Message from the Grave or Just a Dream?

One of my closest friends growing up was a classmate named Danny. We spent a lot of time together in our youth, riding bikes, building forts in the backyard, typical young boy activities. Danny was an outgoing kid with a sense of adventure, quite the opposite of my shy and reserved nature.

As we moved through our teen years, we began to move in different directions. While I was more of a typical teenager who respected my family and tried to follow the rules (normal rebellion aside), Danny was on a different path. He grew up in a less than perfect home and ended up hanging out with the wrong crowd, which lead to drug and alcohol experimentation. Despite it all, we remained good friends.

Danny projected an outward image of toughness, the type who was not afraid of anything. He wanted everyone to see him as a cool, rebellious teenager who was enjoying living life on his own terms. Me being the shy, awkward kid I was, it was always Danny who stood up for me.

Yet there were a few times when no one else was around, that he would let another side of him show. One time in particular, we were in the kitchen at his house, laughing and having a good time. The next minute, he was almost in tears. He asked why his parents did not stop him, wondering how they were unable to see how messed up he was.i didn't know how to respond, I had never seen him act that way before.

It was December of the year we graduated from high school when Danny passed away. It was a car accident late at night. Life was only beginning and then he was gone. Still hard for me to believe that I have now held this memory for more years than his life encompassed, but that is a story for another day.

It was about six months after Danny passed away when I first had the dream. It wasn't a particularly scary dream, in fact it honestly felt reassuring somehow. Yet it managed to shake me up emotionally. What follows below is my description of the dream.

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I found myself walking down a corridor lined with with tables and chairs on one side and ceiling to floor windows on the other side. It was the front hallway from my old junior high school. The corridor was empty except for two young men seated at the table on the far end.

As I approached the table, I recognized one of the young men as Danny. He was having a conversation with the other young man, whom I did not recognize. I stopped at the table and stared for a moment.

"What are you doing here", I asked in a puzzled voice.

"We're just talking" he replied matter of factly.

"But you're dead", I exclaimed.

He looked directly at me and replied "it was only a mistake".

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I have never been the type who puts much thought into the meaning of dreams. More often than not, I have forgotten my dreams within minutes of waking. Yet this dream was different. Perhaps it is simply due to the fact that I experienced this same dream a total of three times, I am not sure. Yet I have given much thought to the meaning of this dream over the years. Depending upon ones spiritual beliefs, there could be numerous explanations.

The biggest question in my mind has always been the part of the dream when Danny said "it was only a mistake". What did this mean? What was the mistake?

I know the most likely explanation is some sort of guilt on my behalf. Perhaps I felt, at least subconsciously, that I could have done more. Maybe somehow I could have reached out and prevented the accident. Yet it seems unlikely that I would have been able to change his fate and his accident was not directly caused by his lifestyle choices.

Sometimes I wonder if it was actually Danny speaking to me from beyond. He had told me several times not to follow in his footsteps, not to make the same mistakes he had made. Is it possible that he was reaching out to me in order to save me from the same fate? I will always wonder.

in memory of my true friend, love you Danny.