Tonight, I almost died… in my dreams, that is. This eventually gave me an “aha” moment of clarity.
The Near-Death Experience
I was climbing a building. Not a traditional building: on the outside, there were people chained to the building’s walls: these are the salves of the contemporary world. Not a chain on me, though. I was climbing the building; holding tight to metal handles and concrete steps. I could see coworkers and other people from the world climbing the building as well. We were going at it aimlessly sometimes, panting our way towards great heights, but I felt regret and envy when looking at how other people took great opportunities and left the building through elevators, or managed to transfer to a different building – why not me? This was my status quo: pain, tedious work, and jealousy.
Suddenly, I sensed the air tremble; then, a bang trembled from above: an airplane just crashed. The building was collapsing and I was going down with it. Turning around, there were other people that, as soon as the crashed happened, jumped towards their timely deaths. Several more panicked and grabbed onto the building with fear and despair. I might have been crazy, but I only felt sadness and relief while the building went down. Although, I thought I might just make it alive if the circumstances were right; just seconds before hitting the ground I managed to jump and cover myself: I was still alive… mangled and broken, but more alive than ever.
The Bloody, Gray Hands
Back to ground level. My hands were bloody and covered with gray ashes. Cannot see very well, so I closed my eyes. Turns out I could still see with my eyes – what I saw were misery and regret. Misery because the building was demolished, there was nothing more to climb; and regret since I could have taken an opportunity to transfer to another building, or to stop climbing altogether. I saw the chained people lying on the ground, grasping the reality: that they are still chained to a prison of concrete.
Using my hands, I wiped my face and started walking to a chirping sound nearby. There were no chirping sounds when I was climbing the building. I started feeling the warmth as I heard a stream of water flowing and the brightness of the day. And when I looked back to the broken building, I understood.
This dream we are dreaming
It was a dream; I realized while still asleep. Instantly I had an “aha!” moment when I felt so silly to know that my subconscious built an entire analogy to tell me something I already knew. In short, the climbing of a building is my ridiculous way to compare it to my constant struggle to improve in my career. People using elevators are cheating their way through their careers while people that transferred to other buildings are just changing professions and lifestyles. And this “aha!” was not only inclusive of my status quo, it told me something deeper. It made me realize for good, that every single person living in this planet right now has an average lifespan of 60–80 years. That means everyone I know or will ever know has a very limited time to achieve the greatest successes a human life can offer. Everyone in every position of this Earth is a fellow human being, climbing their own building or walking their own trail.
2 Things:
- I can, if I want, reach anyone in this planet. Anyone. Warren Buffet, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Emma Watson. Anyone.
- I can remove mental constraints from my mind. Tough one – I was pre-wired to fail (still am) in multiple ways. However, now it is time to cut the wires.
I woke up shortly after, poured myself a big glass of water and turned on my computer to start typing my thoughts about this moment and what it means to the rest of us.
1. The “aha!” moment is a very personal message.
The “aha!” moment manifests itself in different ways. It could be a big breakthrough in personal ideas or a moment of clarity in understanding the reason behind one’s fears. It can be anything that punches you in the face with a big bold insight about yourself and leaves a healthy dose of self-knowledge. It seems to be a perfect way for our brain to tell us something we already know, but have chosen to ignore.
2. The “aha!” moment is of huge importance to one’s life.
While we may shrug these instances as everyday paraphernalia, they are not. Think about it. How often do you really have “aha!” moments in your life? Most of the time we are in autopilot in many ways, but every now and then we have a major revelation. Because they happen scarcely, these moments stir great drive to achieve more in life and therefore, are of huge importance. These instances show up very rarely in our lives. They are the cosmic owls, the golden pots at the end of the rainbow. And when they happen, they should stir things up:
- The Status Quo is challenged.
During an “aha!” moment, everything that seems normal in your life suddenly is not normal anymore, you deconstruct the status quo for what it is: a set of trends that have plateaued into a standard way of living/working/socializing.
- Old misconceptions are challenged.
Perhaps the status quo is related to old misconceptions that we all have. Perhaps the root cause of how we think is narrowed down to a series of culturally aligned, home-taught misconceptions. We have a brain that is prone to faulty logic, that is risk reduction oriented, which will trick us into comfort. But the exact way why this happens and how it is constructed will be challenged during an “aha!” moment. What if suddenly, you realized the reason why you are not successful in social interactions? What if you immediately understood the underlying actions and misconceptions that guide your pointless management of personal finances? What if you find out that what you believed dear to your heart is as vague and fundamentally weak as the mountain fog?
- Fears are challenged.
When you understand the status quo and old misconceptions, then you can identify and challenge your inner fears. First of all, during an “aha!” moment, you realize that most of your life-long fears are ridiculous and based on A) faulty logic, B) isolated bad experiences, C) lack of know-how or D) desire for social wellbeing. Fears are ridiculous, irrational ways your brain tries to preserve itself but ends up tying you up with false arguments.
3. The “aha!” moment looks like a gift – it is not
The key for an “aha!” moment, the great difference between any other revelation or self-truth and a pure “aha!” moment is how seriously we let it sit within our conscience. It comes in a split second, or a prolonged hour of consciousness where our motivation is sparked for a long-term hunger of achievement. We see how things around us lose value and only a handful of life objectives stand afloat.
- It stirs a great drive to achieve more
This clarity is remarkable; it is pure fuel to our inner need for achievement. We all want to be the best we can, but rarely know how to do it. When there is an “aha!”, suddenly the groundwork for the path is laid down in front of you. Suddenly, a noisy cloud of uncertainty becomes a curved path towards anything you might have found during that moment.
- It is an opportunity you gift yourself
No question in my mind, that this moment was a gift from myself. It was the outlier moment of my adult life that poked through the smokescreen of rituals and mindless activities. While the message seems clear, like everything else in life, this moment does not come for free. I just gave myself an opportunity that comes with risks and uncertainty, it is a hefty bargain. I am certain this is a topic of more depth for a neuroscientist or psychologist, but I am merely an average person, so I make sense of it as a self-warranted opportunity.
However, it is just that: an opportunity, a glimpse of something that could be. Now, it has to be seized. I think that it is our responsibility and our full-blown duty to listen to the “aha!” moments we give ourselves and then take action. I received a gift tonight from my subconscious and I will not take it for granted.
This moment is merely a gateway to something different in the future. It is also a powerful reflection tool: in reflection, we find our own truth, and hence, we can challenge it. We may not be able to rewrite our past, but we sure as hell can recode our present. My “aha!” moment from tonight showed me two things about my surroundings and myself; it gave me control over them and also showed me what I could achieve.
I incite myself, by writing this post, to take action on this moment. This is a wake-up call (literally) I cannot miss. A good starting point to stop climbing this building is to keep building content in my life, whether it is through posts like this one, poems, videos or any other expression channel.
Thanks for reading this reflection with me. Hopefully, someone with a scientific background can explain this phenomenon to me.
Everything written here is a personal reflection and is by no means educational, financial or professional advice in any way.
Please feel free to cite and refer reliable sources in the comment section down below.