A Dream About The End

It’s 4 AM in Bandung. I was awoken by a bad dream. I immediately thank God it was just a bad dream. A dream about the end of the world. About everything crumbling down. What I described might not be an exact replication of the dream, but I tried to stay true to the peculiar experience I feel then.

I don’t really remember the beginning of the dream. But somewhere along the start of the end I mentioned, I was walking along a path on a cliff with lots of people. Some people, I know. The path branched into 2 at some point. The path on the right was crushing down. I grabbed the hand of a middle aged man and prevent him from falling. He got back up to his feet and continue running with who seems to be his wife. I then immediately looked to the right. There’s a pillar near the edge of cliff across and there’s an old man who looks a lot like my grandfather trying so hard to hug the pillar. I reached his hand which in turn give him strength that made him crawl to the cliff’s edge. I then continue my journey.

I made it to a crowded place. I tried to ask other survivors about the cataclysm that just struck us. Everyone believed it was an earthquake. Then I continue my journey and arrive at a Mosque. I found an old friend, he’s leading the survivors in a discussion. We didn’t talk much.

After some moments without rush, I feel a bit energized and actually excited about the fact the I might live through a post-apocalyptic world. I saw a lot of animals running, some of them talked. I don’t remember what they said. And not long after, I saw people running from seaside. And then also a lot of robots running along with human. Looks like where I was, I was close to the shore. I knew that means people are afraid of a tsunami incoming. I immediately feel both terrible -because of getting excited- and terrified when I remembered about the doomsday mentioned in Islam. This may very well be the beginning of that doomsday. Fear started to overwhelm me. And then I woke up.

I woke up. And I am still deep and engulfed in fear. It’s around 4 AM. I tried to remember when Subuh prayer in Bandung today, it’s around 04:40 AM-ish. I don’t know why but I suddenly feel the need to do shalat. I then take wudu and prayed 2 rakaat of sunnah shalat. I am still afraid of something. I don’t know what. I then reach my Qur’an, and open the bookmarked page and start reading. I read about 1 page and add another half of page. Then finally calm comes to me. And fear, away. Just curious with what I just read, I decided to read the translation of those ayat I just read. It was Q.S. Al-Baqarah: 239–248.

The first ayat of Qur’an I — semi-randomly — read after waking up in fear translated to Bahasa Indonesia like this, “Jika kamu dalam keadaan takut (bahaya), maka shalatlah sambil berjalan atau berkendaraan. Kemudian apabila kamu telah aman, maka sebutlah Allah (shalatlah), sebagaimana Allah telah mengajarkan kepada kamu apa yang belum kamu ketahui.”