Dreaming on my feet

I've entered some type of sanctuary, in a place that's like a crevice in a sandstone mountain/rock, with a pool of water in the middle about waist deep with massive, beautiful trees with huge trunks growing out of the pool, with leaves like a willow, flowering. There's a stone path I can see on the pools floor, and a stone path around the side of the pool. I am walking around the path, and there are some people dressed mostly in black sitting against the wall that seem to be praying or contemplating. I get an intense feeling that this place is sacred, and walk slowly and act accordingly. I come across a type of gaurd, sitting cross legged dressed completely in black robes with a type of mask/head dress. The gaurd does not move as we pass, and just beyond there is a ledge leading into the pool, the stone path is infront of me, and I step in the pool feeling the gaurd's approval to my entering the pool in some sort of direct communication method. The people that I am with walk through the pool to the right along that path, underneath a stone arch in the wall that leads to another room. Wading in the pool I admire the beauty around me and walk to the left toward the trees, and I notice an unusual pattern in the rock wall infront of me, like icycles or the types of rock formations you find hanging down from caves like pillars or spikes. I see that the formation continues down into the water, so I take a deep breath and submerge. Looking ahead, the pillars continue down [only waist deep or a little more, and the place is dark, yet at the same time a reddish-orange glow radiates from the corner, and it seems to get deeper and deeper, and I am suddenly seized with panic and fear, and percieve the place not necessarily to represent hell or evil, but eternity, fear, inhuman, dark, perilous. I jump up from the water and look around to find my friends and tell them what has just happened and leave the place, but I am still curious, and master my fear and submerge again. This time I gaze into the abyss, between two tree trunks, and while it looks the same, I see it this time without fear, and it fills me with a sense of eternity, calm, orderly, representing death to me. I sit cross legged, on the floor of the water and breathe underwater, and just gaze into it and filled with a profound sense of calmness of mind, and nothing else.

This dream held a lot of meaning for me while it happened, and ever since it has happened I can remember the entire vividly. I've come to feel that the dream has some parallel toward my attitude about death, or attitudes, if you will. The gaurd and how we communicated is still has me struck dumb. I'm not big into dream interpretation but it seems to blatant to overlook.