I saw The Thirteenth Floor when my uncle just happened to be dying of cancer. It wasn't easy watching him passes slowly from this life due to painful cancer. Toward the end, he said things that seemed to suggest that he was aware of entering another dimension. Many people have talked about seeing a tunnel of light during near-death experiences.

    My uncle was a great believer in God. He attended church every Sunday. In fact, he was a deacon in his church. I remember my uncle as witty and a lot of fun to be around. I don't think I ever saw him lying down. He was active man. But the cancer put him in bed. The pain was so devastating that he had to be on a continual supply of morphine. He went from being very talkative to hardly saying anything at all. At times I wondered if he could even understand what I was saying. The day before he died he yelled, "Praise the Lord." And, he shouted, "Let's all gather around and pray." I wondered if he was having an experience of entering another dimension.

The movie, The Thirteenth Floor, had profound significance for me. In the film there are three dimensions going on all at once. Science fiction novels and movies give us away of thinking about abstract realities. The film was very much like Dark City, The Truman Show, and The Matrix.  All of these films dealt with a dimension of reality beyond this physical world.  I don't know why this film didn't do better than it did.  It's certainly helped me to think about the other dimension that my uncle finally passed into.

When I got home from visiting my uncle, I received a call from a woman in my church. She said her mother-in-law was dying of cancer. I went to see this dying woman. She was hanging on, not wanting to leave this life. I read to her some passages from the Bible that dealt with the wonderful realities that awaited her beyond this life. I prayed with her so she could release herself from this life and enter the next.

     Coupling these two deaths with the movie, The Thirteenth Floor, left an indelible impression upon.  I would recommend this film as a way of getting people to think and talk about existence beyond this life.

     Most people believe in a hereafter. Most people believe that when they die their life continues in another dimension like heaven. Most people, however, find it hard to talk about their death. Or, even heaven. Many find it difficult to talk about God. Many believe in angels and in realities that exist along our physical universe, which we cannot see with our eyes or hear with our ears. This film also questions our limited assumptions of reality. Are there larger realities that exist along side of the one that we know in this world? The answer is, yes there is.