Lucid Dream of Oct. 13, 2014
I’m standing in a large building, once the home of a famous individual from another century but now a museum exhibit. The study, and perhaps one or more other rooms, have been left intact. However, a remodeling project is underway, with various pieces of furniture being taken away and others brought in. Standing in the center of the activity, I spend a long drawn-out moment gazing at the magnificent painting hanging above the celebrated individual’s desk, studying it in breathtaking detail.
The man in charge of the renovations stops to speak to me, and draws my attention to elegant chairs placed around a circular wooden table antique in appearance and very fine. The slender high-backed chairs are covered in a loose-fitting, off-white fabric. They are very distinguished in appearance yet also look comfortable. Leaving the room, I find myself in a kind of foyer that is both inside and outside this cathedral-like structure. I’ve come here to practice my ability to take flight, and a woman reminds me to perform a swift walk that will help launch me. When I fail my first few attempts, I look around me and realize—Of course I can fly because this is a dream!
Levitating to just above the floor, I glide through an elegantly cluttered room before traversing a spacious hallway that leads me through a door into another room. I think—No more doors! And as I open a final blue door, suddenly all around me is a soft white sky, as if I’m flying through a cloud. And far, far below me to my right I perceive a strip of white beach adjoining an endless expanse of ocean. The light shining on the scene is such a pure bright white, the water glimmers like a living liquid silver. I’m flying so high the waves below are only subtle rippling black shadows. And I can just barely distinguish the silhouettes of people, isolated handfuls of individuals playing in the water.
I think—All I want is to be with my Lord.
The sublime ocean view below on my right seems to have no beginning or end. To my left, and partially before me, there is only an absolute darkness through which I begin flying at great speed as though through a vast pitch-black cavern. Then, gradually, the darkness begins granulating into an immense black cloud expanding to my right, and obscuring some of the luminous ocean view below. I can almost distinguish the soot-like particles in this massive cloud, which begins feeling like a corruption of the darkness; like a manifestation of negative thought-energy, as if each human consciousness is akin to a drop of water in this cloud, or to a mysterious quantum particle, and it’s obvious the probabilities beginning to collapse around me are not good.
Quietly, I pray, “Help me, my Lord.”
At once I’m gently pulled away from this cloud toward the ocean of light. I can see a clear blue sky now, and sections of the water are are also now a bright blue. I’m still moving forward at a great speed, faster and faster as far below me where the shore meets the ocean indescribably magnificent visions begin flowing in my direction. I see them clearly, and am filled with such awe I don’t regret realizing I won’t be able to remember most of them when I wake up. Even in the dream these visions fill the “cup” of my brain to overflowing, yet I know it doesn’t matter whether or not I will be able to recall and describe them. What matters is that I am seeing these visions, and experiencing their reality.
I remember one of the visions. Never will I forget it. Not far below me I perceive ranks of men driving what look like chariots forged of the sun’s fiery orange-gold light. The drivers are ideally tall well-built male figures with the same intently determined expression on their shining faces. It’s like looking directly at the rising or setting sun as its life-giving power flows into several rows of luminous soldiers who hold no weapons, but who are unmistakably on a mission. They can literally be described as the Forces of Light, and never in my life, awake or in dreams, have I witnessed anything more awe inspiring, more full of glorious transcendent splendor. I keep pace with the vision, which eventually fades and becomes two gleaming silver tracks cutting through the darkness.
★ End of Dream ★
I wrote nothing about this dream the following day; I was too awed by the vision of heavenly forces commanding the space where the beach, the physical world, merges with the endless ocean of God, the Life of all life.
I feel the Cathedral-like structure in which my dream began is the Church. The study I found myself in represents all the rooms, rich and poor, stretching back centuries to Christ’s Resurrection, in which men and women have been inspired to write and communicate His Word.
“The word “Gospel” derives from an Anglo-Saxon word, “godspel”, or “good story” and was substituted for the original Greek word “euaggelion” which first signified “a present given to one who brought good tidings”, or “a sacrifice offered in thanksgiving for such good tidings having come”. In later Greek uses, it was employed for the good tidings themselves. That’s exactly what God is offering us with the Gospel; “good news” about what he did for us through Jesus Christ”.i
The renovation taking place in the study seem to relate to my own mind, which continues expanding as I read the early Church Fathers, and better understand how narrow-minded and ignorant I actually was about the Christian faith. Our minds are furnished with concepts and beliefs, and mine is definitely undergoing some serious remodeling.
The painting hanging over the desk, which I perceived with breathtaking clarity, I feel represents the luminous landscape of Christianity as handed down to us by the Apostolic tradition, for the more I read my leaders, the more beautifully detailed, and uplifting to my soul it becomes.
“Matthew among the Hebrews issues a Writing of the gospel in their own tongue, while Peter and Paul were preaching the gospel at Rome and founding the Church. After their decease Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, also handed down to us in writing what Peter had preached. Then Luke, the follower of Paul, recorded in a book the gospel as it was preached by him. Finally John, the disciple of the Lord, who had also lain on his breast, himself published the Gospel, while he was residing at Ephesus… If we are to believe anyone when it comes to the truth about Jesus, who more than those who lived with him and later died for him? And if anyone should be trusted to know these shepherds’ true teaching, who more than those to whom they entrusted their sheep, many of whom also died for Christ? All Christians, whether they are aware of it or not, depend on apostolic tradition, preserved by the early Church Fathers, every time they pick up their Bibles. It is time that they learn to appreciate and articulate the sound reasons for the confidence they place in the book they hold in their hands”.ii
The four white chairs arranged around the circular table as though for a meeting strike me as representing the four corners of the world. If humanity is to survive and thrive, we must all learn to live in the Spirit of Love.
i http://coldcasechristianity.com/2014/what-does-gospel-really-mean/
ii Marcellino D’Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young:Voices of the Early Fathers, Kindle Edition, Locations 1389-1393, 1414-1423