Today I was scared.
I woke up scared from a dream, or maybe a nightmare.
It was one of those in-between-alarms dreams, when it’s been less than ten minutes since you last hit the snooze button, but your mind thinks it has been much longer. It’s amazing what our minds can dream of, when awake or when asleep.
I’ve always been a vivid dreamer, oftentimes having realistic life experiences in my dreams. My husband makes fun of me, because his dreams are full of fantasy. He sees dragons, he can fly, and the people he sees in his dreams are not our real friends and family. But for me, real life scenarios are the basis of my dreams. My mind reenacts conversations with the people I see daily. I visit places and eat things that I would when I wake up.
It’s no wonder I was so scared after this dream. Visualizing something so clearly, even if it isn’t real, can cause real emotion. I woke up wanting to cancel all my appointments for the day and call in sick to work. I won’t distract you by sharing all the details, but in this dream I was bullied by a stranger. It was painful enough for me to not want to enter into the real world that day. What a powerful result of 10 minutes detached from reality.
But instead, I hit the snooze button again for another short sleep cycle before I got up to face the day. A verse came to mind, Psalms 3:5, “I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.” There is no time restriction on this verse; no describing sleeping through the night. Perhaps the Psalmist needed a holy snooze, too. And I didn’t have a bad dream this time. I didn’t dream at all. But I slept enough to reset my mind so I could wake up, go to my appointments, go to work, and live my life without fear of the unknown.
Just as my day was thrown off in 10 minutes, it was put back together 10 minutes later.
Our minds can create painful scenarios, but they can dismantle them, too. And not just when sleeping. Our minds are powerful creators, but still answer to our will. They can imagine chaos, then recall verses that bring peace a few moments later. How beautifully complex!
Today I was scared. I had a scary dream that caused real emotions.
Then I woke up.
