I am not a person who fears death, thinks about it very often, etc. When I do think about death, I think of it in terms of dying old and gray. Who doesn't? I mean, if they do.

I have had two dreams now, with recurring symbolism, in which I die. I'm shot in the head both times. Different kinds of guns - the last time was a rifle of some sort, this time a shotgun. Both time from men in black vehicles - a van before, this time an SUV.

The first dream, I'm on a playground with my sister when she was pregnant - I had the dream while she was pregnant - and we're both adults, and I'm chasing her kind of, like we were kids. She it's dusk outside, and she's jumping off of something and I tell her that's not safe for the baby, and she explains about how there padding inside the womb and the baby will be fine. I'm about to explain that I don't think that's true, when a black van pulls up to the edge of the playground, and the doors start to open. I start to yell for her to get down, when I am shot. Everything turns to slow motion as I fall down, and my vision goes black and white. I can hear her screaming in a muffled way as I fall, but I never hit the ground. I'm starting to fade out in a weird sort of 'pulling back' way, and the last thing I think is about her baby, then my friends Allison and Marcus. I wake up before I 'pull out' all the way, before I die. This was in about february of last year.

This second one I woke up from a few minutes ago. I was driving around some town in a taxi, trying to get to the top of some mountain where people were going up in a kind of ferris wheel contraption through the water fall to the top. I don't recall a reason for wanting to get there. We're driving past a playground, and I'm frustrated that he's taking the long way around. I explain where I want to go, and he says "yeah, I can take you there." But we get on the road out of town anyway. I tell him I want to turn around and go back to town, and he says okay, then passes by several opportunities to turn around. I complain again, cause the meter is going up, and he says he can't just turn around anywhere; then he narrowly avoids a collision from driving on the wrong side of the road. I'm trying to explain to him that if he can break the rules and drive on the wrong side of the road, then he can turn around in someone's driveway. We see a gas station, and I demand that he turn around there. He does, but he pulls up to the gas pump. He gets out and I figure he's going to get gas. I don't see him again in the dream. There's a pump tech there, and he begins washing the windows, when a black SUV pulls up. Some guys that I know from my neighborhood, the kind who sell not-so-legal novelties, get out of the SUV and one of them that I know more personally sees me and comes to the taxi. He opens the back door and gets in, and is making chit-chat, and sees that the other guys - one man and his apparent bodyguard - are talking up the pump tech. He says something like, "Those guys are so slow, you always gotta wait around for them. I'm a lot faster." I agree, they take forever, my 'guy' is much better. Then the pump tech gets in the front passenger seat, and I see the 'bodyguard' open the driver side door. I know something is wrong, and start to tell my friend we need to get out. Before I can act on it, the 'bodyguard' raises a shotgun, some kind of angular sci-fi version of an automatic, and shoots the pump tech. I know I'm next, and I hear my friend saying something like, "No, we can talk about this," and I see the gun moving towards me, so Instead of getting down I lunge forward and try to grab the barrel of the gun and keep it pointed away from me - but the guy pulls the trigger before I can, and I get shot in the throat. I don't feel the impact when I fall back against the seat, and again don't hear anything, my vision goes black and white. This time I reach up to feel the wound, and see blood on my fingers, and say, "Well, Damnit", and my last thoughts are allison and marcus again, holding them in my mind firmly as I start to 'pull back' just like before. Then I woke up, heart pounding just like before, and both times I could still feel a phantom wound, this time where it was, before it was around my temple.

The pulling back sensation is hard to describe. it's like I'm falling away from my perspective into something else. The point where I wake up is when my vision is just tiny dots far away, everything else is black. Both times I felt no fear, and both times I was holding on purposefully to the images and names, specifically, of my friends Allison and Marcus - who are basically my family, and have been for years.

I wanted to post it here because it's fresh on my mind and wanted to get some perspective on dying in dreams, and see if anyone else had had dreams like that. I have theories on what it means, but want to get some other points of view - especially from you, Acid.

peace