Hey everyone,
This is an experience I had a few months back. For the skeptics, although I'm not going to categorically claim this was genuine, the main person that I saw during this experience was only identified *after* the experience via a photograph from Google. I also had not been aware that the person in question had died until I found out after the experience, also.
I was initially having a dream in which I was trying to find the main
Amway website. When I found it, on the page there was what initially looked like a video feed looking into a particular room. I then had the impression of this "zooming in" or me being pulled into it, and suddenly I found myself standing in what seemed like an old bar or saloon. At this point, the dream became lucid, (I realised I was dreaming) and quite a lot more vivid. I can remember running my fingers over the bar top in front of me and being able to feel the grain of the wood.
There was an old man standing behind the bar in front of me, and I asked him where I was.
"This is one of the happy places of your imagination," was the reply. At that response, I said aloud that I doubted anything in my imagination would ordinarily be quite so visibly American architecturally, since we didn't have anything very much like that near where I live. (I'm Australian)
What I mean by that though is that everywhere I looked, there was a deep salmon/reddish coloured wood. The bar itself was made of it, and there were a large number of chairs and tables around the room which appeared to be made of it at all. The only mental point of reference I had for it was some of the ads I'd seen on television for a few different brands of American whiskey; the look of the distilleries shown in them was similar.
After looking around the bar for a few seconds, my host showed me a pair of large glass sliding doors at the back of the bar room.
We went through, and it turned out that the bar was built on a small, very lush island. My host led me down to a beach not far from the bar room. The colour saturation with all of it was very deep...deeper than that in waking reality. I can also remember feeling sand underfoot, and the spiky leaves of some of the bushes before the grass gave way to the sand.
We went into the water which was warm and clear, although I got the impression that the boundaries of that particular construct didn't extend very far out from the beach itself; enough to be able to get in the water, but not much more.
After a few minutes my host seemed impatient, got out of the water and walked back up towards the bar room. I got out of the water as well, and attempted to follow him to see where he was going.
When I caught up with him, there was a picnic blanket laid out on some grass outside the bar room, with a small number of people sitting around eating. Again, the impression here was very vivid; I can remember the taste and texture of a block of cheese, and having to spit out some seeds from a grape I ate.
After having eaten, I noticed my host had disappeared again, but standing in front of me was a woman who appeared to be in her mid to late 30s, who I assumed from her words was his daughter.
She initially said that her father had died last night, (given what I found out later about my host's identity, I wasn't sure why she said last night) but that he had wanted to inspire someone before he left. She then asked me if he had succeeded in doing so. I answered her that I believed he had been successful.
I woke up soon after, and on looking at some photos of people associated with Amway, was somewhat shocked to find this
image of Jay Van Andel, one of the co-founders of the business. The man I first saw in the bar room and who showed me around the island was identical to this image, barring some slight fuzziness. I wasn't able to verify the appearance of his daughter, as I can't find photos of his children, but I was able to confirm that he did have two daughters.
The only thing I've been unable to understand was his daughter saying that he had died "last night," since Google referenced an article saying he had died in 2004, and I had this experience last month. (late April)
My father has been involved in Amway since around 1992, and it was one of the main things which led to my parents' divorce and the disintegration of my immediate family. The interpretation which I have drawn from this experience is that Mr. Van Andel's spirit wished to express to me that despite my own traumatic experience with Amway, his initial vision for the business had been very different; and that the BST he had shown me was essentially a realisation of said vision in the Afterlife, in the same way as the Hollow Heavens are for Christian groups. I am also inclined to believe that the experience was given to me in order to enable me to feel some closure.
I also want to add that this experience, in conjunction with a few others I've had since discovering this site around two years ago, has largely succeeded in removing doubt I have had about continued spiritual existence after death. Bruce and some others have done and are doing some very positive and beneficial work with this site, which has been of enormous assistance to my own development, and I am grateful.
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Invitation to a BST (Read 4888 times)
