Dream Log: March 6, 2003

This dream bothered me a lot.

I dremt last night that I was taking a trip with my friend Mike. I've known Mike since high school--nearly ten years--and we've always been good friends. When I was a junior in high school, I had a horrible crush on him, which I later told him, and was summarily rejected. But still we were friends, even played in a band together.

About a year ago, I took a trip over to England to visit him. He was getting his masters in literary theory at Sussex University, and he had invited me to come and stay for a week. So I did, and it didn't go very well, mainly my own bitchy fault. However, we still keep in touch, despite him being overseas. ("Divinity X" bless email.)

Now, I was recently dumped by my boyfriend, and found it rather surprising that my dreams either were nothing spectacular, or that I couldn't remember them. Until last night. As I said, I drempt that I was taking a road trip with my friend Mike. We stopped in a motel, and were casually messing around, when it suddenly turns sexual. Really sexual. As in he was reaching for a condom. Now, I've had erotic dreams before, so no big deal, right? However, the whole time up until he reaches for the condom, he keeps asking if there's room in the parking lot outside. Room for his car. He keeps asking that over and over. Finally, I get up and say "Yes--I'll even move your car for you if you'll just calm down." But when I turn around, he's dressed and doesn't want to do anything anymore.

And then my mother comes in and starts berating me for screwing up my chances to be with Mike. This has some basis in reality, as my mom is convinced that we'll get married someday. I have no interest in such a thing.

And that's just it. I haven't been interested in Mike in a long time. Why am I dreaming this now? What does it mean? Damn it.

I've had dreams about my accident, but those faded after only a couple of days. I've had dreams about demons, about evil things coming into my life, into my dorm room while I sleep. I hope those are dreams, anyway. I have more than one dream a night... and the dreams always leave me run ragged. I'm supposed to be resting, rejuvinating, refreshing, revitalizing. But instead I often wake up more tired than I went to bed.

My remembered dream last night was, to say the least, interesting. "I dreamed I saw a million angels intercepting evil schemes and saying 'welcome home my faithful servant.' Everlasting images I dream." -- Paul Colman Trio The sky IS like an angry bruise that won't let the sunlight loose and bring me healing. But my own sin and sinful heart is the cloud coverage, and I am my own block of the Sonlight. Somehow, I can see all of this in my dream, as clearly as we can see the three dimentions that light and our optical biology allow us. Although this isn't height, length, or width, or even weight or shape or color, it's as clearly seen to me as the computer screen at which I now stare. I can actually see, visibly, my sin and sinful nature, the sins I have committed, and where that puts me in respect to God. God is still reaching out his hands, in this dream, but until I ask him to clear away the mess I've made and come redecorate in here, I'll never be able to see him clearly. I can't see any light, I'm suffocating, everything good in here is dying, everything I hold dear is leaving because this isn't a good place to be. It's not a good place to be because there is no Good, no Light, no God.

Somehow I have a song in the background of this. First there's instrumental, dark, "Stabbing Westward"-esque music. Then it transfers to something really bouncy but with a darker meaning. "In the Light" by DC Talk comes into play. "I'm still a man in need of a savior... I want to be in the light as You are in the light, I want to shine like the stars in the heavens... All I want is to be in the light." What this implies is that due to it being a desire, I am as of yet not "in the light". So, in my dream, I am taken on a dark and dreary day to the hill of Calvary. I don't have to go through the beatings, the scorn, the mockery that Christ went through. But here I am. And there's the cross. And there are my nails. So I cry out, "Come back! PLEASE! Come INSIDE ME! I am SORRY, Lord, PLEASE, I can't do this alone!" And the sky immediately clears, Jesus takes my rightful place, and I am there to see him, bruised and battered and bloodied. The scenery changes around me and I am in a closet. The music playing now: "Welcome Home" by Shaun Groves. "Open up the creaking door and walk along the dusty floors. Scrape away the guilty stains until no sin or shame remain. Spread your love upon the walls and occupy these empty halls. Until the man I am has faded no more doors are barricaded... " And on, and on. And I see the closet I'm in being opened, and being cleansed, and the dirt and grime on the closet of my heart being taken away, and God creating a place that is much easier to keep clean, a place that Satan no longer has a foothold.

I thought this was a bad dream, at first. I woke up feeling the best I have for exactly two years, to the very day. What good timing to have this dream on the night of Ash Wednesday. I remember, Lord, oh yes, I remember.