This morning I had a dream that I was at the funeral for some priest who I’ve never met in real life, but I was grieved at his passing in the dream. After or during one part of the service, I began roaming about the church or cathedral where it was being held. I was still very upset. I finally came to sit in this one room, and leaned up against the wall. I abruptly realized there was another person in the room as well. An old man sitting on a chair off to my right some distance. He was dressed all in white and hunched over forward. I suddenly realized who he was. The Pope! John Paul II, to be precise.

We exchanged a few words about the priest who had passed. And then I realized, hey, I’m here with the Pope, I ought to make this count! So I tried to think of the best possible question to ask him. I decided to ask him about the Gnostics, if he had a book he recommended reading about them. He got up and tottered over to one of several bookshelves, taking down an enormous blue book, bound in the old style. He handed it to me, and asked me to open to a particular passage.

The book was actually the Bible. But it was not the normal Bible. It was some weird version I’ve never seen or heard of. All the books were arranged in a different order. Some had different titles, and some were missing or added from what was normally there. There were also woodblock-style illustrations, and lots of magical diagrams. He instructed me to open to the Book of Revelation (which was called something else), pointing me to a particular passage with a particular character, and told me that, that’s what the Gnostics were. Of course, I don’t remember what he pointed two. It may have been the Two Witnesses, or it may have been something similar to that. I just don’t remember.

I asked him a few other questions (not sure what), and leafed further through the weird blue Bible when he wasn’t looking. At one point, I remember asking him a question and he showed me a Gary Larson cartoon about chickens. He seemed to have quite a sense of humor. We talked for a little while longer before putting the books away. He asked me something strange about did I sign the books out in his name? I asked him what he meant, and finally came to understand that he was referring to some kind of magical seal, and that I needed to use it in order to banish whatever powers were invoked by that book.

I guess whatever it was though, I didn’t do it right. Because shortly thereafter he became crazy or possessed or something. His demeanor changed, and he suddenly ordered me put into chains. And he was going to walk me through the countryside and “the Jews” were supposed to laugh at me and none of them would be allowed to help. And there was some part where I spoke with some of his closest staff to tell them what had happened. They knew that this changeover was inevitable. They also knew that it meant his evil destiny was now to take over and enslave the world. He and his general went off to some other room to confer and strategize. I paced around the room a while wondering what to do. Eventually, I got up, and pushed a chair in as I did so. Without realizing it, this chair bumped into and knocked over a wax bust of John Paul II. The head of the statue broke and tumbled off. His staff immediately told me that in so doing I had killed him. So I immediately asked who the next pope was, and was extremely incredulous when they explained that it was me, since I had killed him.

I suppose I must not have accepted it, because after that, I sealed myself up into a couple rooms in the palace or whatever, with a handful of people. I told them that whatever they did, they were not to look at the books in the next room. When asked for proof why, I told them that the Pope himself had gone crazy from it. I woke up shortly after that.

There was also a point in my dream which happened much earlier chronologically. I realized I was talking to the Pope, and some part of my brain asked: Which Pope? I looked over at him expecting him to be Ratzinger, but it was John Paul II instead. Even in my dream, I knew this was a miraculous happening because JP2 was dead. And this meant I was visiting with a Pope from the Land of the Dead.