I had this amazingly striking dream last night. Unfortunately, I was too busy to write it down in my dream journal, so I only remember the most important parts of it. In this dream, that started out as me being myself, I was told by something or someone from above that they needed my help. This man that I didn't know was about to be hanged, but the man was so afraid of dying, that this someone from above wanted me to become that man, so that I could leap this hurdle for him, if you'll excuse the pun. In a sense, I must have died or something, as I could sense leaving my normal body, and a short while afterward, I was in someone else's. At first, I thought I may have been transported to a woman's body, but when I checked I realized otherwise, with a little disappointment. This man was quite different from myself; he was probably in his thirties, and of African descent (It might help to describe that I'm 18 years old, male, and of central European descent). I felt very nervous at first. A beautiful woman escorted me to a metal ladder, and I could tell from the look in her eyes that she knew that it was me inside this man's body, that I would be taking the fall for him. As I walked up the ladder, it shook back and forth quickly. The noose was placed around my neck, and I noticed it was rather thin. As I got to the top of the ladder and stood up, as the ladder shook rather violently, I decided that I would jump down to the right side. I saw the woman at the bottom, looking very concerned... I jumped off of the ladder, and as I reached a certain point, the rope snapped taught, and I heard "my" neck break. Interestingly, I felt no real pain. My sight instantly shut off, and it felt like I was laying horizontally. A second later, after the initial shock wore off, I counted upwards as I waited for death to come. It felt like the words escaped my lips verbally, and a deep darkness slowly engulfed me. I "died" just as I reached eight. I woke up immediately after this.
I could feel right away that this dream was important...but I'm not sure what it means. I don't want my emotions to cloud my judgment in interpreting this, so I'd very much appreciate any guesses as to what any of this may mean. I haven't had a nightmare in years, and I used to have plenty of dreams where I would "die", but they were really all cut off before the actual act happened. (Mostly falling dreams back when I was a small child, or one a bit more recently when I was mauled by a giant wolverine). This wasn't a nightmare per say though, I wasn't terribly afraid during any of it, though I was a bit nervous. Thank you all in advance for any help.
Craft