The Importance of Dreams - Clairvoyance, Belief, and Science

Recently I watched a Nova special on dreams.  A person could look at it and come to one of two conclusions, either, my prophetic dreams that are ridiculously in-depth are just an avenue for me to understand my world, or they are what I originally thought they were - glimpses.

It is hard to believe in anything any more living in the world we do.  In fact, not a day goes by that I am not further convinced there is less mystery and more ugliness that makes this awful place the way it is.  Maybe I need a happy light to make me think otherwise, I'm not sure.  It probably doesn't help that I now live under cloud cover and I'm experiencing the closest thing to winter I have since living in the wild west.  Still, there are other factors that are more important than the average weather of a place.  No this has been going on much longer than just a simple dreary day or week.  This has been going on longer than a decade.

I have officially decided I can no longer watch documentaries about anything remotely related to my spiritual life.  If I do, it will just serve to depress me and disembowel me even more.  Rather, I'm going to try to fake it til I make it. I don't care if the end result means I believe my dreams are an alternate reality where I battle the forces of evil and elves really do exist in northern climes. I don't care if I end up thinking that druids have the right of it.  I'm tired of people failing - trying to uncover every bit of everything and explain it away.  I'm tired of people using institutions as avenues for being cruel to people by way of playing out their insecurities.  I'm tired of all of it.  I'm tired of paradoxes and false idols and calling people things like infidels and apostates.  It's just gotten to the point where I am more angry that people are so irritatingly on their high horses that it is impossible for them to examine or entertain anything else. 

The only place in Christianity that entertains prophecy or dream messages is one of the s-c-a-r-i-e-s-t places I could ever imagine being.  That is Pentecostalism - think speaking in tongues, no logic, Creationism, and a whole lot of militant beliefs that are on the "right" side.  So if you have dreams that seem like a message, or a thought, or something remotely like a nudge in a direction and you talk about them anywhere at all you will get weird looks from anyone with the possible exception of a handful of sleep researchers and Pentecostals.  So that's good.  That makes me feel super warm and fuzzy.  Totally. 

What makes it worse, ironically, is the lack of nudging.  As I mentioned previously, short of the recent resonating friend conversation and a fortune cookie, I'm feeling pretty isolated from the world beyond.  It feels... odd. It's as though my right arm was cut off, or I'm entering the beginning stages of Alzheimer's and I can't remember everything about my life.  Something is missing. I can't put my finger on it.  I turned off the stove, I got the laundry out of the dryer.  So what is it?  And how can I get it back?

Well, I'm thinking it's faith, belief, or a connection to the divine.  As for getting it back, pfft! I have no effing clue.  I mentioned before I started reading this devotional book.  Holy Adventure is kind of helpful.  Affirmations have always been a friend of mine.  Re-thinking my perspective on the world is an exercise I'm used to.  I've done it through books, classes, mentors, and occasionally peers.  So here is my hope - I do my little devotion thing.  It starts impacting the way I think about things.  I start changing.  I get my God back.  Seems like a solid plan, or at least an attempt.  So far I'm on day 1 of my 41 audacious days.  I'm shooting for interesting dreams and deja vu by day 20.  Is that too much to ask for? I don't know.  40% of Iceland believe in elves.  Stranger things have been known to happen.