While all men are guided by their own minds, there are some few who are deemed worthy of evident Divine communication; so, while the imagination of sleep naturally occurs in a like and equivalent manner for all, some, not all, share by means of their dreams in some more Divine manifestation…

Gregory of Nyssa

Dream of November 16, 2018
I'm sitting inside a cafe directly facing a broad open doorway, gazing out at an atmospherically lit city street, when two men suddenly come and sit on the two white chairs to my left. I'm aware the man closest to me has fair skin and dark hair, but I don't take my eyes off a plant growing in a garden bed adorning a lovely city square. I'm attracted to this man. . . I imagine going somewhere with him and kissing him. . . It strikes me then how normal this is, and how impossible it is for anyone who has not (as I have) experienced a very different sort of desire — for God — to understand why I should wish to resist the sensual impulse. I think: This temptation is like the plant I'm looking at, with unconscious physical roots, natural and finite and soon dead. I'm aware of not being like that plant anymore; of consciously living in another invisible reality inconceivable to anyone who hasn't mysteriously been blessed with and developed  the spiritual "eyes" and interior "senses" to experience it.

A dark transition. . .  I'm alone with the man I was attracted to. It is now full night, and around us only narrow tall white buildings are visible. Without speaking, we walk straight into the structure directly in front of us—an old apartment building possessed of a steep central staircase that ascends straight upward at sharp angles. 

While I remain standing on the first landing, my companion quickly ascends. It is almost completely dark, but a silent "voice" telepathically informs me that when my companion looks back down at me from the top floor, it will take just one glance for us to connect, and experience the attraction that will inevitably bring us together.

As I continue looking up, I wonder why he ascended without me, and what's happening, and what he's doing, and if I what the "voice" (which I felt was female) said is true. I suspect it is, but I can't be sure.  Then I perceive the man's silhouette regarding me from the top floor. I quickly look away, suddenly feeling a little afraid about being here in this dark space and mysterious situation.
I become aware then that I'm tied up by the white sweater I'm only partially wearing, so that I have to struggle to slip my second arm into it, very conscious of how long it's taking, and of my companion already heading swiftly down the steps to me. I wonder if he knows that I'm also deliberately lingering here, waiting for him even as I take a few steps back toward the wall behind me, torn between anxiety and excitement.

With one of my arms still pinned down by the white cloth, I feel helplessly vulnerable as he reaches the landing. For a moment we stand facing each other, then he walks straight to me and presses my body back against the wall. Our faces are very close, and I know we are going to kiss; I even see his lips pucker ever so slightly before he presses his mouth against mine for a long moment. Then he says, "That was nice" and I agree, yet I'm also surprised and disappointed I didn't receive the deep, lingering kiss I was hoping for and expecting. 

As we descend into the lobby and begin walking side-by-side toward the open exit, I ponder our brief kiss, and decide that it's probably a good thing he showed a restraint which also feels like respect. Because it's pretty clear that we're together, and that this was only a teasing glimpse of much more to come between us. Looking around, I tell him, "I like it here. It reminds me of being a heroine in a Film Noir movie."

As we exit the building and descend a flight of steps onto an empty asphalt parking lot, I glimpse a tall masculine silhouette standing half concealed directly to the left of the door. His attempt to hide his presence strikes me as sinister, and after we've taken only a few steps, my companion commands quietly, "Don't look back." I'm certain now this stranger was lying in wait for us. . . In fact, he's following us. . . He's already almost upon us...

At what feels to me like the last possible moment, my companion turns partially to his left to intercept the stranger, and my fear is blended with hope for I sense my partner possesses skills and abilities that give us a fighting chance. What ensues then is a nearly motionless yet fiercely intense struggle during which my protector strives to disable our attacker while all the time shielding me from him.

Then abruptly, our malevolent assailant produces a weapon that to me looks a lot like a gun pointed straight at my face. I have no choice now but to help my companion, and together I feel us exerting all our combined strength and willpower to grab the wrist of our powerful and evil adversary. Reaching up, I clutch and twist the man's wrist until I feel it break and go limp. After this, my companion and I somehow quickly manage to neutralize our assailant, and as we're walking safely away from there, I begin waking up.  
END of DREAM

It strikes me as wonderfully obvious now (posting this dream years later) that it was my Guardian Angel who came and sat next to me on one of the two white chairs to my left, symbolically the side of the heart. 

“In St. Ambrose’s more theological writings, Ambrose showed that an angel who speaks through a dream is functioning at the direction of the Holy Spirit, since angelic powers are subject to and moved by the Spirit.”

cwgministries.org/dreams-and-visions-throughout-church-history

Although I was not technically lucid in this dream (because I did not realize I was dreaming), I still reasoned quite lucidly. How in the beginning of the dream I lucidly resisted what I believed to be merely a physical attraction to a handsome man, and firmly sided with my spiritual senses, was apparently rewarded as I took another conscious step in deepening the relationship between my soul and my Guardian Angel.

When my companion and I entered the dark building together he immediately ascended to the top floor. Surrounded by countless others just like it, this building could symbolize this fallen world as well as the physical body our soul currently resides in. The various steps and landings which then separated us seem clearly to represent all the spiritual dimensions that divide human beings from Angels, who are as "high up" as a conscious being can get for they are said to always be in the presence of God. When I looked up, I knew my companion was there and still with me although I could barely see him, just as in waking reality I look up to my Guardian Angel and have faith he is real even though I can't see him at all. 

But whether it be dream or truth, to do well is what matters. . . How if our waking life, like that of sleep, be all a dream in that eternal life to which we wake not till we sleep in death.

Pedro Calderon de la Barca from
Life is a Dream
(Spain, 1635)

I can certainly relate to this sentiment. All the dreams I share here still feel like absolutely real experiences to me, and I have faith that they are. In fact, such dreams are mysteriously even MORE real and vividly enduring, never fading in my memory no matter how many years pass.

The Divine supernatural realm is alive with sentient beings. My Guardian Angel looks and feels like a real person because he is a person. Like human beings, Angels are individuals. Angels are not corporeal but they are nevertheless unique beings with individual personalities who can take form in the physical world when God wills they do so. 
Our Angels can metaphorically clothe themselves with the appearance and feel of a human body in our dreams. And because I am a passionately heterosexual woman, 99% of the time my Guardian enters my dreams as an attractive man.

In this particular dream, the female voice I didn't actually hear but understood was, I believe, the voice of our Lady, Queen of the Angels (the good ones). At the time I had this dream, my faith in the reality of Angels was not as complete as it is now, which I believe is why - when I perceived my companion so high above me - I quickly looked down as I suffered a moment of fear blended with doubt. The white sweater I was only partially wearing, and that was literally tying me up, could symbolize how I was still growing into my faith. 

I believe this dream was a milestone in my so-called spiritual growth, and that my Guardian Angel collaborated with my soul in creating it. One of my favorite films is the Noir classic, Laura, in which the detective falls in love with a woman even though he believes she has been murdered. Musing on her portrait over a glass of scotch, he has fallen asleep in her living room when suddenly, later that night, she returns home from a long weekend in the country. When the detective awakens at the sound of her entrance, he rubs his eyes in disbelief, but the fact is she is real, and very much alive. And so is my Guardian Angel. Similarly, the most amazing and transformative experiences of my life have taken place after I fell asleep.

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