Well, this is going to be a weird post. I took a Class from MIT on the power of the mind- through EDX online. It was a Neuroscience course that covered things like: Dreams, Imagination, Lucid Dreaming, Hallucinations, or any form of altered consciousness ...etc. We were all asked if we had ever had an "experience" we couldn't explain.
If so, dit it last as a memory, change any of our thoughts, or actions. And well...in my case...it did.
I called it:
"HELL. It is not what you think."

I took an EdX course on thinking. In it we had to describe an experience we had that we couldn't explain. I only had this dream/vision experience once. Believe me when I say: "Once, was enough." For I went to Hell. Yep. Here is a brief description of what I experienced.

I changed the names for privacy- but I assure you, the stories, feelings, and judgements were all real events in my life. Read on:
When I was in my early thirties, I went to hell. I found out that the devil was actually trying to stop us from doing evil. Hell was the most beautiful place I ever saw, and all the Devil's were incredibly beautiful, dressed in silver suits, and silver dresses, and they were all seven feet tall. The floor was made of squares of clear diamonds, each square contained a Universe. If you looked closely enough. As I entered the Lobby, Lucifer came over, he was taller and prettier than anyone there. He was crying. He came over to me and said: "I am so sorry. I tried to stop you from your uncaring pride and vanity. But, all my efforts were fruitless. You are in Hell, and my punishment is I couldn't stop you from coming here."
I asked what my punishment was? He said: "You have to go to your door There you will find your own personal hell waiting for you." I looked over, there were thousands of doors. I walked to mine. My door- which had a dolphin shaped glass handle- I looked at it closely, and inside the handle were dolphins! Somehow full size and inside the handle that fit my hand. THEY were crying too! The whole host of Hell stood behind me, and sang: "Go. Open the door. We are so sorry, we couldn't help you."
I opened the door, and there was my entire life. But not from my perspective. Oh sure, I knew every little memory, and deed, and stuff I had done, but, I didn't see it from that perspective. I saw it as a ripple through everyone's life who met me, or interacted with me in any way.
This is very hard to describe, but here is an example:
When I was eight, I went to Catholic School. It had marble shiny floors, and metal wall lockers. The Nuns were very strict, and if you didn't get into your classroom by the third bell (one bell at five minutes, one bell at two minutes, and a third bell at zero minutes!) they closed the door on you. Then you had to go to the Principal's Office- miss class, and explain to your parents how you got a tardy for that day. Back in 1959, this was a big deal for a kid.
So, my best friend Roddy, and our friend, we shall call her Elizabeth-but everyone called her "Libby", walked to school together every day. This day, we were running late, and came to the hallway on the second bell. We were running. I tripped, and my book bag (which is what we carried back in the day) spilled open, and my lunch bag, my pencil box, my notes, all flew out, and skidded down the polished marble hallway. Roddy and Libby immediately started gathering things from under lockers, and down the hall. Libby, stuffed my lunch back in the bag, and said: "Kevin, I have to go! I am in the farthest class room.
" "We know Libby, run! Thanks for the help!" And she scampered off.
Since the second bell had already rung, we knew Roddy and I might not make it. Roddy said: "Libby is such a cool person." I said: "I know, that is why everyone loves her."
Well, in my dream/vision- I was inside the spirit of Libby when she overheard us. I could feel her heart soar, and a warm squiggly feeling, and a giant smile fill her mind.
Then I said: "Too bad she is fat."
Instantly, I felt her feelings change, as she felt small, and ugly, and fat. I
could feel the hot tears that flowed. But, Hell didn't stop there. For the rest of her life, that buried memory of my remark, and its effect on her teen years, how she put weight on after her babies, her constant battles with weight loss and self image, all because of that one callous off the cuff remark. She never even remembered me saying it. But, I saw the damage it did for her whole life.
And that was Hell for me.
I had many examples of which Libby was the mildest. I realized when I woke up, and my wife had to wake me up, because she was scared.She said I was sweating, and she could see my pulse pounding in my neck. My heartbeat was over 200.When she woke me up, I couldn't breathe. I was crying. then we had to change the sheets on the bed. I was so wired. I couldn't even tell her what I dreamed/visioned until weeks later.
In fact, just typing this I am trembling. There are only about a dozen folks I ever told this experience to- with the exception of that Class. I am not religious in any way, I am not agnostic, an atheist, or a believer - I simply don't think about it much. I figure when we die, whatever is next we will know then, and nobody knows now, they just think they do...so, I ignore it.
That is why it surprised me, and anyone who knows me, that I would go to Hell, and find out everything we have been taught about the Devil... and Hell, was wrong. That Hell, real Hell, is caused by us not caring about others.
That everything we say, or do, leaves a ripple through mankind's existence.
For a few years that dream/vision altered my life...I tried to make sure that every word I uttered to other folks, was kind, uplifting, supportive, and the truth, as I knew it. Then it faded. I still try to be kind as a default setting, but I am too human to make it all the time.
I have never had one like it since. More than 20 years ago. I have been interested in the brain ever since. One childhood event, and this event, combined to be two things that fired my curiosity about how we think, or how we even know: "I am me."
I have never done drugs in my life, I have never tasted alcohol, I have never smoked cigarettes, or any other substance. As I used to tell my kids while they were growing up: "Daddy never drank, smoked, or did drugs, and still I messed my life up. You don't need that stuff." LOL.
They asked for an experience I couldn't explain, and mostly still cannot. Maybe my brain just fired an imaginary story to get me to be kinder. Or maybe I had collected so much guilt and angst, because I do have tremendous empathy (I still cry when Bambi's Mom gets shot) that the best my conscious mind could do: is use the endorphins, to combine with the over active amygdala, and the creative power of my temporal lobe, to induce a dream/trance/visionary state- which put my reticular activating system on hyperdrive. Or then again, maybe I was dehydrated, exhausted, and had finished a reading of Dante's Inferno, and my subconscious revolted against the hierarchy of the Church.
Or, then again, maybe it was just a dream with random firings from associative cortexes - or, to quote Dicken's "... a bit of undigested meat,
or an under done potato!" Or maybe, like the theme of Groundhog Day, I was being taught that until I learned to love without conditions, and to love life as it is, I was doomed to Hell for my unloving comments!
In the end, I decided that we make our time on Earth a Heaven or Hell...all on our own.