-image-A Plague of Dreaming

September 21, 2006 | Just Me, Spirituality

I’m hesitant to use the term “prophetic dream” - mostly because I’m not sure if there is some category divider that changes a dream from a casual personal revelation into a “prophecy”.  Whatever.  Tuesday night I had an unusual dream.  Actually, I had two unusual dreams that night but it was the earlier of the two that I woke up remembering.

It’s not unusual for God to talk to me (or you in case you didn’t realize) through dreams.  Over the last few years I’ve only had 3 or 4 that were so profound they stuck with me, but I am prone to occassionally hear from God this way.  I have also experienced the flip side of that coin; I guess you’d call them “demonic” dreams; not from God, not from me, and something much deeper than your average nightmare.  Thank God I don’t have them anymore; I needed counseling to shake them once and for all.  But let’s just say I’ve had enough experiences to teach myself to distinguish a spritiual dream from the average REM sleep.

Here’s my one rule of thumb:
If you can remember it clearly, still know the details or feelings, the next day - then it’s something more than nightly brain activity. (or at least worth some further investigation)
Sometimes when you first wake up you remember parts of your dream but by the time you brush your teeth it’s started to fade - those dreams don’t normally apply to the rule.  But you know the times when you wake up and the dream is so clear to you, maybe not all but parts of it, that you feel like you could almost enter it again - all my spiritual dreams have had that quality.

So yesterday I awoke, stretched, lamented my tooth pain, popped a pain pill, and then was suddenly reminded of a dream I’d had that night.  It seemed so odd (I’ll spare you the details).  Thinking about it reminded me of the other dream I’d had just before I’d waked; they weren’t the same dream but they definitely seemed linked (now that I was thinking about it).  For some reason figuring out these dreams felt so pressing that I didn’t even get out of bed - I rolled over, grabbed my journal and began writing.

The message of the first dream and the second dream were definitely different; but I did realize that the second dream was very similiar to a dream I’d been having every night for the last week or two.  (And now my recent lack of interest in going to bed at a decent hour all starts to make sense.)  When I was prone to my weird demonic dreams I would have chronic nightmares, and not just chronic nightmares I’d have the same nightmare over and over - I even had one in particular for up to 20 years.  Poor Wakizashi had to learn what to do when terrified out of his sleep by my sudden screaming.

These dreams weren’t like that.  They weren’t enjoyable but it was more like watching a cheesy horror flick than a full on nightmare.  And, even though they repeated, they weren’t the same dream, just the same elements, the same feeling was repeated.  I mean, it took me almost two weeks to realize what was happening.  (That’s what I call a consistent messanger!)

Ok, so here I am, as yet undressed, and I have realized 1) God is trying to get a message through to me 2) I’m having some weird connected, but not the same, dreams 3) I really need to figure out what’s going on.  The first dream, the one from earlier Tuesday night that first got my attention, that one was easy to understand.  As soon as I asked God to tell me what it was about and turned my mind back to the events a phrase dropped into my mind.  Just fell into place.  No, it wasn’t “Your dream is meant to tell you…” actually, it was the opposite of my dream.  Like my dream was a reflection of the way I’d been thinking and the phrase was the lesson God wanted me to learn instead.

“It’s not us (my immediate family and I) against the world.”

The other dreams weren’t as simple; remember, I told you they weren’t the same as the first dream.  Working through them wasn’t helping me any; primarily because I only remembered the really specific details of the one I’d had that night.  Instead, it occured to me to try and remember if I’d ever had a dream with similar elements.  Yes, in fact I had!  One of those 3-4 definitely spiritual dreams had elements like this one - but yet, very different.  I was just about to dismiss it’s helpfulness when yet again it simply occured to me - I knew what that common element meant.

From there everything just began to fall into place.  I understood what was going on!  Like I said at the beginning, I don’t know that I would call these “prophetic dreams” they weren’t so much telling me something outside of myself.  Really, it was trying to show me something about myself that I was unaware of - something I had been allowing to hold me back.  The dream was meant to free me, to encourage me - well, maybe that is what a prophetic dream does?

I was so excited I called Wakizashi and narrated my dreams and conclusions.  His response: So what are you going to do about it?  (How Wakizashi of him.)  What am I going to do about it?  I don’t think anything needs to be done so much - except what I was supposed to do all along.  I’m suddenly on fire to start my business - motivated to step out into this next phase of my life.  I’m positive that was the intent in the first place.  And in case you were wondering how I know I’ve come to the right conclusions, I had no dreams at all last night - just a nice, peaceful sleep.