Was I Threatened By A Demon?

Philippe de Champaigne's The Dream of Saint Joseph painted around 1636 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

          Last week I had a dream of a spiritual nature that I discussed from a Biblical perspective on my Sunday blog A Few Words.   I shared the dream on that blog because of the spirituality of the dream and the implications that I sensed from that dream.  You can follow the link to read that particular analysis if you are curious, but I will speak more generally about this dream in this current blog post.

          The reason why I want to relate this dream on this blog--aside from the fact that it was a dream--is that a few nights later I had a related dream with a very similar outcome.   Why I would have had these particular dreams at this particular time I do not know.   That is part of the reason why I'm discussing these dreams in this post.  Perhaps one of you will have some idea of what these dreams might represent.

         The first dream occurred sometime after the 2 AM hour on a day last week.  I no longer remember much about the dream other than the setting was a very large odd house that in the dream I recognized as my own, but it was not a house that I know in waking life.  There were a number of people coming and going throughout the dream.  At the point where memory kicks in...

          I am talking to my mother (who recently passed away).  She is relating how my father (who passed away in 1990) is in the hospital recovering from a serious condition.  I am puzzled as I know that my father died years ago, but my mother assures me that now he is back.   Soon after our conversation my father supposedly has arrived at the house and I see the door open.  A man who resembles my father enters.   He seems weak and sickly and is of a much smaller stature than he had been when I last saw him in life.  He does not acknowledge anyone, seeming to be in a daze or even lifeless.  He is not wearing a shirt and is clad only in a pair of white shorts.

         The small father-looking being is led back into a bedroom and the door is closed.   I become concerned about the man's presence and go into the room.  I find him sitting on the edge of the bed slumped over looking dejected and hopeless.  Suddenly I sense that this is not my father or if it is he is demon-possessed.   I become very afraid.  Knowing him to have been very religious I approach him and try to talk to him about Jesus.  Filled with terror I have trouble speaking, but finally I weakly force out of my mouth the name of Jesus.   I begin repeating "Jesus" and each time I say the name my voice gets stronger and my fear begins to subside...  

          Then I awaken.  My wife asks if I am okay. She tells me that I was repeating the name Jesus.

          Three nights after that, about an hour after I had gone to sleep, I had another dream...

          I am in an unfamiliar location, perhaps a place that is like a warehouse where I work (in this dream world),   I am in conversation with a group of three other men when a man resembling my father comes into the room.  At first I think this man to be my father and I am happy to see him.  Then I realize this man is taller and more imposing looking than my late father had been.  The man's face looks cruel, verging on anger, filled with an ominous dark expression.  I become afraid as I begin to surmise that this is not my father but a demonic figure assuming my father's image.  

          This man/demon first approaches me in a threatening manner.  I stand more erect to confront him.  Then the figure turns to one of the men with whom I had been conversing and moves toward this man as though he is going to attack him.   I begin invoking the name of Jesus to take away the demonic power.  I repeat the name of Jesus gaining more confidence each time I say it...

           I wake up in a fetal position saying "Jesus".  My wife asks if I am okay because I am repeating the name of Jesus just as I had done a few nights earlier. I look at the clock and it says 11:55.

           On the first instance that I had the dream, I remained awake for what was probably an hour pondering what I had experienced in the dream.  The second time I fell asleep almost immediately.  Both dreams impacted me such that I have thought about them often since they happened.

          There is no explanation that I can think of as to what may have influenced my mind that I had these dreams.   My wife believes that Satan had tried to trick me by taking on the appearance of my father.  Why I can't say.   As I considered the occurrence, I wondered if a demonic force was trying somehow to take my life--to kill me during sleep--and my resistance prevented this from happening.

          Do you think there was some sort of spiritual force at work in my dreams?   Do you believe a demonic force would have the power to enter a dream to take control of the dreamer or even kill him?  Have you had any dreams where you felt that spiritual forces were communicating with you in some way?

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       Some people believe that they have received spiritual messages in their dreams.   They claim to have been spoken to by angels, deceased souls, spirits, saints, or even the Voice of God.    The messages can range from advice to warnings to questions about where one is going in life.   The Bible as well as the beliefs in other religions state that this may be possible.  What do you think?




          Can you relate a time when you believe you received a message from the spiritual realm?    Do you believe messages of this nature are true?     Do you  think they come from good sources, bad sources, or either depending on the nature of the message?

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Does God Speak Through Dreams?

English: Joseph made ruler in Egypt (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For God does speak—now one way, now another—
    though no one perceives it.
¹⁵ In a dream, in a vision of the night,
    when deep sleep falls on people
    as they slumber in their beds,
¹⁶ he may speak in their ears
    and terrify them with warnings,
¹⁷ to turn them from wrongdoing
    and keep them from pride,
¹⁸ to preserve them from the pit,
    their lives from perishing by the sword.

Job 33:14-18

New International Version (NIV)

         If you are familiar with the Bible, you can probably recall many references to dreams and dream interpretations.   There are significant stories about Jacob, Joseph, Daniel, and many others who had dreams or interpreted the dreams of others.  Most believers would acknowledge that God does speak to some in dreams and perhaps has even spoken to them.  

       While I have had dreams that were very spiritual and others from which I awoke feeling as though I might have been given a spiritual message, I cannot say for certain that I have ever had a dream where God or any spirit has communicated to me through my subconscious mind.  Therefore lacking that experience, I will submit this to the readers.

        Have you ever had a dream where you believe God or some spiritual entity has spoken to you?   Do you know of anyone who claims to have had this experience?   What are your opinions on this matter?  

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Can Telepathic Communication Occur in Dreams?

Cover of Inception

         In my last post a discussion began in the comments about the phenomena of simultaneous or shared dreams and dream telepathy.  Since these are topics that I have often pondered and have been portrayed in various movies such as Inception (2010), I thought we might consider the idea of telepathy in dreams.  Next week we'll look at the idea of shared dreaming a bit more, but today I've invited the blogger who opened up this topic in last week's comment discussion.   Stephen T. McCarthy is my earliest blogging friend and can be found at Ferret-Faced Fascist Friends.  

*****

My bloggin’ buddy Arlee Bird has invited me to tell this story here on his dreamy blog, so here goes . . .

Near Easter Day in 1996, my Pa passed away and shortly afterwards I helped my Ma sell her house. She bought a smaller one here in Phoenix and I moved in with her. I was spiritually fired up then, meditating regularly and recording what I learned in my meditation sessions and in my dreams.

Below are my meditation notes of Nov. 1, 1995. (Remember this, doggone it, you’ll need it later!)

Meditation - 11/1/‘95

God is the composer and the conductor of the song. We are individual members of His choir. As we sing in harmony with the other members of God’s choir we are able to bring into manifestation the greatest music ever written. As we sing what God has composed and arranged, we actually become His music. The song is in us and comes through us, and it is His gift to us that we are made capable of displaying and sharing in His glory and creation. We are The Lord’s music made audible.

God’s singers are many, but His choir is One.

I strive to sing my part in God’s music.

I focus not on the singers, but rather on the choir. It’s not the singers in God’s golden choir that I see, but the golden choir of God within the singers.

And now here are the notes from my Dream Journal:

Dream - March 30, 1998

One day last week (Tues., Wed. or Thurs.) I was skimming over some of my past dream and meditation notes, and in so doing happened to read a couple of lines from my meditation notes of Nov. 1, 1995. Leaving my bedroom I went into the kitchen where Ma was cooking and I just blurted out, “I am a singer in God’s choir!” And knowing how loony I can sometimes be, Ma just kind of rolled her eyes at me. Nothing else was said between us.

I got a call from Mark D. in Los Angeles and he told me about an astounding dream he had last week, either Tues., Wed. or Thurs. He dreamed that he walked into some kind of massive cathedral-like structure. He knew it was a house of God even though it had no religious icons. It had no roof and it contained segmented boxed areas that reached up almost as high as the eye could see, to a bright light above.

Each of these sections contained a different group of people worshipping God. Each group was dressed in different colored robes; all the colors of the rainbow were represented and there was a mass of people observing and shouting from the floor in a loud and ecstatic manner while the people in the sections were singing praises to God.

Different races were represented in the various sections, and as one section would sing a verse from the song and conclude, another section would then pick right up where the other left off, and in this manner each section sang their praises and gratitude to God, much like fans will do “the wave” in a ballpark.

There was some sort of organized structure to the singing and the song, and yet the song was not so much lyrics but tones and sounds. The place was just wild with joy! And some of the people standing on the floor were just observing while others were shouting and joining in while not exactly a part of the “organization” of the singers in the sections.

The sections reached so high that those singers in them appeared as mere specks to Mark standing down below. Mark said he moved into the group more, and he said that he was just overwhelmed by a sense of being “home”. He said that although he did not think of this as being the “end” of it all (the ultimate Heaven), he knew that this was where he really wanted to be. He said it was filled with this feeling of comfort.

Mark looked around him and up into the bleachers and thought, “Yeah, these people believe what I believe in.” He was very happy to be there and described it as, without question, a very spiritual experience. And then he was following with his eyes each section as it took up its portion of the song.

The song passed to a section midway up there and he saw me mixed in with that group of people. In the cathedral, I was the only person he knew, and he thought, “Wow! That’s Stephen up there. What’s he doing here?” And as he looked at me, our eyes met and I saw him and smiled at him in recognition. Mark smiled back and waved to me. He wanted to shout up to me but he said he knew it would be pointless because I was too high in the bleachers to hear him. Mark said I looked very happy and content. One thing that surprised him so much upon seeing me there was that I, who am usually so reserved and quiet, was mixed in and participating in this really wild, Southern Baptist-like celebration.

Mark said that this dream was so powerful and “real” that he felt he just had to call me right away and tell me about it. He knew he had written my phone number a long time ago on a yellow legal pad but he wasn’t able to find it. But then, a couple days later, after he had stopped looking for it, he just happened to stumble on it underneath a pile of papers, and so he called me.

Mark seems to have been getting more and more religious (Catholic) with the last few years, and I told him this dream is extremely significant for him. I feel it is some sort of calling from God Himself. I know it has tremendous meaning for Mark and he really needs to go within and find out what he is being told to do.

And for me it is far more encouraging than I could possibly explain; it has made me so hopeful. For just as Mark obviously tapped into my thoughts, it verifies for me that there is some real truth to my thoughts and at least SOME of my meditation visions and messages. Despite my many failings, I know I really am on the right track; my efforts have not been for nothing. And it seems I’m not just fooling myself – I really am in God’s choir. My heart is just overflowing now with hope and confidence in The Lord. “Things” really seem to be happening fast now – there IS a quickening taking place!!!

[*Incidentally, the “Mark D.” referred to in these notes is the same “Mark D.” interviewed in this video: ‘Alpha Dad Takes Down Depraved L.A. Cop’]

Read more about this story at:

http://xtremelyun-pcandunrepentant.blogspot.com/2011/04/alpha-male-dad-takes-down-depraved-cop.html

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Some final thoughts:

Lee, it’s been a good ten years or more since I last read these notes from my journal. As I stated above, I had completely forgotten about the meditation notes and how they played into this thing. And of course I had always remembered that Mark’s dream was vivid, but I had forgotten just how dramatic it was.

I seriously doubt that these passages play into this thing at all, but every year when I have come across Nehemiah 12:31-43, Ezekiel 40:44-46, and Revelation 14:3 in my annual Bible study, they have always reminded me of Mark’s dream.

       Readers--what do you think?   Coincidence?  Synchronicity?  Telepathic communication?  Divine messaging?

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