when calling it a selfish emotion.
Then the man in the robe said, “And of all things you are worried, it is about money.” And then he showed me what money was in heaven. It’s nothing at all. It does not exist and it’s not real.
The only thing that is like money up there is the unselfish things we do for others here without praise for ourselves. Then he showed me what I should be doing and all people lucky enough to come to Earth. He raised his arm and a lighting bolt shot out and I became the lighting bolt and in the lighting bolt there were thousands of souls and I was affecting them and they were effecting me — touching me with learning and love — and I was doing the same to them. Right then I woke up and I was standing over my husband kissing him on the forehead.
While I was there, it was impressed to me (when I say “impressed,” to me I mean by feelings, thoughts, and spirits talking to me who conveyed to me this information) that all of us have abilities and gifts of love, kindness, and a hidden purpose of why we are here. And it all concerns learning. When you start to do things for the right reasons and not because you feel someone is watching, but because you actually feel that’s what you want to be, and change the way you think about it to a more positive, loving position of thought, then you will be very happy as a soul when you have your life review as each and every one of us will indeed have.
Ask yourself, “Who would I want my hero to be, to say, or do?” Then try your best to make that change yourself and you change the world around you. That’s the way it works. You have the control knob inside of you to decide how you will react and feel about something. We are responsible for ourselves and our own inner growth to mature our spirits .
When I awoke from this experience everything was crystal clear except the part with the two lady spirits and what they said. I would not be allowed to remember.
I was told other things that did in fact come true which I have choose to remain silent about. I am not sure what I think about religion any more … I guess I feel it’s like “thoughts in a box” — a recipe for control which we create ourselves. I do not denounce religion. I just feel its a teaching tool that can be twisted to be good or bad depending on the person. That is like saying, “Follow me. I know the right way.”
I say, “Find your own way. Seek God first on your own and develop your own relationship with God and don’t follow just anyone down the yellow brick road. Since my NDE, I have experienced other things and I am not afraid of dying. I feel it’s as natural as learning to walk ….
Sincerely, Darlene Holman
P.S.: Could you tell me is there a lot of people who have dreamed an NDE as I have and is the credibility less because it was in dream form? Just wondering a bit.
3. Kevin Williams’ Analysis
a. Dreams as Afterlife Experiences
Experiencing an NDE during a dream is far more credible than having an NDE by any other way other than clinical death in my opinion. The reason is because dreams themselves are actually afterlife experiences (of the “astral” or “soul realms“). NDEs are often afterlife experiences of the “spirit realms“. NDEs that are triggered by meditation, ketamine, extreme stress, extreme gravitational forces, etc.. are all experiences which occur while the brain is in the “conscious awareness” state. But dreams and NDEs occur when the brain is in the “subconscious” or “unconscious” state which is a higher state of awareness.
I have read accounts of NDErs re-experiencing their NDEs over and over again in their dreams causing them to remember more and more of it (bring more of it into their conscious memory). In fact, I had an NDE dream myself briefly. Several years ago, I was having an ordinary dream when in my dream I was killed. The dream then turned into a lucid dream and I saw the tunnel and the light at the end of it and began to be drawn toward it. At that time, because I was lucid and aware that I was no longer dreaming and was suddenly experiencing the NDE tunnel and light, I thought I was finally going “Home” and was ecstatic. But as I got closer to the light, the “dream” ended and I woke up. I was disappointed for a while afterward, but thankful that I had been given just a brief glimpse.
I have never told anyone of this experience because it was so brief and I didn’t want people to think I was “tooting my own horn.” But although it is a very modest experience, I do not dismiss it as probably many people would do (as many do with all dreams in general). I have also experienced many other unusual experiences in my dreams throughout my life (in fact, I consider my entire lifetime of dream experiences as another life in itself, just in the so-called “dream world”) and in many ways I consider my dream life as more real than my physical life. About two years ago, when my deceased mother visited me and my sister in our dreams on the same night just two days after her death, in virtually identical dreams, I forever became a complete “convert” to the Aboriginal concept of “Dreamtime“, which is a very fascinating concept if you ever want to learn from the Aboriginal masters. In so many ways, I prefer my dream life over my physical life, but I know that my spirit life is even more grand than my dream or “soul” life. As a child growing up, I used to have remarkably wonderful dreams and I would wake up bitterly disappointed that it was only a dream and had to continue living in this world (feeding pigs, going to school, doing chores, putting up with my drunk stepfather, etc.) But from my childhood on, I have always considered my dream life as almost a completely different life, as if I was living one life while awake and another life while asleep. For this reason I have always known that my dreams were special experiences and something to try to remember as much as I can and learn from — even before I became a Christian or knew anything about NDEs or even having a high school education.
b. Aboriginal Dreamtime as Afterlife
Traditional Australian societies share the notion that human beings and society were created in a distant time period referred to as The Dreaming or the Dreamtime (considered sacred time). Simultaneously, The Dreaming refers to the realm of the spiritual, which is coextensive with the time of origins (creation). As the name indicates, the Dreaming realm can be reached during dreams. Many of the rituals of aboriginal religion also link the everyday world of human existence with the Dreaming. As one might anticipate, at death the true soul returns to the eternal Dreaming, where it had resided prior to birth. See this website.
Mellen-Thomas Benedict had this wonderful insight concerning dreams and his NDE:
“When I recovered, I was very surprised and yet very awed about what had happened to me. At first all the memory of the trip that I have now was not there. I kept slipping out of this world and kept asking, “Am I alive?” This world seemed more like a dream than that one. Within three days, I was feeling normal again, clearer, yet different than I had ever felt in my life. My memory of the journey came back later … What happens when we dream? We are multi-dimensional beings. We can access that through lucid dreaming. In fact, this universe is God’s dream. One of the things that I saw is that we humans are a speck on a planet that is a speck in a galaxy that is a speck. Those are giant systems out there, and we are in sort of an average system. But human beings are already legendary throughout the cosmos of consciousness. The little bitty human being of Earth/Gaia is legendary. One of the things that we are legendary for is dreaming. We are legendary dreamers. In fact, the whole cosmos has been looking for the meaning of life, the meaning of it all. And it was the little dreamer who came up with the best answer ever. We dreamed it up. So dreams are important.” — Mellen-Thomas Benedict, a near-death experiencer.
“From an endless dream we have come. In an endless dream we are living. To an endless dream we shall return.” – a quote from Kushi.
c. Sleep as Death’s Sister
Everyone has an out-of-body experience when they are in deep sleep and dreaming. Sleep has traditionally been called “death’s sister.” In the Bible and other sacred scriptures, the term “death” and “sleep” are used interchangeably. The Bible is filled with instances of people who are visited in their dreams by heavenly figures to pass on an important message. The Book of Revelation is actually the story of a dream or a series of dream by John the Revelator. The reason we know this is a dream is because dream symbols found in the Book of Revelation can be found in the prophetic dreams of the prophet Daniel in the Book of Daniel. Even without the dream symbolism from Daniel, the fact that the Book of Revelation is filled with symbolism is enough to prove it to be a dream. Dream symbolism is the language of the soul. And dreams are experiences in the afterlife.
In the Bible, Jacob had a dream of a “heavenly ladder” on the Earth that extended into heaven with angels ascending and descending on it which is a good description of the NDE tunnel:
“And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the Earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.” (Genesis 28:12)
d. Experts on Dreams and Death
Carl Jung, MD, who was the founder of analytical psychology and dream research, was inspired tremendously by his own near-death experience. It is evident that Jung’s experience with symbolism in his NDE was very influential in his formulation of his theory of dreams. There are many reports of people having near-death experiences and contact with the Other Side through dreams. Besides the Biblical account just given, one of the most well-known cases in dream research is that of Claire Sylvia. Through a series of prophetic dreams, she correctly predicted events that would actually occur to her in the future concerning her heart-lung transplant and the donor. After her transplant, she would have dreams of a young man whom she understood to be her donor. She was able to describe him to a “T” and even receive his name from her dreams. Eventually, she tract the man’s family down and confirmed everything she learned in her dreams.
We spend roughly one third of our lifetime asleep, so there must be a very important evolutionary and spiritual reason for it. Dreams are our connection to where we came from and where we will return. It is where our higher self (spirit) can communicate with our subconscious mind (soul) in the language of dream symbols which the soul can understand even though the conscious mind may not.
NDEs do not occur only to dying dysfunctional brains. As Dr. Melvin Morse wrote, the Journal of the Swiss Alpine Club, in the late 1800s, reported 30 first hand accounts of mountain climbers who fell from great heights and lived. The climbers reported being out of their physical body, seeing heaven, having life reviews, and even hearing the impact of their bodies hitting the ground. They were not seriously injured.
Yale University Pediatric Cancer specialist Dr. Diane Komp reports that many dying children have near-death experiences, without evidence of brain dysfunction. Their experiences often occurred in dreams, prayers, or visions before death. One boy stated that Jesus had visited him in a big yellow school bus and told him he would die soon. Others heard angels singing or saw halos of light.
The American Journal of Psychiatry, in 1967, reported the experiences of two miners trapped for days in a mine. They were never near death and had adequate food and water. They said that mystical realities opened before them in the tunnels. They also said a third miner who seemed real to them helped them to safety, but disappeared when they were rescued.
4. Darlene Holman’s Response
The Truth is stranger then fiction … One of my mind-blowing dreams was as follows.
I was very close to my husband’s mother. I love her a lot. One morning I dreamt that she had a son that nobody knew about but me. I also knew his name and I watched him die. Her sister would not allow her to go to the funeral or to grieve. She walked out in the sun with me for awhile and returned to the house then got sick. Then she herself died. Then I saw myself laying on the bed and she came to me in spirit form. I asked if her son was with her and she told me yes.
Then I woke up and it was so real I cried all day because of the emotions I experienced at her loss. When my husband returned home from work he kept telling me that it would be alright and that it was just a dream.
Then that night his Mom called. I talked to her and told her about my dream. She got real quiet. Then she told me it was all true. The boy’s cousin was actually their brother and his name was the same as the one I dreamt of. I had never before met this cousin. She said that was why she called us because he was sick in the hospital. She was crying and was really upset so we ended the call. When I got off the phone I told my husband. He couldn’t believe it. He called his Mom back and asked out right about everything I had told him and she told him what she told me.
Four days later his brother died. My husband was angry about all of it; and, not being able to know his brother as a brother before he died, it was hard for him to get over this.
His brother lived in another state and because my mother-in-law’s family had arranged that the child be given to the older sister, I guess they thought that if my mother-in-law went to the funeral, then that would some how take away from the mother who raised him. So my mother-in-law did not get go to go to her own son’s funeral. This sadden her very much and my heart broke for her.
Her brothers and sisters were always very religious with strict regulations on how you get to heaven. My mother-in-law was very religious as well but she was a recovering alcoholic so she didn’t carry the judgments that a lot of religious people do. I loved her very much and she was very kind. We got to see her that summer but she was in poor health. My husband and I didn’t have the money to see her more often and she lived in another state. In April she died. It was just like dream.
5. Kevin Williams’ Response
It appears that you have the gift of prophecy and that you receive them in your dreams. Very interesting indeed.
