Friends, welcome to Tuesday. I’m really glad to be here, and I hope you are as well. Kristin Shaffer, this one is for you 🙂
As I sit in Oxford’s Starbucks, I’m thinking about the way dreams can impact your day so profoundly. I was plagued with dreams I wouldn’t wish on anyone last night. And this day has been so incredibly frustrating to get through. I pride myself on my dreaming mind, that romantic, breezy, sunset, awake kind of dreaming. My real dreaming, sleep dreams, those are another story entirely. This got me curious: what are dreams? Why the heck is my sleep brain so messed up? Here’s what I found:
Most every dream we have is about ourselves. Even if the people in our dreams don’t look like us, they more than likely represent some part of our conscious or subconscious self (School of Metaphysics, 2002). Essentially, our dreams are made up of little pieces of our awake thoughts, patched together in this pseudo-reality quilt, which more often than not, only sort of makes sense when put into the context of real life. Countless Dream studies have shown that dreams are much more than your inner crazy having a field day while your eyes are closed. Instead, your dreams could indeed be improving or quality of sleep, embedding memories, and even preparing you for danger (Williams, 2007). However, the overall consensus is that the reason for dreaming is unknown. Not even the experts know why the things my brain latches onto manifest themselves in my sleep life.
Here’s the thing, people. It’s so hard to separate myself from the wickedness that is my innermost, unbridled, out of control mind. What a testament to the far reaching sin soak each of us have endured. Think of it, that even our sleep thoughts are wretched! Not even my most helpless, motionless state is worthy of the Blood of the Lamb.
I was feeling pretty sad about all of this, and then I read in Psalm 127:2 that God gives His beloved their sleep. That even sleep, rest, slumber is a gift from our Father. And what was created for the good of His children can and will be redeemed. So here I sit, encouraged and sleepy, and this is my prayer tonight, for myself and for you, Saints:
Precious Giver, Redeemer Lord,
Thank you for rest. I believe that it is good and that I am not. The widespread effects of my sin and the sin of the corrupt world in which I remain have reared their monster heads in my vulnerable sleep. Here, I plead before your perfect throne, for protection against these beasts. That instead of evil, you would fill and embed your goodness in my sleep brain. Allow me to dream the One worth dreaming, Your goodness and Your gospel. Allow it to fill my sleep, unattached to any of my faulty awake thoughts, Jesus. Spirit, surround my mind with the redemption bought with the death of Jesus, and may I truly dwell there, waking or sleeping. You truly are my best thought, by day or by night. Your presence is my light. May You shine in the darkness that is my sin and my sleep. You are a God of redemption, even in dreams. We trust you. I trust you. In His precious Name, Amen.
By grace, my friends, I wish you sweet, Spirit-filled dreams.
a wild olive shoot 
Hello dear, able to relate. A friend pointed me to this:
“Blessed Creator,
Thou hast promised thy beloved sleep; Give me restoring rest needful for tomorrow’s toil; If dreams be mine, let them not be tinged with evil. Let thy Spirit make my time of repose a blessed temple of his holy presence. May my frequent lying down make me familiar with death, the bed I approach remind me of the grave, the eyes I now close picture to me their final closing. Keep me always ready, waiting for admittance to thy presence. Weaken my attachment to earthly things. May I hold life loosely in my hand, knowing that I receive it on condition of its surrender; As pain and suffering betoken transitory health, may I not shrink from a death that introduces me to the freshness of eternal youth. I retire this night in full assurance of one day awaking with thee. All glory for this precious hope, for the gospel of grace, for thine unspeakable gift of Jesus, for the fellowship of the Trinity. Withhold not thy mercies in the night season; thy hand never wearies, thy power needs no repose, thine eye never sleeps. Help me when I helpless lie, when my conscience accuses me of sin, when my mind is harassed by foreboding thoughts, when my eyes are held awake by personal anxieties. Show thyself to me as the God of all grace, love and power; thou hast a balm for every wound, a solace for all anguish, a remedy for every pain, a peace for all disquietude. Permit me to commit myself to thee awake or asleep.”
Valley of Vision, Sleep
Amen.