Naturally
Senior Member
- Location
- Corner of Walk 'n Don't Walk
I graduated high school in 1971. The military draft was still active and there was a war going on in Vietnam. Two first cousins in the military (Marine Corp / Army) told me it was not a very good time to serve in the military. My dad, a Navy veteran, said, "Son, I will support you in anything you choose to do but please do not join the military."
My parents paid for me to enroll at a state university and I received a 1-H Educational Deferment from the draft board. While "hiding out" in college, I joined / pledged a fraternity. It was my first time living away from home and I partied very hard. Subsequently I found I was failing over half the classes I was enrolled in.
Near the end of the first year at the university and home for a weekend, I met Jan. She was 15 and a cheerleader at a local private school. We hit it off immediately. Jan and I would talk for hours on the phone about anything and everything under the sun and it would seem we had spoken for only minutes. Neither of us ever wanted to end the conversation. Jan was the perfect excuse / reason to get away from the party lifestyle of college, return home and continue my education at the local junior college and trade school where I would eventually receive an Associate Degree in Applied Science and a degree in Drafting and Design Technology.
I had a part time job working for the local TV cable company at night from 5p.m. - 9p.m. In 1972 there were no TV satellites and media transmissions depended on very tall line-of-sight towers with various antenna arrays. I ran Christian TV shows on the local cable channel from a small, windowless, climate controlled, concrete block building at the base of a 525 foot tall tower. A thick metal door the only opening to the concrete building. The tower and small building were located outside of town, well off the road, and in the middle of a cow pasture.
Depending on the length of the televised program, I only had to change a tape every 30 minutes or on the hour. Much of my other time was spent either studying or talking to Jan on the telephone.
One night while talking to Jan on the phone, a huge storm passed through the area. My boss, the chief engineer for the cable company, often watched the 525 foot tower from his home many miles away. A huge storm often meant Gilbert would have to go out on a stormy night after hours to make repairs to the cable systems or equipment located in the concrete building where I worked.
On this particular night, Gilbert and his wife stood in their living room looking toward the tower as what Gilbert would later say was the most massive lightening strike to the tower he had witnessed ever, occurred. He said the lightening strike spread from multiple points across the sky and totally engulfed the huge tower. Gilbert said his wife exclaimed, "Oh my god that boy is dead !!! Get out there Gilbert and check on him !!!" Gilbert hit his front door running so fast and so focused on checking on me, he had forgotten his keys to the heavy metal door on the concrete block building I was in.
The lightening strike traveled throughout the tower and got into the phone line. It not only knocked out phone service, but me as well. I had been talking to Jan on the phone as lightening struck. I wasn't fully aware of the severity of the storm as the concrete block building was windowless and there was equipment noise inside the building that lessened the impact of outside noise.
I slowly and very calmly awoke to Gilbert beating the heavy metal door frantically and as hard as he could. Even driving fast, it had taken Gilbert 10 minutes to drive from his home in town to where I was out in the country. I'd been unconscious the entire time. And Gilbert had been beating on the door for some time before I opened the door, just a bit confused and bewildered. First I wondered why he was there in such a state ... without his keys ... and second, why did I go to sleep talking on the telephone? What was going on?
Just a couple of minutes later, Jan and her mother showed up too. It was absolutely not unusual back then in 1972 for phone service to go out during heavy storms ... almost a given that it would happen during severe storms. Yet, here was Jan. She'd made her mother drive in heavy rain, thunder and lightening, from way across town and miles away to check on me. Jan said, "I just felt something bad. Something wasn't right and I needed to see you."
Physically I felt as though there were an imaginary line going down the center of my head and everything on the left side of my head was tingling intensely. My scalp face and neck on the left side where I'd held the phone receiver was tingling big time. Gilbert insisted I go to the hospital emergency room to get checked out. At the hospital, the doctor could find nothing wrong. My eardrum was good to go. My hearing was not compromised. There was nothing the doctor could find wrong.
The next day, burn streaks in the shape of lightening appeared from ear, down my neck and into my arm, side, chest and back as electricity had reached for ground. Several days later, the skin on my left ear would peel off because electricity had burned it off. I spoke with my parents about suing the cable and phone companies. Mom and dad both were against it since nothing was wrong with me. I had no lasting injuries.
Next time I went out there to work, the head of the local cable company was there, phone company representatives and a lawyer. The phone company had earlier that day, sent a crew to reinstall the entire phone system. They wanted a statement from me as to what happened. The cable company president said anytime a severe storm came through, for me to get out of there and I would still be paid.
Everything returned to normal. Clear skies and beautiful summer days and nights. But, there was one thing that curiously bothered me and there was no one I felt I could talk to about it ... the "dream". It wasn't until some 3 years later that my sister Cathy cornered me, "Bo (nickname for Jimbo) something happened that night and you are going to tell me about it right now!" I don't know what sense of change she felt had occurred in me, but I broke down in tears as I told Cathy about the dream I had while unconscious for 10-12 minutes or so, when I went to sleep while talking on the telephone. Over the many years since, I've shared the dream with a few people and the first couple of times, I wept as I told it. The dream had a very profound affect on me as only a ten ton sledge hammer of electricity to the side of the head and instant death or near death can provide. Back then, I'd never heard any mention or read any account of such an experience. Years later I would learn others had similar experiences.
I feel the vivid experience I had while asleep from the lightening strike was so intense and profound, that it was beyond my human comprehension as to what actually was happening and my mind simply tried as best it could to put into context such a way as I might understand or find reference.
The Dream: The tunnel I found myself in was very completely dark, the blackest of black and I could find no bearing. I felt as though I were moving very fast feet first and in a reclined position. I could not stand. There was nothing below me and I could not touch anything solid on either side nor above. The tunnel I found myself in was vast with no beginning and seemingly no end and while I could find no sides to the tunnel or any sense of anything beyond the tunnel, it felt like a tunnel nonetheless. I was somewhat frantic to find a way out of wherever I was.
After some time of speeding through the tunnel feet first and becoming more frantic to discover a way out, I became aware of the tiniest dim pinpoint of light very far off in the distance ahead. I wasn't even sure about the light ... it was so very small and dim and so very far away. I locked in on the dim pinpoint of light and felt a very sincere need to move toward that light as it seemed the only possible way out of the dark black tunnel. And interestingly, the light very VERY slowly became larger and brighter as I began to calm a bit and ride to the light, thinking this was a way out for sure.
As the light brightened, I saw to my left what appeared to be a silent movie playing on the tunnel "wall". The movie contained scenes from events in my life that I'd not given any thought to when they occurred nor remembered later but felt reviewing those events now, they had had some kind of profound meaning in my life.
Then the light became very bright and I stood still as the light engulfed me. The light was not searingly bright such that I had to shield my eyes, just a very white brightness. I was confused. Well, I'd found the light but what now? I'm still trapped "in here". Then I became somewhat frantic again as I continued to stand still but the light slowly became dimmer and dimmer and dimmer and ominous background slowly began to emerge.
My surroundings became almost dark again but the dimmed light remained as a prominence above and to the left of a colossal colorless wall. There were dozens if not hundreds of openings in the wall, each opening with stairs leading down to the firmament I stood on. The wall seemed to be a barrier of sorts. From the openings in the wall, cloaked beings appeared first one then a few others and then many beings. The beings seemed to float down the stairs, one from each opening. They emerged and soundlessly moved toward me. Everything was colorless, yet the same colorlessness. The wall, the cloaked beings, all colorless. Not a shade of gray or brown or anything ... just colorless.
I did not know these beings and tried to peer under the hoods of the cloaks but found no features. That was a little unsettling. While I knew none of them, they seemed to know me ... had been waiting for me. They surrounded and wordlessly greeted me. With the beings, I had an extended wordless conversation and I have no idea what we discussed but they calmed and soothed me in a very caring way, as though preparing me for what lay ahead.
Suddenly the light from above the left side of the wall became very overwhelmingly bright again in an instant !!! And the colorless wall and the beings faded away. After a moment, a supreme being dressed in shockingly immaculate white emerged from the light, making His his way down to where I stood. The supreme being stood with me and we had a long wordless conversation. Again with the wordless conversations! I have no idea what thought and ideas were discussed, only that the conversation was very profound, as though speaking honestly from the depths of my soul.
After some time, the supreme being led me up and into the light. I was not afraid. I was very calm. It just felt right.
On the other side of the light was a room. The entire room, walls, ceiling, floor and it's single content, an elevated podium, appeared to be constructed of fine, rich, ancient wood. He led me to the podium as He then walked up and behind the podium. Up on the podium was the largest, thickest book I've ever seen in my life. He studied the book for some time and then asked me the first and only verbal question of the entire experience.
He asked, "Do you want to go forward or do you want to go back?" ... Without hesitation I answered, "I want to go back. She needs me." ... meaning Jan needs me.
Without another word, I backed away from the room, through and away from the light, back down the tunnel and awoke ... wondering why I went to sleep talking on the telephone and opened the door to find a very wide eyed Gilbert out to check on me on a very stormy night in heavy rain.
Jan and I continued to steady date but something had changed and we began to just go through the motions and drift apart. I could not talk to Jan or anyone about the dream and it was a heavy burden on my mind. I never mention the dream to anyone until my sister, Cathy, cornered me 3 years later. And rather than going home contented and with a smile on my face after spending time with Jan, I most often dropped her off at home and headed straight to find some friends where I would alter my consciousness with alcohol and weed as fast as I could.
Eventually after 2 years together with Jan, I cheated on her with her best friend, Lisa. When Jan found out, she understandingly refused to ever speak to me ever again or Lisa for that matter. I never met with Lisa again either. I was young, dumb and full of stupid. It was just a very cruel and insensitive way of burning bridges and pushing people away. A life long habit I would become all too familiar with. Now nearing 70, I'm single, never married and have no children.
I'm not religious. Religion to me is a "business". I was raised in the Baptist church and saved by the holy spirit in faith and baptized when I was 8 years old. Went to church every Sunday and Wednesday night until I graduated high school. I haven't been to church since. My brother, Mike, was a preacher / pastor in his church since 1975. I have never heard him preach or attended one of his services. He's retired now too. Mike and I have always been brothers, just never discussed religion or spirituality.
So it was that while I think the dream experience was actually beyond my human comprehension, my mind may have drawn on personal experience to attempt to put into context what I was experiencing.
I view the dream as a very real and very personal spiritual experience. You can not tell me what my higher power is or isn't. You can not tell me what my higher power does or does not do ... I KNOW ... I met my higher power face to face and He sent me back. The thing is, we have choices ... He gave me a choice.
It took me several hours to type this as I paused while collecting my thoughts. I have not proof read this lengthy narrative and am sure it might contain some word misuse, spelling and syntax errors. And if you've read thus far, bless you ... and thank you for letting me share the dream.
Jim
EDIT TO ADD: I did subsequently enlist in the military and serve my country during a 20yr career but I didn't enlist until I was 33 ... an elderly recruit HA. One of my better choices.
My parents paid for me to enroll at a state university and I received a 1-H Educational Deferment from the draft board. While "hiding out" in college, I joined / pledged a fraternity. It was my first time living away from home and I partied very hard. Subsequently I found I was failing over half the classes I was enrolled in.
Near the end of the first year at the university and home for a weekend, I met Jan. She was 15 and a cheerleader at a local private school. We hit it off immediately. Jan and I would talk for hours on the phone about anything and everything under the sun and it would seem we had spoken for only minutes. Neither of us ever wanted to end the conversation. Jan was the perfect excuse / reason to get away from the party lifestyle of college, return home and continue my education at the local junior college and trade school where I would eventually receive an Associate Degree in Applied Science and a degree in Drafting and Design Technology.
I had a part time job working for the local TV cable company at night from 5p.m. - 9p.m. In 1972 there were no TV satellites and media transmissions depended on very tall line-of-sight towers with various antenna arrays. I ran Christian TV shows on the local cable channel from a small, windowless, climate controlled, concrete block building at the base of a 525 foot tall tower. A thick metal door the only opening to the concrete building. The tower and small building were located outside of town, well off the road, and in the middle of a cow pasture.
Depending on the length of the televised program, I only had to change a tape every 30 minutes or on the hour. Much of my other time was spent either studying or talking to Jan on the telephone.
One night while talking to Jan on the phone, a huge storm passed through the area. My boss, the chief engineer for the cable company, often watched the 525 foot tower from his home many miles away. A huge storm often meant Gilbert would have to go out on a stormy night after hours to make repairs to the cable systems or equipment located in the concrete building where I worked.
On this particular night, Gilbert and his wife stood in their living room looking toward the tower as what Gilbert would later say was the most massive lightening strike to the tower he had witnessed ever, occurred. He said the lightening strike spread from multiple points across the sky and totally engulfed the huge tower. Gilbert said his wife exclaimed, "Oh my god that boy is dead !!! Get out there Gilbert and check on him !!!" Gilbert hit his front door running so fast and so focused on checking on me, he had forgotten his keys to the heavy metal door on the concrete block building I was in.
The lightening strike traveled throughout the tower and got into the phone line. It not only knocked out phone service, but me as well. I had been talking to Jan on the phone as lightening struck. I wasn't fully aware of the severity of the storm as the concrete block building was windowless and there was equipment noise inside the building that lessened the impact of outside noise.
I slowly and very calmly awoke to Gilbert beating the heavy metal door frantically and as hard as he could. Even driving fast, it had taken Gilbert 10 minutes to drive from his home in town to where I was out in the country. I'd been unconscious the entire time. And Gilbert had been beating on the door for some time before I opened the door, just a bit confused and bewildered. First I wondered why he was there in such a state ... without his keys ... and second, why did I go to sleep talking on the telephone? What was going on?
Just a couple of minutes later, Jan and her mother showed up too. It was absolutely not unusual back then in 1972 for phone service to go out during heavy storms ... almost a given that it would happen during severe storms. Yet, here was Jan. She'd made her mother drive in heavy rain, thunder and lightening, from way across town and miles away to check on me. Jan said, "I just felt something bad. Something wasn't right and I needed to see you."
Physically I felt as though there were an imaginary line going down the center of my head and everything on the left side of my head was tingling intensely. My scalp face and neck on the left side where I'd held the phone receiver was tingling big time. Gilbert insisted I go to the hospital emergency room to get checked out. At the hospital, the doctor could find nothing wrong. My eardrum was good to go. My hearing was not compromised. There was nothing the doctor could find wrong.
The next day, burn streaks in the shape of lightening appeared from ear, down my neck and into my arm, side, chest and back as electricity had reached for ground. Several days later, the skin on my left ear would peel off because electricity had burned it off. I spoke with my parents about suing the cable and phone companies. Mom and dad both were against it since nothing was wrong with me. I had no lasting injuries.
Next time I went out there to work, the head of the local cable company was there, phone company representatives and a lawyer. The phone company had earlier that day, sent a crew to reinstall the entire phone system. They wanted a statement from me as to what happened. The cable company president said anytime a severe storm came through, for me to get out of there and I would still be paid.
Everything returned to normal. Clear skies and beautiful summer days and nights. But, there was one thing that curiously bothered me and there was no one I felt I could talk to about it ... the "dream". It wasn't until some 3 years later that my sister Cathy cornered me, "Bo (nickname for Jimbo) something happened that night and you are going to tell me about it right now!" I don't know what sense of change she felt had occurred in me, but I broke down in tears as I told Cathy about the dream I had while unconscious for 10-12 minutes or so, when I went to sleep while talking on the telephone. Over the many years since, I've shared the dream with a few people and the first couple of times, I wept as I told it. The dream had a very profound affect on me as only a ten ton sledge hammer of electricity to the side of the head and instant death or near death can provide. Back then, I'd never heard any mention or read any account of such an experience. Years later I would learn others had similar experiences.
I feel the vivid experience I had while asleep from the lightening strike was so intense and profound, that it was beyond my human comprehension as to what actually was happening and my mind simply tried as best it could to put into context such a way as I might understand or find reference.
The Dream: The tunnel I found myself in was very completely dark, the blackest of black and I could find no bearing. I felt as though I were moving very fast feet first and in a reclined position. I could not stand. There was nothing below me and I could not touch anything solid on either side nor above. The tunnel I found myself in was vast with no beginning and seemingly no end and while I could find no sides to the tunnel or any sense of anything beyond the tunnel, it felt like a tunnel nonetheless. I was somewhat frantic to find a way out of wherever I was.
After some time of speeding through the tunnel feet first and becoming more frantic to discover a way out, I became aware of the tiniest dim pinpoint of light very far off in the distance ahead. I wasn't even sure about the light ... it was so very small and dim and so very far away. I locked in on the dim pinpoint of light and felt a very sincere need to move toward that light as it seemed the only possible way out of the dark black tunnel. And interestingly, the light very VERY slowly became larger and brighter as I began to calm a bit and ride to the light, thinking this was a way out for sure.
As the light brightened, I saw to my left what appeared to be a silent movie playing on the tunnel "wall". The movie contained scenes from events in my life that I'd not given any thought to when they occurred nor remembered later but felt reviewing those events now, they had had some kind of profound meaning in my life.
Then the light became very bright and I stood still as the light engulfed me. The light was not searingly bright such that I had to shield my eyes, just a very white brightness. I was confused. Well, I'd found the light but what now? I'm still trapped "in here". Then I became somewhat frantic again as I continued to stand still but the light slowly became dimmer and dimmer and dimmer and ominous background slowly began to emerge.
My surroundings became almost dark again but the dimmed light remained as a prominence above and to the left of a colossal colorless wall. There were dozens if not hundreds of openings in the wall, each opening with stairs leading down to the firmament I stood on. The wall seemed to be a barrier of sorts. From the openings in the wall, cloaked beings appeared first one then a few others and then many beings. The beings seemed to float down the stairs, one from each opening. They emerged and soundlessly moved toward me. Everything was colorless, yet the same colorlessness. The wall, the cloaked beings, all colorless. Not a shade of gray or brown or anything ... just colorless.
I did not know these beings and tried to peer under the hoods of the cloaks but found no features. That was a little unsettling. While I knew none of them, they seemed to know me ... had been waiting for me. They surrounded and wordlessly greeted me. With the beings, I had an extended wordless conversation and I have no idea what we discussed but they calmed and soothed me in a very caring way, as though preparing me for what lay ahead.
Suddenly the light from above the left side of the wall became very overwhelmingly bright again in an instant !!! And the colorless wall and the beings faded away. After a moment, a supreme being dressed in shockingly immaculate white emerged from the light, making His his way down to where I stood. The supreme being stood with me and we had a long wordless conversation. Again with the wordless conversations! I have no idea what thought and ideas were discussed, only that the conversation was very profound, as though speaking honestly from the depths of my soul.
After some time, the supreme being led me up and into the light. I was not afraid. I was very calm. It just felt right.
On the other side of the light was a room. The entire room, walls, ceiling, floor and it's single content, an elevated podium, appeared to be constructed of fine, rich, ancient wood. He led me to the podium as He then walked up and behind the podium. Up on the podium was the largest, thickest book I've ever seen in my life. He studied the book for some time and then asked me the first and only verbal question of the entire experience.
He asked, "Do you want to go forward or do you want to go back?" ... Without hesitation I answered, "I want to go back. She needs me." ... meaning Jan needs me.
Without another word, I backed away from the room, through and away from the light, back down the tunnel and awoke ... wondering why I went to sleep talking on the telephone and opened the door to find a very wide eyed Gilbert out to check on me on a very stormy night in heavy rain.
Jan and I continued to steady date but something had changed and we began to just go through the motions and drift apart. I could not talk to Jan or anyone about the dream and it was a heavy burden on my mind. I never mention the dream to anyone until my sister, Cathy, cornered me 3 years later. And rather than going home contented and with a smile on my face after spending time with Jan, I most often dropped her off at home and headed straight to find some friends where I would alter my consciousness with alcohol and weed as fast as I could.
Eventually after 2 years together with Jan, I cheated on her with her best friend, Lisa. When Jan found out, she understandingly refused to ever speak to me ever again or Lisa for that matter. I never met with Lisa again either. I was young, dumb and full of stupid. It was just a very cruel and insensitive way of burning bridges and pushing people away. A life long habit I would become all too familiar with. Now nearing 70, I'm single, never married and have no children.
I'm not religious. Religion to me is a "business". I was raised in the Baptist church and saved by the holy spirit in faith and baptized when I was 8 years old. Went to church every Sunday and Wednesday night until I graduated high school. I haven't been to church since. My brother, Mike, was a preacher / pastor in his church since 1975. I have never heard him preach or attended one of his services. He's retired now too. Mike and I have always been brothers, just never discussed religion or spirituality.
So it was that while I think the dream experience was actually beyond my human comprehension, my mind may have drawn on personal experience to attempt to put into context what I was experiencing.
I view the dream as a very real and very personal spiritual experience. You can not tell me what my higher power is or isn't. You can not tell me what my higher power does or does not do ... I KNOW ... I met my higher power face to face and He sent me back. The thing is, we have choices ... He gave me a choice.
It took me several hours to type this as I paused while collecting my thoughts. I have not proof read this lengthy narrative and am sure it might contain some word misuse, spelling and syntax errors. And if you've read thus far, bless you ... and thank you for letting me share the dream.
Jim
EDIT TO ADD: I did subsequently enlist in the military and serve my country during a 20yr career but I didn't enlist until I was 33 ... an elderly recruit HA. One of my better choices.
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