If I Die In A Dream Will I In Reality?

The answer to this is no, absolutely not, you will not die if you die in a dream. I can state that with absolute certainty because I have, myself, died in a dream. If I had died in real life I could not be here to tell you the story.

So What Happens If You Die In A Dream?

If you die in a dream you wake up in the morning and you think ‘Well that was a strange dream’ and you consider whether you want to interpret the meaning any further or whether you want to go about your day.

How Do You Know This?

Trigger warning: If you have been in any form of trauma this may not be safe for you to read. Skip to the next section by going back up to the table of contents and clicking on the next header.

I know this because it has happened to me. A few years back – though I don’t remember exactly when now, but probably around 2015-2016 sometime, I was asleep and dreaming. I was dreaming that I was in a bank – I didn’t recognise which one, but I was at the counter when an armed raider came into the bank.

Of course, everyone did as they were told by the raider and no-one got hurt. Somehow, I ended up in a corner of the bank, in a sort of ‘airlock’ (there was air, but it’s the closest description I can think of) with one glass door behind me, and the back office of the bank in front of me, behind another glass door.

I had gone into this area of the bank for protection from the raider because he was, in fact, a terrorist with a bomb strapped to his chest. For any algorithms reading this please understand this is a dream/nightmare that I was having and bears no resemblance to actual reality!

The door behind me was locked, and the door in front of me was locked. The bank staff were certainly not prepared to let me enter the back office, and even should I have wanted to, I could not exit the ‘airlock’ because the door behind was also locked.

At this point I was still calm. I had resigned myself to the fact that death was coming if the terrorist detonated his vest and there was nothing I could do about it. I sat down on the floor, with my knees bent.

I then heard a horrible noise quickly followed by silence. I watched as pieces of glass cut through my body as if it was not there. I saw them enter one side and exit the other. I felt no pain. I felt no emotion. All this took place in slow motion (which I thought at the time was weird).

Once all the glass had finished flying around, I looked into the back office to see if anyone had survived in there. I assumed at this point that I had somehow survived the explosion. I saw a man, sitting comfortably on top of some form of cabinet or safe. It sounds stupid (somehow even more stupid than the ability to survive an explosion) but he was wearing sandals, a white robe/tunic and had long brown hair and a beard. Yes, I do see who it was intended to be…

The man winked at me and nodded in a knowing fashion. He did not speak. But he nodded in the direction behind me and when I looked I saw my own body, strewn across the floor. It wasn’t gory or messy (which I’m sure it would have been in reality) but it was definitely mortally injured.

I had died, in my dream, by explosion. And in my dream, I had become spirit.

When I Woke Up

Shortly after seeing my own body, I awoke. I was still calm. I had no feeling of trauma from the dream – quite the reverse in fact, as I believe it was showing me that there is life after death. My heart rate was normal and I thought, as I wrote above, ‘well that was a strange dream’ – although I did question what it meant for some time.

A few months after that my life up-ended and I moved to a different country. Was it telling me that my life as I knew it was about to end? But a new one would just begin? Maybe. Was it telling me there is life after death? Maybe. Was it telling me that Jesus exists and is looking after me? Maybe.

I can’t fully answer the why’s of it. I just know it happened and I died in my dream but did not die in reality.

But What About People Who Die In Their Sleep?

It is true that many people who die, do so in their sleep. It’s my opinion (having seen more than enough death to last me a lifetime – pun not intended) that this is by far and away the absolute best death possible. The people I have seen who have died in their sleep look peaceful. They generally have no grimace on their face. Their eyes are generally closed, as if they are still asleep.

I hope, when my time comes, that I am afforded the luxury of dying in my sleep.

But as to whether they were dreaming of dying or not, no-one can answer this. Because if the person did dream of dying in their dream, then died while they were asleep and dreaming, they took the secret with them. And if they woke up to tell the story (such as I did) then they clearly didn’t die because of a dream. And at the moment there is no scientific device that can show us what someone is actually dreaming about. We can see brainwave activities and could know if they were dreaming when they died, but not know about what.

But that assumes we could know when someone is going to die and therefore record their brainwaves. It’s irrelevant anyway – because dying in your dream does not mean you die in real life. I’m here, right now, to categorically tell you that 🙂

So Relax!

You can go to sleep knowing that whatever nightmares you may have, they cannot physically harm you. You will not die in reality even if you die in your dream.

However, if you’re having recurrent nightmares, or constantly waking up from dreams just before you die it is possible that something physical is going on such as hypoxia. This can happen if you are undiagnosed as a sleep apnoea patient. If you’re having these sorts of dreams I would highly recommend contacting your doctor and explaining the situation. They may request a sleep study to make sure you’re not suffering from a medical problem that’s manifesting itself in your dream.

Featured Image by Dusty Pedroia from Pixabay