Last night I dreamed of my own death.
I was lying in a beautiful green field, under a clear sky of pale blue. It was one of the most vividly real and stunningly beautiful dreams I've ever had. I was more fully aware than I've ever been in a dream, to the point that I remember the feel of the ground beneath me. What I was really feeling was my bed; I remember being unable to move, but being untroubled by this, perhaps because I unconsciously knew I was asleep. This unusual lucidity just contributed to the profound effect of the whole experience.
It was my job to report if I saw any planes; I had been told specifically that I was only to report them if they flew directly overhead, which I thought was odd. I had no telephone or radio to make such a report, but somehow I was confident I would be able to. A couple of planes did fly near, but not overhead. They were World War II fighter planes, but I'm not certain what type they were. I have no idea of the significance of this part of the dream, but it probably resulted from the current bombing campaign in Afghanistan, and my subconscious take on events.
After a short time, I saw a huge B-52 bomber. It was bright white, with a large blue stripe painted diagonally over the wings and the centre of the fuselage. It also had six engines on each wing, rather than the usual four. The plane turned sharply and flipped over to head almost straight up and face the opposite direction from the one it had been going in - a maneuver it shouldn't be able to make - and dropped a huge bomb that looked like a Saturn V rocket. It fell slowly to the ground, towards a city in the near distance that I thought was Edinburgh, where I live.
I knew it was a nuclear warhead, in that strange way that in dreams you sometimes know things just because you do. As it hit, I expected a flash, but there was none. A huge mushroom cloud spewed up over the city, a silent silvery-gray and black thing of monstrous proportions. I saw in the distance the line of the shockwave approaching me, moving quicker than the sound that hadn't yet reached me.
In the final moments before it engulfed me I realised I was going to die and there was nothing I could do about it. An amazing clarity came over me, and all I could think of was a girl I love very much and the overwhelming feeling that there was so much I hadn't had the chance to do yet.
I woke up the moment before I would have died.
It was an amazing experience, and helped me to realise just what matters to me right now.