The vision described in this short story happened in the summer of 2002. It was the middle of the afternoon and I was taking a bit of a reading break in my living room at home. I was sitting in my favorite chair, reading a book that my friend Ron had lent me concerning some of the things that Edgar Casey said concerning Atlantis. According to the book, Mr. Casey “saw” the country of Atlantis before it had sunk into the ocean millennia ago. Because of his visions, he claimed to have some kind of direct knowledge of the place, the peoples, and its history. This all seemed, and still seems, pretty outlandish – not something I am likely to invest my beliefs in. However, I was reading the book so that I could talk to Ron about it.
I stopped reading for a moment to ponder the question of what was it that Mr. Casey was reporting on. Assuming that he wasn’t outright lying, it seems that he is describing some kind of experience. I formed the question in my mind, “what was he experiencing that gave him the background to make the claims that are in his writings?”
Almost immediately I found that I was in very new, and unknown, place. Instead of sitting in my chair, in my living room with a book on my lap, I was standing on a long pier jutting out into a body of water, looking back toward the land. The sky was very blue and bright, the dock was in good shape, approximately ten feet wide, with wooden deck boards running perpendicular to the direction of travel. There were no railings or any other things along the side except for large fluted, white columns spaced about every twenty feet apart along both sides of the pier. The columns looked to be of an ancient design, with some sort of curly things around the top, but without a roof. The pier was about 4 or 5 feet above the water. I suppose I was a hundred or so feet from the shore.
The water was a beautiful deep blue color, and very calm. It was making tiny ripples as it splashed up against a smooth, perfect beach leading out of my vision to both sides. The beach was the color of California beaches; it wasn’t white, but more of a golden brown shade. The beach was about fifty feet deep, gently sloping up to meet rolling hills leading inland. The hills were green with grass and a few small bushes, but there were no trees nearby. There was what appeared to be a stand of trees off in the distance to my left. I could see the hills up to a height of about 100 feet or so, and then they disappeared from view where the cloudless blue sky started.
Directly ashore from the pier was the front of a building. It appeared that the hills had been dug back making room for the front wall of the building. The large façade, consisting of a wall made from what appeared to be marble blocks, with a covered area in front supported by more columns. There was a large opening near the center that led to the interior of the building. It was quite dark in the opening, so I could not see anything inside of the building, just a black opening.
I looked around the landscape for a bit, turning my head to look up and down the beach – noticing that my “vision” was in three dimensions, I was in the middle of it, the vision was “projected” out in front of me. As I scanned the view I noticed that there were few trees nearby, and no animals of any kind. The beach was smooth. There were no tracks in the sand. It didn’t really feel barren; it just happened that there were no animals immediately visible at this time. It didn’t feel out of place, I was just noticing. It was completely calm, and completely silent – although I am not sure if I could hear in this vision, maybe it was just a visual experience.
As I stood watching the scene, a lady came walking toward me out of the building. She was tall (5’ 9” or so), had black hair, and brown skin. She had “Caucasian” features, and a nice comfortable figure. I noticed was that she was wearing a golden crown that consisted of a golden band about a half inch in diameter going around her head, with a cobra’s head raising up in the front. I recognized this as the headgear that I had seen pictures of Egyptian queens wearing. It reminded me of how Cleopatra looks in the movies. She was wearing a wrap-around gown that had a plunging neck line, with wide upward sweeping shoulders. It was in a pattern that looked a bit like a fan starting near her belly and fanning out upward toward her shoulders. The fan was formed from alternating stripes of beautiful blue and gold color. The fan was edged at the top (neckline) with a broad golden colored border. I was pretty sure that the gold was actual gold threads. I don’t know what the blue was from. The gown appeared to be very light and airy, and form fitting above her hips. It appeared to be worn like a robe rather than like a dress. Below her knees the gown gently folded, with a slit in front formed by the folds. The best way to describe it is that it looked just like popular pictures of an Egyptian queen. She had open toed, strap-on sandals.
She walked across the sand leading to the pier and come toward me until she was standing about ten feet in front of me, stopping to look into my eyes. Not a word was said. Her movements were very soft but formal. At that moment my mind had the thought, “so, this is what Casey was seeing.”
Poof! The vision was gone and there I was sitting in my living room, holding my book, slightly stunned by the instantaneous transformation between my two visions (the Egyptian vision and my living room). It left me pretty disoriented for a few minutes. I had to consciously accept the idea that I was going to stick with the living room vision.
A year or so later I was attending the Burning Man festival in Nevada. One day I walked into the big center camp tent to see what was happening and there she was! There was the lady in my vision, standing a few feet in front of me. Not wanting a re-experience of missing important moments in time, I walked right up to her, introduced myself to her, and told her about seeing her in my Egyptian vision. Neither she, nor her male friend, seemed to cotton to the idea of my telling them this. They politely thanked me for the story and quickly backed away to get away from this wild-man telling them about visions of her in a former time of splendor. Oh well, at least I didn’t walk past what might have been an opportunity. I don’t think that my vision was anything more than that. I doubt that it was rooted in any sort of past, present, or future reality. My impression was that some part of my mind was answering my question about Mr. Casey’s world view. Rather than giving me an answer in words, it did it by creating an experience. It was a visual answer, not a verbal one. I don’t think I learned anything about Egypt or the lady, but I certainly learned about how vivid and spontaneous these things can be. It explained to me why some people say they see things that others do not. It would be pretty easy to confuse an experience like this with “reality” because it didn’t require the experience of falling asleep and waking up. It just popped in and out again. I suppose I actually fell asleep and was experiencing a dream, but if so it was a lucid dream that didn’t fade in and out like most dreams do. I had no view of any part of myself which is normal in my lucid dreams. I can usually see parts of myself such as my hands, arms and legs – but not this time. However, from the position that I was standing I don’t think I would have been able to see myself so that doesn’t really mean much.