On the night of 29 September 2013, I was asleep in my bed in north London (England), and my father was over 80 miles distant, in a dementia nursing home on the south coast.

I was jolted awake at around 1:30 am, and I sat up in the darkness. A tremendous and intense rushing energy had filled the room. I couldn’t see it, but I could sense it, and it was indescribable but 'sparkling.' “Dad!” I exclaimed. I just knew it was him. And I knew that he was dying, and that he had come to me to help him push over. And somehow I knew what he needed and what I had to do. I concentrated for all my worth and wished him all the peace and love and energy that I had in me - and forgiveness - and it felt both personal and universal. I do not know how long this went on for, as time stood still. And then I lay back down, and I looked through the purple-ringed portal in the back of my eyes* and I saw the light - that clichéd image - a giant door-shaped hole in the darkness, and silhouetted against it were countless figures, outlined by the light, all slowly streaming toward it. And I felt very great peace, and I drifted from this vision back into sleep.

The following morning I awoke early and immediately phoned the nursing home. I apologised for the hour (it was just past 6 am) and asked for a report on my father. After a pause the nurse came to the phone and informed me that Dad had died. I asked when he had died, and she replied that they had checked on him at 1:00am and he was alive, but that when they checked on him at 2:00am he had passed over.

I firmly believe that I was sharing my father’s death experience. And several things have happened since involving him that have made me appreciate what he taught me about Jung’s idea of an Unus Mundus (One World). I am not religious, but what I experienced that night has profoundly affected my thinking.

*When I was about four or five, I discovered that I could ‘travel’ in my mind - a trick I have retained to this day. I refocus my eyes while my eyes are shut, until I get a steady stream of purple ‘smoke rings’ that consistently form and fade into the distance - then I concentrate on the space within the rings and this becomes a portal through which I can see visions. Sometimes it’s as if I am flying over landscapes at great speed; at other times I see people - faces - of whom I know not. I have always found it very soothing.  I also had some incredibly vivid dream premonitions at this time, which I remember just as vividly, and which have made more and more sense to me over the years.