A Modern Hell - A Personal Journey

This entry is a memory of a dream many years ago.  The images are as fresh today as they were back then.  The dream did not seem to have lasted long but it felt like "an endless or seemingly endless period of time." [1]

This blogger was asleep when he entered a dream state and found himself in a very bright universe that was refreshingly cool and without gravity, standing on a clean, white, unmotorized board that was slightly larger than the soles of his feet.  If he had taken more than a quarter step in any direction, he would have fallen off.  Where he would end up he did not know, but he made sure he kept his balance on the board he was put on, as if he were surfing.

All the while some mysterious force was pushing him forward.  At times, winds would pick up and he would be swept from one area to the next at immense speeds, throwing him off balance and nearly off the board.  At other times, the conditions would be calm and his speed of travel would slow considerably.

There were no signs anywhere along the way showing where he was headed, and there was no differentiation between one place and another.  All around was the same cool, brightly lit universe.  Continuously he kept going and going, afloat in space, in the same direction without a destination. First, he saw himself in shorts and sneakers.  Later, he saw himself barefoot wearing an off-white hoodless robe shaped similar to a Franciscan monk's brown hooded habit.

In the beginning it was fun, being able to ride the wind weightlessly at high speeds on a very small board.  For a freedom-lover who was an occasional speed demon in life, having the combination of speed and perceived freedom was like being in Heaven.

Heaven it was not.  When physical fatigue began to set in, there was no place to sit.  He had to keep standing, to keep himself balanced on the small board to avoid falling off. When he realized that he could not get off this ride, that his restful days where behind him and that he would be spending a very long time on this journey going nowhere, eternity was no longer to him a theological construct to be romanticized, but an inescapable reality to be confronted.

Physical strain was the first of his torments.  Emotional distress came next.  After the full extent of his bodily pain had set in, he started to look around to see if anyone else shared in his suffering.  All he saw were empty boards.  That was the moment he knew he was all alone in this vast nondescript space, and that nobody was ever there before him and no one was going to be there in the future.  Not even the most hardened loner on earth was able to comprehend and share vicariously the depth of his loneliness, his desperation for company and his interminable anguish.

Unable to cope, he reached out to God.  He thought that if he could be on his knees, put his hands together and pray, God would come to his aid.  Repeatedly he tried but there was too much turbulence to steady himself long enough to kneel down, even on one knee, without almost falling off his tiny board.  So he cried out to Heaven while standing as he sped through the air, but his cries were like silent screams that fell on deaf ears.  The absence of God was his most agonizing torment.  As spiritual emptiness expanded within him, his heart where God resided became smaller and smaller, until there was no trace of it left.

Eons passed.  Still his physical, emotional and spiritual pains remained fresh.  Still he was being propelled forward alone by an invisible force in a timeless continuum of unpredictable cool winds.  As usual, he sped past an unchanging airscape of small, white unoccupied boards suspended all around him when unexpectedly, out of nowhere, he noticed another entity some distance away, clothed just like him in an unhooded off-white robe, passing him by at a slightly higher altitude, like an arrow traveling through vacuum, unaffected by the familiar violent wind gusts that tossed him about.  He yelled out as loud as he possibly could but he heard no response in return, nor did he notice any movement, except for the billowing robe, as if the entity had been calcified and glued onto a board that was headed somewhere for a purpose.

For eons after the encounter, he continued to look all around, turning his head back every so often hoping for a chance to find another entity, who would become his companion on this endless journey to nowhere and commiserate about their miserable destinies, but that chance never came.

This blogger was still alone in this modern hell when he fell back asleep.  Until now, nobody knew of his dream. [2]

[1] http://www.dictionary.com/browse/eternity
[2] Could this be the dreamer's personal Hell?  It is no fun recounting it and is downright scary.  He hopes that with the Blessed Virgin Mary's unceasing intercessions, that this is not his Hell but his Purgatory where his soul gets purified and that the Holy Spirit will return to him a pure and wholesome heart where the love of God will reign forever.