Once when I was young, soon after my dad's mother died (I'd seen her once, when I was 2) She came floating through my doorway to my bedroom, basically said she was going away for a while and waved and disappeared.
(EDIT: that *could* hint at reincarnation. Something I did believe at that age)
Now, I'm not 100% sure exactly how old I was when she died, but I do know that because I was in a room by myself, I was between the age of 5 and 7.
Also, the room was pretty dark, there was a little light filtering through the curtains, but I must have woken up because I always got put to bed before it got dark.
Either that or it was a dream. The memory, I guess it's needless to say, has faded somewhat in it's clarity (being that I'm 22 now) and there's every chance I could have added my own things to it, being I have a rather active and vivid imagination.
Having said that, only 2 years ago I had a dream the night my aunt in the Netherlands died (though it would have been been the middle of the day, their time, 12 hours behind me). This involved a tall hospital building. I (as my auntie) flew out the window, circling the building. I could see traffic and things below me, but it was night, so everything was lit up by street lights. Then I came back through a different window and it was pitch, pitch black. Dark that almost felt solid. Then there was a pinprick of light, and silhouetted figures rushing back and forth in front of it, and the light got bigger. Then the dream ended.
Now - the problem with THIS instance, is that I don't necessarily believe that the transition of death involves a light getting bigger, or "others" there to meet oyu. I still don't. I'm not entirely sure exactly what I imagine will happen post-death. However, the traditional "moving to the light" is a very simple image, easy to visualise and is common to the understanding of many people. I understand it's simple meanings, and the idea what it was conveying. Not necessarily that there is a life after death... this could have been my own dream reality doing something by itself.
but I didn't know until 2 days later that she'd died.
This could have been a case of ESP - what she projected as her wish to happen before it did.
Perhaps this was an easy image for my dream reality to comprehend and understand.
I guess what I'm saying, is that these experiences are highly subjective to our own beliefs and the everyday symbols we come across. And with time the memories become faded, distorted and hell, even drastically altered by our own imaginations or even what we WANT the experience to be.
wooops.... didn't mean this post to go quite for THAT long!!! ROFL