File under: death and Oreos at 2:00am

I had a very odd dream last night. I can only remember a few details, plus the fact that when it woke me up, I wanted to write it down. I honestly don't know how people keep a dream journal. I'd try and still be so tired it would start to turn into a grocery list or something.

"There was a giant alligator and was chasing me, and it wanted eggs...milk...ham...cereal..." Apparently I buy a lot of breakfast food.

Anyway, I dreamt that I was in some sort of dining hall and that I saw the late actor Peter Boyle (Frank from Everybody Loves Raymond as well as a slew of other great roles). I saw him and then I looked over to someone next to me, and I was about to mention something about Peter Boyle. Suddenly, he rushes over going "No! Don't talk about that!" I responded with "But you worked with Brando. What's wrong with that?" I don't even know if he worked with Brando, but in my dream I thought he did. Apparently so did he because that wasn't the thing I couldn't talk about. From there, it was just an incomprehensible rant.

But wait! Now it's going to get weird!

He then went over to Dr. Drew (?!?!) to talk about how he felt about being dead. He knew he was dead! I don't remember anything else after that. All I can say is that eating really late will do this to you. I'm sure of it.

I realize many people fear death, but this dream made me wonder what the dead would fear. According to my dream, I am guessing that they would fear their own reputation and how they will be remembered when all is said and done.

I don't fear my own death, at least not at this point in my life. I think its true that, when you are young, you sort have this sense of being invincible. You know that you can get hurt, but you don't think it will be the way that you will go. Maybe that's how we deal with the fear. But it is certainly common for older people to think about it more. In my case, I get caught up in the death of others. I probably fear their death more than they do in some cases.

Here's the thing, folks. We can't be afraid of death because we can't do anything about it. We have to accept that its going to happen and that in some cases it is necessary. Perhaps we don't fear death, but the fact that we don't know what comes next. All we can do is choose to believe what happens and just do the best we can before that.