One Crazy Dream

There’s a great song on one of Bob Dylan’s earlier albums entitled Talkin’ World War III Blues. The opening lines of the song are, “One time ago a crazy dream came to me. I dreamt I was walkin’ to World War III. Went to the doctor the very next day to see what kind of words he could say. He said it was a bad dream.” It’s probably the most amusing and whimsical song I have ever heard about a World War.

I say all of that to say this; I had one of the strangest dream a few nights ago. I dreamt that I was at some kind of professional conference, and I was standing is a large reception area with a lot of other people. There was nothing too exciting going on at the conference when suddenly, people started rushing to look out large, main window. As I looked, I saw a nuclear explosion in the distance, and there was no time to prepare for what was going to happen. It’s hard to explain what I experienced next, because everything happened in the course of about two seconds. I saw blinding light and fire rushing towards us at an infinite speed. I felt myself flying through the air in the midst of the light and the fire. Then, everything was black, and I knew I was dead. But, I didn’t wake up.

My death happened so quickly that I didn’t even have time to feel fear or sadness. In the midst of the blackness, I remember thinking to myself, “I am dead. I was just killed in a nuclear explosion….but….I am still thinking….” A few seconds later, I woke up.

I’m not really sure what this dream means. I think it’s pretty humorous that my first thought after death was that I was still thinking. I take this as a clear sign that I’ve been reading too much philosophy lately.