Bad dreams

For as long as I can remember, I have had bad dreams. I think that sometimes I have normal dreams and just don’t remember them, but I don’t think I ever have “good dreams”. The kind where you are supposed to wake up smiling. Sometimes I get prophetic dreams and I think this is one of my giftings. Usually, they aren’t very detailed, just a person I know and a feeling like I should contact them. When I muster the courage to follow up, its always good.

But the bad dreams. . . I can recount the vivid fears and dreams of my childhood, my parents probably can too. Snakes and monsters and such. One time on a mission trip, I had one and screamed and woke everyone up in my bunkhouse. Nate was in another area, but he told everyone that its normal and I would be ok and to go back to sleep. When Nate and I were first married, I went through a round of bad dreams related to some issues I needed to deal with that was brought to the surface with him. He would hold me and let me cry or comfort me or at least try to avoid me if I thought he was the source of my bad dream and lashed out at him. That appears to have mostly been worked out, or he has stopped telling me when I do it (or he has gotten used to it and sleeps through it now). Now they still come, but in the last few years they’ve taken on a new form. Possibly because I have outgrown my childish fears of monsters and the dark, and possibly because I have worked through some of my issues, and possibly because I’m trying to fight my fear.

FEAR. That’s the best way I can describe how I feel when I have them. That feeling you get when you can see danger headed straight for you and you know you can’t get out of the way in time or when you get that hair raising feeling that there is evil close by and its aiming its sights on you. Heart pounding, frozen in place. It’s a physical presence, something breathing on me, or watching me, a shadow at the window, an unknown noise in the house or in the backyard. I’ve been trying to get myself to recite a scripture verse or rebuke the devil, but in that not-quite-awake state, I am not very good at thinking clearly. Besides, I’m in that adrenaline rush mode where I just trying to figure out how to survive the current situation (in my head).

I, unfortunately, appear to have passed this issue on to at least my daughter. When the kids do wake up at night afraid, I have nothing to say to them. I don’t know how to help them cope, when I have the same problem myself. Its a good thing that Nate usually does the nighttime duties. She told Nate this morning that she was happy because she didn’t have any dreams last night. 🙁

I’ve never thought to try to understand this part of my life until this morning. Its kinda one of those things where its always been there so I don’t even think to question it. Do other people have this problem? Nate doesn’t seem to. But I never put it together that this really shouldn’t be a normal occurrence. I had one last night so I finally got around to talking to God about it. (Why can’t I learn this lesson? Talk to Him about it before you get fed up with it. Before you are so tired of struggling.) Then I had my own little inner healing session in my car on the way to work this morning. Gloria would be proud. 🙂

He simply told me to analyze the most recent type of dream. Usually it starts with the feeling of a presence and once I’ve detected it and I try to find the source, it takes the form of some shadowy figure on the ceiling or wall or outside. I can’t really see anything definite, the form appears either too fast or too slow for my eyes, like its not quite part of this world. So I end up spending a lot of energy just pinpointing where I ‘feel’ it and thinking that if I could just see ‘it’, that I could keep it from doing whatever evil it is planning for me. After this point it usually leaves, possibly because it has achieved its purpose in ruining my sleep for the night or maybe I just wake up enough that I can rationalize myself into going back to sleep and forgetting about it. And that is how they go. Probably 10-15 min tops. I don’t usually have more than one a night, but it does happen. I’m not sure how often I have them, never attempted to track them.

Then I hear Gloria’s voice in my head “Ask God to tell you where He is in this situation.” So I ask Him. I replay the scene in my mind again and this time I see something akin to a sci-fi force field around our room (and throughout our house) protecting not only me but also my family. However, it only goes to the edges. So the shadowy thing comes right up to the force field and sends its little ray of fear down toward me. I think that it must be able to make sounds, not necessarily words but noises and hints. Due to the force field it can’t actually touch me or even really get very close to me. But I can still feel its presence. This is what wakes me, and causes my panic attack, and my subsequent search for my attacker. At which point, I imagine the thing laughing at me through my episode until I pull myself together enough to either start praying or go back to sleep. If I start praying, it leaves immediately.

A force field may not sound so exciting to anyone else reading this post (if you even got this far into my crazy life), but this was revolutionary to me in my car this morning! I know that there are passages that support the idea that Christians are ‘protected’ by the Holy Spirit residing in them and I’ve even applied some of them to things that were going on around me when I’ve been awake. It’s really the idea that even when I’m sleeping and not fully in control, the Holy Spirit in my life is. And He’s protecting me.

I can’t say that I’m done with my bad dreams because I haven’t slept again since my session this morning. I can say that my spiritual eyes have been opened to see the truth and what I’m dealing with. Its just a little emotion named FEAR, and God has placed a 10 foot restraining order on it for me. So I can either choose to continue to let it taunt me from my ceiling, or wall, or backyard. Or I can tell it to shove off, it has no power over me. And now I need to chase it away from my children! Because even if I don’t get around to dealing with my issues for my own sake, seeing my children have to fight these battles sure adds some incentive to break free.