In the dream, I was about to die and was just a little blip in the universe (on my way to another phase, perhaps)--it was a bit like that crude, black and white image of the cosmos in It's a Wonderful Life. I wasn't suffering any shock or agony as I was learning that I was fading and that my existence was about through. "Well, this is it," I thought, with surprising calm. "I won't even get to think, 'now I'm dead' or be able to look down at the ones I left behind. This is final."