Of dreams and nightmares...

Supposedly we always dream when we sleep. We simply don’t normally happen to remember what we dream—at least, I know I don’t. But last night was exceptional—even a bit startling—for the fact that the dreams lived on in memory even after I’d awakened.

Maybe it had to do with the fact that I got up at 4:30 to bake scones…or that the essay I’d been working on the night before had slightly twisted some of the synapses in my brain. It was only about 5:30 in the morning when the scones had been safely removed from the oven and left on the counter to cool, so I decided to catch forty winks before seven o’clock rolled around.

I entered the dream world without realizing it…sometimes everything is so realistic you can’t help but fancy that it’s happening in real time as it plays out in your head. I remember standing on the doorstep of my house, clutching a 300 lb. book bag in one hand and fumbling with my keys as I tried to open the door. When I touched the handle, I found that it wasn’t locked. Strange, I thought…although sometimes Stephanie forgets to lock the door if she’s the last one to leave…

My car was the only one in the driveway…which meant that I was the only one home. I remember walking down the hallway in the dark towards my room, still holding the book bag. I remember putting my hand on the doorknob to enter my room. I remember the door swinging open, and I remember noticing that the covers on my bed were lying in a heap in the middle. That was made when I left this morning, I thought, the alarm bells beginning to go off in my head. Something felt off about the house…there was an eeriness I couldn’t explain. Who had been in my room? It was at that instant that I felt—or sensed—the pressure of someone on the other side of the bedroom door.

I remember feeling a sense of utter panic as I realized that there was no one within earshot. I jerked my hand off the doorknob, and stepped back, screaming, as a man in a black trench coat and a ski mask yanked the bedroom door open from the inside. I turned to run, and slipped on the linoleum…and then he was standing over me, and I was staring down the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun…

And then I woke up, sweating, mumbling feverishly in my sleep, with my heart pounding away inside of my chest as if it was trying to escape. It took me about five minutes to realize that it had been a dream…part of me thought I’d been kidnapped and was now in a body bag being shipped to California, or something…

The most disturbing thing about the whole scenario is that as I lay awake pondering, I realized that if I were in fact placed in that situation…I would be just as helpless as I felt in that dream. God, are You warning me? Are You trying to tell me what’s coming? I asked silently, staring at the dark ceiling.

Was it forewarning? I don’t know. I honestly don’t. I sincerely hope that it wasn’t premonition—but if it was, then I hope that I remember in that moment that God has a sovereign purpose in all that He allows to happen…and that I’m merely an instrument with whom He can do as He wills.

I drifted off to sleep again…and dreamt that a cookie monster sneaked into the kitchen and ate all of the scones while I slept. When I woke up, that one hadn’t come true either. Phew.