The House You Go to After You Die

Last night I dreamed that I died.

I dreamed that all people who die gather at a house located in a place very similar to Makawao, Maui. The house was reminiscent of the homes I saw on Maui growing up, with wall paneling that emulated high-quality wood and with carpeting that was grey-yellow and flat. The house was humble, a three-bedroom single-story home. The backyard was small - a green lawn the surface area of a single carport. Looking beyond the lawn, I saw trees - not pine trees, but mango trees. The sky was overcast. Looking toward the trees, there were shadows and darkness - not an evil, ominous darkness, just darkness caused by the trees being so thickly planted next to each other that they made shadows on the dirt.

I didn't recognize most people in the house. I only recognized a high school friend and the boyfriend she was seeing during her high school years. They died when I died, so they were about in their forties when they came through the front door. The feeling in this home was one of being at a casual gathering. People were just sort of hanging out.

Some people believe that when you go to "heaven," your body reverts to its most ideal physical shape it was in or would have been in, so, for example, the healthy 20-year-old version of yourself. But what I learned was that the physical shape you were in at the point of death is the shape you ended up having in your afterlife.

What was nice was that I could talk to the living, including Norm, who explained to me how I died, that it was because of some careless action I'd taken. He explained this to me in his typically diplomatic, careful and kind way. He told me, "Just don't do  it again." There was no sadness because the communication between us had not really changed.

I was also able to zoom into the life of those who were still living. I zoomed into an office that my brother Mark had been working at, now years after I'd died - a skyscraper somewhere. He had gotten promoted several times and had become an important executive. I was able, then, to zoom out, and I was suspended in the sky. I saw the building he'd been working in, perhaps a 40-story building with pinkish-gold mirrored windows. It was glorious. Seeing Mark's success warmed my heart. I felt so little separation from life and afterlife. I was in a state of euphoria, feeling the breeze across my body as I floated so high above the city.

Throughout the night, I woke up several times, and each time I had fallen back to sleep, I yearned to return to this house - and each time I did return. If there was one vibe that permeated the house, it was the sense that everyone there had ended a past life, leaving it irretrievably behind them. No one was required to do or be anything anymore. The feeling was sobering and refreshing at the same time.