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Dear Soul Arcanum:

I am 18 years old, and I had a dream in which I realized I had died. I didn’t feel any physical pain, but when I got up, I was filled with the horror of death. What do I do to get over this horror? Since having this dream, I can’t concentrate on anything and life itself seems futile. Please help me.

Maggi

Dear Maggi:

Before I begin, I must point out that what you’re requesting is a very tall order. The fear of death is the most deep-seated and universal of all fears. I believe this is because we fear the unknown, and we can’t know what really happens when we die until we have that experience for ourselves. This doesn’t mean that fear of death must ruin your life; it means that to overcome your fear, you must become more familiar with what you’re afraid of.

It’s telling that you’re 18 years old, for it’s common for young people to give little or no thought to death’s inevitability unless or until something happens that forces them to wake up to the truth that none of us will live forever – at least, not in these bodies. When people first confront their mortality, it’s normal to be freaked out. Of course, ignoring or denying the reality of death doesn’t change anything. Further, the sooner we face and deal with death, the sooner we can get down to the business of living full, meaningful lives.

I feel that this dream can become a great gift to you if you work with it in a wise manner. Most of humanity is spiritually sleep-walking through life. They either actively avoid thinking about death or they simply don’t give it much thought until it’s somehow staring them in the face. While I was devastated to lose my first love at the tender age of 18, I now view this experience as having blessed me immeasurably on a spiritual level. It did far more than wake me up so that I now live in gratitude for each day; it also blessed me with some amazing experiences that made me question the nature of so-called reality and everything I’d assumed to be true up until that point.

In my experience, life-changing events like your dream tend to happen for a good reason and according to a divine schedule. When the idea of death rocks someone’s world, it’s usually a sign that it’s time for them to begin a conscious spiritual journey. Of course, some people never do the spiritual work necessary to make peace with death, and thus they live overly cautious lives in an attempt to stay “safe.” This is senseless and futile for a number of reasons. Even when it seems to prolong someone’s years here on Earth, it prevents them from living interesting, fulfilling, exciting lives. Living from fear also tends to lead to difficulty and disease, so the more anxious we are about our safety and well-being, the less likely we are to live a long, healthy life.

It’s also wise to realize that without death, life would hold little meaning. If we all lived forever, we’d have no motivation to hurry up and experience all we desire to experience and get busy growing into better people.

Of course, these truths don’t erase the fact that it’s natural to fear the unknown, so to heal your fear of death, the best thing is to make the unknown KNOWN – or as known as it can be. This may sound impossible in the case of death, but in fact, there are many ways to familiarize yourself with states of being beyond this physical life.

When I look back on my own journey toward peace with death, there are several factors that stand out. The first thing that convinced me that death is not the end was a number of encounters I had with people who had died. While that may sound like the sort of thing you are either lucky enough to have happen or not, in fact, such experiences can be manifested just like anything else.

You can also consciously work on developing your ability to communicate with spirits. It’s true that some people have a natural facility for this sort of thing, but I believe that a strong desire for any sort of experience is usually a sign from one’s own higher self that this is something that should be pursued. You can find resources for such development at a Spiritualist Church; in fact, attending such a church could also prove helpful and comforting for you for a number of reasons.

Another thing that tends to lead toward a dramatic shift in one’s perspective on death is having an out of body experience. When you find yourself disembodied, it’s hard to deny that your “existence” is independent of your physical body. It also gives you a sense of what it may be like to leave this world behind and move on to other realms. As it’s common for people who achieve or spontaneously experience astral projection to lose their fear of death, studying and working to have such an experience yourself may be the answer.

To begin exploring astral projection, you might read a few of the excellent books on the subject and then begin to apply yourself to exercises designed to get you out of your body. Please note that it can take months of daily effort to achieve this goal. It’s definitely worth it, however, since it will prove to you that you are more than your physical body and open up a whole new dimension of experience for you to explore. The astral projection authors I recommend are Robert Bruce, Robert Monroe and Robert Peterson. The website Astral Voyage is also a great resource.

The most powerful eraser of the fear of death can be found in actually dying. Millions of people have had near death experiences, and nearly all of them lost their fear of death as a result. This is true whether the near death experience was of a positive or negative nature, for experiencers say they now know that death is not the end but rather a transition into a new state of being. While it wouldn’t be prudent to actively court a near death experience, it can be very helpful to study the near death experiences of others. An excellent resource to start with can be found at near-death.com.

It’s also comforting and enlightening to study both esoteric teachings on reincarnation and the research that has been done on this subject such as the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson and the life between life research of Michael Newton, Ph.D. Taken together, the endless teachings and research available paint a coherent picture of life as a journey in which things happen for a good reason, including how and when we leave this world.

With this in mind, there are all sorts of wonderful books you can read to become more familiar with the nature of life and death. Some of the best authors include Michael Newton, Ph.D.; Dr. Bruce Goldberg; Brian Weiss, M.D.; Dr. Ian Stevenson; Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, P.M.H. Atwater, Dr. Raymond Moody, Dr. Melvin Morse, Carol Bowman, Carla Wills-Brandon and Gary Schwartz, Ph.D. If you’re itching to get started right away, check out victorzammit.com.

Please note that the above are just suggestions. I encourage you to pray for Spirit to guide you to the information and experiences you need to overcome your fear of death, and then act on the signs, impulses and intuitions that come to you. Remember that you can manifest the peace you’re longing for just like you would manifest anything else, so study and work with the law of attraction. By diving into a conscious spiritual journey, you can turn this experience into something positive and make the most of your time here on Earth.

– Soul Arcanum

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