“I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad. The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had”
Roland Orzabal
This is actually a line from a song called “Mad World” which I heard on the radio the other day and felt summed up a contradiction some might feel but doesn’t really exist.
So here is this person who is worried that he has dreams about dying and enjoys them. A few years back I would be worried to but actually those who teach enlightenment spend a some time talking about death.
Here are two quotes:
“I’ve often said to people that the way to really live is to die. The passport to living is to imagine yourself in your grave … Now look at your problems from that viewpoint. Changes everything, doesn’t it?” – Anthony de Mello
“You will know it [enlightenment] at the latest when you feel death approaching. Death is the stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to die before you die” – Eckhart Tolle
Of course not everyone becomes enlightened just before they die but many do come to a realisation of what is important, what is real and what is illusion (labels, opinions, borders, etc.) – more on this in Understanding illusion and reality.
At that moment they also come to the realisation that if they had understood this many years earlier that would have had a much better life.
We are brought up (conditioned) to believe such thoughts are bad, that the people who think them are weird but enlightenment is all about shaking off that conditioning.
So perhaps it is not strange (funny) or sad if the dreams in which you are dying really are the best you’ve ever had!