Do you believe in the Dead? Or do you believe the Dead crumble into dust? I’m not talking about the Grateful Dead, I’m talking about what you are when you are no longer living. A deeply religious friend of mine believes there is a “thin veil” between the living and the Dead and you can communicate with those who have passed if you are sensitive enough and aware enough to either peer through the veil or strong enough to fold back a corner of the veil for a clear angle to touch.

When my first book came out a decade ago, I was visited by my maternal grandfather. He died 25 years ago and while I fondly remember him I don’t think of him often. When the UPS man dropped off 25 author’s copies of my book, I, for some reason, took the box and opened it in the bedroom.

With the box on the floor, I stood at the foot of the bed. As I picked up the first shiny copy and tumbled it between my hands, I was curiously overwhelmed by a sense of being really tired. I could not move my arms or my legs.

I was being pressed down onto the bed against my will. My eyelids drooped. I felt my body being formed into the foetal position. I was immobile but alert. I was in the twilight of my mind when a warmth moved through me from my feet to my head. A message vibrated in my body:

“Grandpa is proud of you.”

And that was it.

I slowly came around. I was groggy but definitely touched by something not of this world. I never experienced that kind of feeling before, or since, that day my books were delivered. Was it a dream?

Was it Grandpa?

Was it a misplaced yearning bubbling to the top? Can the Dead send messages to the living?

I believe there was determined effort to make contact between conscious thinking and the collective subconscious but I have no idea how that success was accomplished. I believe the mind is freely able to manipulate time and feeling and initiate and receive messages that may never have form or definition but they always have meaning.

14 Comments

  1. Are you saying the dead are like ghosts? I think ghosts are real I feel them move through me. They come to me. I don’t go to them.

  2. Hi Karmeel —
    Your questions about ghosts and the Dead being the same thing is interesting.
    I always thoughts ghosts were unhappy or out to scare you while the Dead are merely people who used to be living.

  3. I think there are a lot of strange situations in life that one cannot explain. But whether or not its from beyond the veil or from within our own subconscious is a very good question.

  5. I’ve never had such a strong experience as you’ve had, but I have recurring dreams about a close friend of mine. I wrote about them not long ago on my blog.
    In all of the dreams except for the first one, we’re always sitting somewhere talking just like we used to. Sometimes the realization dawns on me that she was gone but now she’s here. Sometimes I wonder why she’s been gone for so long. Sometimes I’m so happy to be talking to her that I wake up.
    I like to think of the dreams as her way of communicating with me.

  7. My answer in a word is a resounding YES! I was visited once by a great-grandfather I never even knew about. I was visiting his grave after finding it while doing genealogy research. It is a long story I won’t relate … but by the end of our encounter, I knew that he had indeed visited me and I have visible proof to satisfy even my atheistic and definitely non-believing husband.
    I believe that the spirits of our beloved dead ones visit us in dreams, in more ‘awake’ ways as you were visited, and by the visits of animals that they send to us as messengers.
    All we have to do is to be more aware and have an open mind. They are there and will come. Just a few nights ago my father came to me in a dream …. and while it WAS a dream … his arms around me, the scent of his after shave cologne, and the warmth of his body were very, VERY real!

  8. Random thoughts of possibilites, and as a spiritual person I’m quick to agree, it was your past grandfather…either that or you had some sort of medical episode and should have a check up! Nicely done, I’ve enjoyed your site.

  9. Carla — Thank you for sharing your story it is really interesting! I have determined, based on the feedback here… that I was not dreaming. I have dreamt of the Dead and spoken with them in the past and I can initiate that at will each night in a process I call “Active Dreaming” that I will soon share in another post. This episode, I now know, was different. This was being placed in a catatonic state to receive a specific message.
    Mama — Thank you for bringing bit of your life here! I am fascinated by this topic and while I believe there are lots of variations on these experiences I also know only a few of us are able to accept them as real and valid. Others, too small-minded and frightened, quickly dismiss the experience ot the subconscious level.
    Laura — Your medical episode wondering is interesting. I’ll have to think back on it and ponder it some…

  10. If I had the time to tell you about my grandmother, you would know about ghosts and angels alike.
    I believe in the dead, I also believe in Angels.
    I believe that contrary to common belief, Satan is not a hideous beast, but possibly the most beautiful creature you could ever lay your eyes on, remember he was the most beautiful angel in heaven before God cast him out.

  12. Hi David, my answer to you is that I have no answer, as I believe that everything is very much a possibility (the word impossible shouldn’t be in the dictionary).
    What it begs is to question what it means to be dead. How do we know that we are alive, and how do we know that dying really isn’t living? While the uncertainties that philosophical thought brings up can be unsettling, the freedom of mind and imagination that it brings is heaven. It also begs the question; what is reality? One of my personal philosophies is that reality is relative and subject to your individual mind and perceptions; what is real for your mind is real for your world and your existence, but not necessarily for anyone else.
    One of the strange things that happens to me on an intermittent basis, is I find that I may dream a scenario which may go for only a second, or for an hour, and days/weeks/months later it will happen exactly the way I dreamt it. I call it prescient deja vu, and it makes me think that science severely under estimates the true potential and power of the mind. I mean look at the placebo effect that can occur in medicine. And so yes, if you believe that it was real, then it was.

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