Gibril and Mika'il visit on a wintery Villette night

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 13:41

Dream 3am February 24, 2005

A strange dream awakes me which leaves me at once frightened and unsettled while it also has a calming logic to its message.

I am changing out of painting work clothes in the café-space kitchen near the front window and though there is a curtain passers-by looking in can see me standing in my underwear. I notice two Arabic or Muslim men looking in. They appear a bit gruff or homeless and also very much like the Moroccan men of Brussels. They appear of no apparent age, neither old nor young. I tell them loudly through the window from where I am standing “un moment”. The look in their eyes gives me a sort of creepy feeling that I was being immodest changing clothes as I unintentionally was there by the door. I suddenly fear they are sinister or extreme religious guys.

Then the sound of a the tumblers in the lock moving even though there is no key in the door becomes very frightening as the men are able to control the lock without a key. I realize this is no ordinary encounter and see that I am no match for these kinds of supernatural fellows. The men enter and after I am properly dressed we sit at the table they on one side and me the other. One of the two – the lesser in stature that seems like an assistant to the older – grabs me but it’s not a grab like on the arm or anything natural – it is more psychic or supernatural. This grasp is more like a horrific vampire embrace. Seeing my situation I decide to just let go and try not to be afraid or fight. When I decide this a peace settles over me. The man says I will die today. Despite the peace a simultaneous fear sets in. A sort of tremendous fear starts from within that feels like I have been thrown into a bottomless pit.

Then we are sitting at the table as if nothing happened. I think of Bart and also think at least I traveled to some extraordinary places like Pakistan and Yemen. I feel guilty over having had such fear and as if the men were reading my mind they ask me why I submitted and surrendered to their intrusion and embrace? Their question was especially important to them regarding my response to when I was told I would die in their hands this day. Without waiting for my answer the older fellow said that my reaction was good. He then showed me something which turned out that even though we were in my kitchen we were also simultaneously on a big ship like an airplane. There was a woman (Tara herself/Mother Earth perhaps) piloting the plane and although I couldn’t see this woman her voice was broadcast like a captain’s voice and she asked the men if they wanted to see the nearby beautiful galactic nebulae. The fellows consented and a side of the kitchen/airplane opened up to reveal the universe outside and the beautiful galaxy we were passing by. Then we approached a cosmic metropolis of some sci-fi like image. (This is all so Astronomy Picture of the Day website meets Jody Foster in the film version of Carl Sagan’s book CONTACT but so what it’s only a dream right)… As I was seeing all this I thought how weird it must be to actually die in a plane crash if all this could happen on an airplane like this was happening in my kitchen. Then I awoke up a bit shocked and I determined to write this out today. If I am going to die today then nothing else much matters if it’s my last day and I figure at least I can leave something in the form of an essay. I made it a point to remember to tell Bart I Love him for the rest of time and the doggies too.

The strange thing is those two guys were rather likeable. I will never see homeless guys or Moroccan men in traditional clothes on the street here the same way again. They seem more like Angels or Gods civil servants from a strange sort of cosmic bureaucracy. The moral of this story is not to fight with the mind. When you know it is your time to go be ready by being willing to surrender. Holding on with the mind will only make a protracted torturous struggle. At the dreams conclusion the Men tell me that they came to test me and found that my soul was willing to let go which is good! They also said that my mind doesn’t want to let go and that my mind tries to hold on which is normal but that life is about learning to let go. Although I awoke feeling very much the fear in my mind from all this I began to think if we only knew what lay on the other side of death then living would be easier and much more honest.