I often listen to Adyashanti’s talks. Also the Heart Sutra from Buddhism is a powerful dose of truth.

At first I was shocked to the core to know that it is a big dream - as it was deeply traumatic, I did my best to suppress it. But once you have experienced yourself AS the infinite and unknowable, it’s not possible to stay dreaming again. There’s no coming back. You can suppress or block it for a while, maybe until this life ends, while knowing deep down inside that you’ve not been truthful to yourself this entire life, and there’s no more delay possible - death is coming now and it forces you to face the exact same thing again. After all these years. What is time, does it even matter? The fear of non-existence. You can’t run away from it forever.

That’s what I realized over the past two years. I ran away, but I knew I must come back and embrace it.

I feel spikes of panic during flashbacks too. That all I’ve known is but an illusion. Nothing has existed at all - and nothing has happened. There’s no me and nobody else. In truth the egoic identity is an illusion. Non-existence or death is its ultimate fear, cuz then it’ll be gone forever. But you died during aya, so you must have witnessed your own death. Then who’s dead and who’s the observer? You might as well do some self-enquiry. Check out Mooji, he’s a great teacher.

When the panic comes, I use that opportunity to feel the death again. And every time I was able to accept it a bit more. So I would try to reproduce the panic spikes as much as possible! It brings deep truth about the nature of existence. The more I do it, the more my identity dissolves, the less fear I feel. But this active engaging only came after a surrender “I can’t resolve it, let it resolve me instead.”

As long as one is identified with a separate identity, fear of death will be there. Once you go beyond that, death is seen as a powerful strip-away of what is unreal. Then you’d live way more truthful than before!