Between Waking and Sleeping

   Besides the 3:00 a.m. phenomenon, there are two other windows or portals that open silently when our conscious self is otherwise occupied - sleeping. 
   It happens in those moments between waking and sleeping. One of them happens when you're rising slowly from the deep delta level of sleep, through the lighter layers of consciousness towards the dawn or waking state. The other happens during those moments when you're falling, tumbling gently into that cozy cradle of sleep.
   At these times you're in a state of total relaxation. Your limbs aren't ready to move, fingers don't want to twitch and eyelids  - well, who knows what eyelids are doing - but they're not opening. Not yet.
   Instead, images of unknown faces or scenes or landscapes may scamper behind your closed lids, tweaking your beta conscious ever so minutely. You're scantily aware that you don't know these guys. Who are these people? What are they doing here?And what are they saying?
  Some call these 'flash dreams'. I believe they are spirits, or perhaps your own memories of people you once knew either from The Other Side or from another life. Maybe even from sometime in the future of this incarnation. Sometimes they bring messages.  
  The principle is the same. When the physical you is totally relaxed and untroubled, when it has dumped the worries of the day or not yet let them in to bother the new day, you are mentally in the same state as deep meditation  - that removes all obstacles to the magic that's out there.
  Your spirit can move around freely. It hums around making easy contact with other other souls on earth and travelling to places it wants to show you, in or outside of the third dimension. It is afterall, an inter-dimensional being. And gets around without having to lug suitcases and cross borders armed by grim looking immigrations types.
   During this time between waking and sleeping you'll find you have the sharpest "dreams". Even if it's just a momentary flash of a dream, you'll wake up thinking "What Was That!"
   An acquaintance of mine lost his wife some years ago. They weren't close friends of mine and although her death was a surprise there were none of the deep feelings of loss that occur when someone near to you passes. In fact about a week before, a mutual friend just happened to mention it and I didn't dwell on it in the days that followed.
  Then one night just before I fell sound asleep one of these 'flashes' happened. There she was, the woman who had died, standing right in the middle of my dream. There was a misty sort of hillside behind her with a large barn perched on the crest. She stood in a sort of meadow-like setting with long grasses and I think, small wild flowers. She looked exactly as she had before she became ill. (The last time I'd seen her, chemo had robbed her of her youth, her hair and distorted her features, puffed up her face and and changed the color of her skin.)   And then she spoke.
   She wanted me to know that "This life is just a rehearsal for the next." That was all.
   I was so surprised that I jumped up and wrote it down on a slip of paper so I wouldn't forget it.
   Would I ever see her husband again? And if I did would I tell him that I had seen her - alive and well?
   Many weeks later I did tell him - took the chance that he might think I was a nut job - because I think I was supposed to let him know. 
   Grief sets up an almost impenetrable barrier to the spirit who so desperately wants you to know that they're more alive than they've ever been. They try and try to break through but the sadness around you is just too heavy, making our already dense vibration even harder to approach. This is why they will try other routes - such as someone who you know (in all likelyhood) who they can get through to, and who will pass on the message.  
  Until the next "flash"  - Take care! And pass on any messages that drift through the ethers.
  Adios.