Yesterday I was writing about how it seemed I kept having a reoccurring dream where I felt powerless. I thought it was a simple dream, but now as I think about how God might be trying to show me a life lesson, I realize there might be a much more complex idea as work.
In my dreams, someone or something is trying to hurt me. I don’t seem to be able to move and when I try to scream, nothing comes out of my mouth. It feels like I am powerless and helpless. The part of the dream that I never really paid attention to is that I am a lucid dreamer. I am aware when I am dreaming. So when I have these dreams, I often spend the night rewinding the dream and trying over and over again to change the outcome.
The point is that the dream isn’t so much about my not being able to do something about someone hurting me; the dream is about my not being about the change the dream in my lucid sleep. I have spent much of my life having people tell me that I was worthless and helpless. That I couldn’t do things. Now, when I try to do something, it is very difficult to believe that I could succeed at anything at all. It isn’t because I don’t have faith in God, but because I don’t have faith in myself and my instincts. When I heard that little voice inside my head telling me which way to go, I often don’t listen to it because I’m afraid that it is everything that I have been told. I believe now that the dreams, the life lessons, etc, all have been leading me to realize that having the faith of the mustard seed means believing that I am capable of miracles, too. How can I see the miracles in the world and in other people when I won’t believe that they can happen within me? How can I trust in others, when I won’t trust in myself?
I have been living with paranoia all my life and I don’t want to go all the way to where I am gullible and just believe everything everyone tells me. However, there’s got to be a healthy balance. I think the only way it works is if I find a way to trust myself and then use that trust in myself to be able to learn how to trust in others responsibly.
In other words, dreams are never that simple. It is never just simply loving others the way we want to be loved. Dreams are complex monsters and God calls us to love our brothers and sisters the way that we should love ourselves.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
