Beloved nonagenarian actor Dick Van Dyke shares incredible story of falling asleep on surfboard and drifting out to sea: “I looked around and I started paddling with the swells, and I start seeing fins swimming around me. And I thought, you know, ‘I’m dead!’”

But was it all a dream?

The much beloved actor Dick Van Dyke turned 96 years young, yesterday, and wow. Van Dyke made a name for himself in musical theater before gracing the silver screen, playing unforgettable characters like the chimney sweep in Disney’s Mary Poppins and Dick Van Dyke on “The Dick Van Dyke Show.”

Wonderful and in honor of his birthday, delightful stories from the past near century are being unearthed including this one:

While chatting with Craig Ferguson on The Late Late Show in 2010, Van Dyke, then 85, said he’d once enjoyed surfing. But when Ferguson asked if he still caught waves at that point, Van Dyke told him, “No, not anymore.”

He said he used to paddle out on a 10-foot longboard and had a preference for the cold waters of the east coast — specifically Virginia Beach.

“I went out once and I fell asleep on that board,” he shared. “I did! And I woke up out of sight of land.”

But the story gets even more incredible. Van Dyke said, “I looked around and I started paddling with the swells, and I start seeing fins swimming around me. And I thought, you know, ‘I’m dead.’”

“They turned out to be porpoises,” he concluded. “They pushed me all the way to shore. I’m not kidding.”

Well I have never heard anything so surreal. Have you? Also, have you ever fallen asleep on a surfboard? In cold water?

Incredible.