45 Year Old Unknown Hero

I know that this is not a dream venue but I am not looking for interpretation as it's very obvious. What I'd like to know is how on Earth is this possible?

Two nights ago I had a dream whereas I was approximately 4-6 years old. There was an older boy that said his name was Jake or Jack and he was approximately 5-6 years older than I in the dream.

He was the only one that talked... I just listened.

He told me that very long ago when we both were these ages as in my dream, he saved my life from near drowning. He stated that he always remembered doing that for me and told me that recently he had died. He said that he had not lived a very good or honest life but wanted me to know that this one good deed he did allowed him to pass into his next existence.

As he talked about the incident, I remember seeing/feeling flashes of slightly familiar sounds and/or setting... Like I was at a resort or hotel pool. It was a very soothing and loving feeling in the dream and what was strange was that I knew I was dreaming.

I woke up and remembered the entirety of the dream and I dismissed it as just a very wild and vivid sleep journey.

Throughout the day I couldn't let it go and finally asked my elderly mother if I had ever almost drowned and described the dream in the same text as the question I posed.

She immediately replied that this actually happened 45 years prior when I was 5 and my foot and ankle got lodged in a spillway of the pool at a Holiday Inn in Illinois and that she and my dad and older sisters didn't see me slip under the water. She said a boy around the age of 12 with a name that started with a J but she couldn't remember exactly had saved me and pulled me out of the pool after he got my foot free.

Even more odd is that over the past 12-18 months, I have had very real and "awake" dreams whereas my deceased dad and sister spend what seems as hours with me chatting about life, memories and such. We are never at the same locations and none of which I recognized even after waking. The talks are deep and loving with a sense of just enjoying the company of one another.

Further, earlier on the night of the dream of being saved by Jake, I had seen a very bright white light flash anomaly outside in my front courtyard literally 3-5 feet from my face level that looked like a misty white translucent cloth twisting and elevating and then disappeared instantly in a flash.

I do not do drugs and was not intoxicated in the least. Can anyone shed some light on this as both my wife and I and my mother are baffled.