Of Infinite Space
This flu or virus or whatever it is continues its unwelcome visit within me. I went to bed earlier than usual last night, weary and feeling the congestion in my chest and head like a double ferris wheel, spinning and changing position, rumble and roar, chest and head, rumble and roar. I had been thinking all day of my mother, and the last thought I had before I slipped down into sleep was to wonder whether Mother’s spirit is ever near me, if she ever tries to contact me or watch over me. An odd thought, and I soon left it and all thoughts and entered that nightly place of misery.
My wife had to awaken me in the early morning hours as I was crying out in the midst of a bad dream. In the dream, I was working in some sort of nursing home or rehabilitation facility. There were no walls nor doors in the place, just enormous draperies separating the various “rooms,” billowing sheets of fabric that hung from a faraway ceiling to the floor. The light was dim and murky, as if fog were within the place. At some point I became aware that something was pursuing me, stalking me on stealthy feet. I turned several times to try and espy my pursuer, but I only saw wisps of mist where something had been just a moment before. A sense of overpowering menace filled me, the dread of something terrible about to happen. I walked faster in my dream, moving in and out of the curtained “rooms” without speaking to any of the people I saw lying in beds or sitting in chairs. There was no noise, no conversation. I continued to turn around abruptly to try and catch the follower, but without success. Finally, a sense of doom so palpable, so real came upon me. I turned behind me to see the swirling mist, and when I turned back to the front to quicken my pace again, there was the figure of a woman before me. She gave the impression of being dressed in black Victorian garb, with puffed shoulders and something – a veiled hat perhaps? – on her head. Her hair was long and stringy and touched her shoulders. I could not see her face yet, but I knew that I was about to, and the knowledge frightened me deeply. I was unable to move, unable to move towards her or flee from her. A light below her chin glowed, gradually intensifying, and it revealed her visage. I cannot recall what she looked like, but I do know that the sight horrified me, and I tried to close my eyes, which I was unable to do. I tried to turn my face away but was frozen. I began to thrash about to try and break the spell that held me immobile and helpless, and at this point I realized that I was in the grip of a dream, and that it was absolutely imperative that I break loose from the dream or else something truly awful was about to happen. I tried to scream but couldn’t take a breath. My chest felt as if a great weight was crushing it, and I could see that the figure’s arm was extended before her, towards me. She had my throat in her grip, a hard hand that felt like hot leather. I thrashed and kept trying to scream, and I felt her pulling me towards her. Finally, I was able to draw the thinnest breath and let loose with the faintest scream. This seemed to go on for an hour, and then I felt my wife’s hand on my arm, shaking me while she called to me to wake up, wake up, wake up…and so I did.
I lay there exhausted, heart pounding, mouth dry as wool, looking into the dark room with what I’m sure were wild eyes. I thanked my wife for waking me and listened to her settle back into her own dreams. So very tired and so in need of rest, I began to submerge into sleep again, but I felt the mist of the curtained room again on my face and knew that the dream was about to begin again. I fought my way out of it and turned onto my side, panting and parched, and reached for my water. After I drank, I again began to drowse and again sensed that I was about to reappear in that misty and draped place, and I again fought my way out of sleep and turned back over onto my other side. This pattern repeated itself three more times, and I became angry at my body’s refusal to let me rest peacefully. The annoyance awakened me a bit, and I lay there thinking of books and dogs and the high cost of groceries ($4.10 for a dozen eggs?), and finally relaxed back into a dreamless sleep where no spectres troubled me. When the alarm went off, I awoke with a sense of having escaped something dismal, and my wife was swinging her legs over the side of the bed, and the day began for us.
But even now, sitting here in the lit room with the furnace whispering from the vent at my feet, I feel that sense of dread and terror and helplessness still clinging to me like a sheen of sweat. And I wonder how it will be tonight when I pull the covers over me and once again enter the dark and unpredictable realm of sleep. “Oh God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams…”
~ S.K. Orr
8 Comments
Annie
I’ve had very few nightmares as an adult, but had them often as a little squirt, so I can empathize. I’ve also re-entered a dream after waking in the middle of one. Very weird.
I recently was introduced to a Jewish bedtime prayer (while watching The Chosen) that I really liked, though I don’t say formalized prayers word for word. I have incorporated some of the ideas into my (admittedly ocaisional) nighttime prayers. I think it is called the Bedtime Shema. Maybe it can bring you some peace and relief. The following is part of it:
“Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings sleep to my eyes, slumber to my eyelids. May it be Your will, Lord my God and God of my ancestors, that I lie down in peace and that I arise in peace. Let my sleep be undisturbed by troubling houghts, bad dreams, and wicked schemes. May I have a night of tranquil slumber. May I awaken to the light of a new day, that my eyes may behold the splendor of Your light. Praised are You, Lord, whose glory gives light to the entire world.”
God bless you and your wife and your various creatures in the coming year.
admin
“God of my ancestors….” Interesting. I don’t know of many Christians today who would be comfortable using such language. Seems so…exclusionary. Wink, wink…
Thank you, Annie, for your kind thoughts and blessings. May your coming year be full of joy and wonder.
Heather Shaler
‘Tis the season for fever dreams. I’ve had a minor head cold, and last night it turned into a fever. Every time I closed my eyes I was in a dreadful nightmare world. Not much happened, other than the sense that I was compelled to do tedious yet impossible tasks for all eternity. It felt like the embodiment of Ahrimanic evil.
Sometimes dreams are just dreams, but sometimes there’s a spiritual component. I’ve had dreams where I felt like I had passed a spiritual test, that my heavenly parents were proud of me, but also that I had failed the test many times before and had better stay vigilant. And I once had a lucid dream where I was fully aware of the fact that I was dreaming, and made a lot of evil choices. I woke up horrified with myself. I had the same dream a couple nights later and did the right things.
Merry Christmas to you and Mrs. Orr! I hope you feel better soon.
admin
Heather! So nice to hear from you, daughter. Hope you and your lovely family had a blessed Christmas. Sorry you’ve been under the weather…I hope you improve quickly and that the rest of the household is spared any of the weirdo maladies floating around these days.
I’m fascinated with your description of your dreams. I have never experienced anything like what you described; I’ve read and listened with great interest for many years to folks who are able to see patterns and meanings in their dreams, or who are able to control the outcome of their dreams, or who have lucid and flying dreams. I’m extremely pedestrian…when I dream (and in the VERY rare instances where I can even remember a dream, usually a bad one), I’m simply plunked down in a situation and experience it, with no control, no thought of trying to control anything. It just washes over me, and then I awake. This is probably significant. In the sense that “Say, young man, you’ve got all the makings for a great medical experiment subject!” is significant.
May God bless you and your family, Heather. And do let me know if you have any more spiritually-tinged dreams.
Heather Shaler
Well then, let me tell you my strangest dream.
I was in a large lobby or atrium, with great glass doors at one end. I headed for the doors, and saw my doppelganger approaching from the outside. We reached the doors at the same time, and as she passed, she said, “Now it’s your turn.” I stepped into the sun and woke up.
Make of that what you will!
admin
That’s the sort of dream that — if I could remember it — would keep me thinking about it for days, Heather. Fascinating. I don’t think I’ve ever dreamed of my doppelganger. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my own reflection in a dream, either. One common element of my dreams is an inability to see people’s faces, including my own in a mirror. When I try to look directly into a face, the image is blurred out, like in a police show video. I’ve asked several people about this, and no one has been able to provide an explanation for the significance of this phenomenon.
Carol
You know, S.K., I honestly think that some dreams (nightmares) are not truly ‘dreams’ but are ‘something’ spiritual happening to us…
I had a very distinct such ‘experience’ back in 2004 – too long to detail here, but suffice to say that it was every bit as frightening as what you describe….
…with one primary difference:
At the height of terror, my ‘dream’ self in the midst of the longest, loudest, widest opened mouth screaming scream possible –
– I suddenly had the thought that I must ‘make a statement of belief, claiming God’s Love as sovereign’…
…now within the ‘dream’ there were no words to that ‘thought’, it came to me in full, sort of conceptually…
But then, instantly, before I could even (attempt to) form the words –
– my eyes opened and I was wide awake…
The strange thing being that immediately on waking, I felt absolutely no residual fear. My eyelids simply flipped open, and all was calm…no heaving breath, no pounding heart.
And I just knew with absolute certainty, two things:
It had not ‘really’ been a dream (or not entirely), and it was my ‘intention’ to make the “statement of belief” by which God had saved me from whatever was ‘happening’.
I’ve never, since then, ‘experienced’ anything like that, but now when I have a nightmare (which I tend not to recall til next day), I make sure that next night, just before getting into bed, to pray for God’s protection during my sleeping hours.
It always works…I think you may want to try it…actually, it might be best to pray specifically in reference to your nightmare, just in case you might need some specific sort of Heavenly protection.
I’ll say a prayer for you too.
admin
Carol, that’s a very riveting description of your experience. I could spend days dissecting and thinking of what you described. I have never had any experience like this…I wonder if any of the other folks who visit here have done so?
Many thanks for your prayers…they are always appreciated. And thank you also for the recommendation of praying for divine protection regarding my nightmares and things similar. I used to pray at bedtime not just to God but to my guardian angel to watch over me. Perhaps I will revisit this.
As always, I’m grateful that you visit here and that you offer such insightful and helpful comments, Carol.