About a week ago...

...I had a very strange dream. There were these people, not many of them but a few, who seemed to be the ones that were really in charge of...everything. I don't know how else to put it, they seemed to be the ones who pulled the strings of everyone and everything on Earth. And they were not nice people. The leader, in particular, was a cruel and hateful person, being around him made you feel sick.

Some friends and I decided that since we were the only ones in the world who knew the truth about this group of people, it was up to us to put a stop to them, by any means necessary. They seemed to live in another dimension. You could only get to their "world" by an elevator in an office building. Before we went to confront them, each of us tried to arm ourselves any way that we could. All I could manage to rustle up was an old red hammer and a rusty toy saw.

We took the elevator, which takes you to a large field in their universe. Immediately upon arriving, a schism formed in our group. Half of us thought it was a mistake to fight these people and should try to find a peaceful way of dealing with them. My side of the group thought we should fight to be free of them, it was obvious that they were building up to something very awful that would hurt countless people and they would not listen to any peace talk.

Before our argument was resolved, I seemed to black out. When I came to, I was lying down in the back seat of a car. A woman was driving. She said she was taking me to where my friends were and that someone wanted to talk to me. She tossed a cell phone to me. On it was my brother, who I haven't spoken with for a few years. He was quietly taunting me for going on this mission. I listened but didn't say anything, hoping it wouldn't take too long to get to where my friends were and that we could somehow pull this off. That's where the dream ended.

***

As strange as all that was, what happened next was even stranger to me. I awoke and had the sensation that between the end of my dream and when I woke up, the universe had been "paused" or shut down for billions of years and had just been started up again. I can't really describe it any better. It's as if reality was a computer that had been shut down for billions of years and when it was restarted, I, as a "program" in that computer was aware of the time span that had passed but (thankfully!) did not experience the actual passage of that time. It was kind of pleasant and relaxing but I was acutely aware of the vast gap from one moment of existence to the other.

I don't think I've ever experienced any thing like that before. Has that happened to any of you?