“Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?” -Luke 12:24-25 (NRSV)
I’ve been through a rough patch of bad dreams this winter. Most have been memorable enough to bug me the next morning, and in a few instances, I’ve been awoken directly from the dream and disturbed enough to not be able to get back to sleep (I’ve since read that this is what constitutes a “nightmare”). There was a period of a week or so in which I was nervous in the evening, fearing what would be coming up at some point in the night. I searched out a solution, and found that a number of people recommend “teaching” your mind to “fix” a bad dream in real-time. Here’s how it works: In the morning when you are still disturbed by the dream, you try to repair it, changing the ending to something less traumatic, even comical. An example I read detailed a person who woke from a dream in which she was tossed into the ocean, fearing for her life from drowning. She amended that dream to make the water only a few inches deep. Over time, I read, you begin to control the dreams as they happen. I managed to do this once a few nights ago, and I felt like a super-hero the next day. I’d veered myself out of that full-day funk.
Sometimes, I’ll awake, and because of uncomfortable temperature or need to use the bathroom, I can’t just flip over and go back to sleep immediately. My mind goes everywhere it shouldn’t at those times. It’s like that scene in “Ghostbusters” when the card catalog drawer opens and all the cards are thrown across the library, except in this case, rather than book titles, the cards show me everything in my life that I feel is unfinished, incomplete, disheartening, sad, upsetting, you name it. This happened just this morning, and I lay there for upwards of an hour, just 90 minutes before my usual wakeup time. How frustrating it was. But, my daylight hours aren’t spent that way, mired in regret, paranoia, and sadness. And then it struck me, like the re-managed dreams, I realized the power in my own mind, to reframe those feelings. That exploding card catalog suddenly burst with blessings! Images of choir rehearsal tonight, the first time I came to Edwards Church, my wedding, my family, Christmas morning. I purposely threw a tornado of blessings at myself. I honored those concerns that were still on my mind, but managed to turn them over to God. And it worked. I got back to sleep and woke refreshed.
God, too often I forget to turn to you in times of struggle and frustration. Help me to remember you as part of my daily conversation, and teach me to reach for you both in daylight and when I cry out at night.