"I used to live here"

I had a dream the other night.

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It was nighttime in the house where I was living. It was my "home", my children were sleeping there, and my wife was lying on the bed next to me, but it wasn't the inside of a house I've ever lived in or even seen.

I was lying next to my wife; near our bed was a sliding glass door that led out to a patio that was a couple of feet below ground level, and surrounded by a cement wall surrounded it. The inside looked a little like some of the styles I remember from my youth: wall paneling, bedsheets of the gaudy 70s styles and colors, etc.

While we lay there talking, some dry autumn leaves rustled suspiciously outside. My wife sat up in alarm and asked me what it was. I shrugged. Probably some animal. I didn't tell her that it sounded to me like footsteps, but I hoped they'd go away.

On another occasion, during the day, I was in the study, and again I heard the same sound. I bolted outside and saw a man with dark hair, in a white button-up shirt, black slacks, and black shoes. No tie, though. He smiled and waved; outraged, I walked up to him and demanded why he was skulking around my house.

He looked a little embarrassed. Sorry; this used to be my house, and I like to look at it. he said. Would it be okay if I came inside and had a look around?

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This is when I woke up. It was daylight, and as I dressed I realized that the man in my dream was God, and the home was my heart.

Dunno what to think about that.

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The unlikely pro-lifer

Call me superstitious if you must, but this story impresses me. Stojan Adasevic, a Serbian doctor who during his lifetime performed tens of thousands of abortions, abandoned his practice after a long period of recurring dreams that turned out to be…well, you can read it yourself:

[A] beautiful field full of children and young people who were playing and laughing, from 4 to 24 years of age, but who ran away from him in fear. A man dressed in a black and white habit stared at him in silence. The dream was repeated each night and he would wake up in a cold sweat. One night he asked the man in black and white who he was. My name is Thomas Aquinas, the man in his dream responded. Adasevic, educated in communist schools, had never heard of the Dominican genius saint. He didn't recognize the name.

Why don't you ask me who these children are? St. Thomas asked Adasevic in his dream.

They are the ones you killed with your abortions, the Dominican saint told him.

Adasevic awoke in amazement and decided not to perform any more abortions.

I looked up some more information on this fellow—what with the internet being a reliable source of information and all—and found a few more details. In one of them, the Dominican Saint explains to the incredulous doctor that "on this side of the eschaton" children continue to grow into adulthood.

Dr. Adasevic swore off abortions after learning the identity of the children in his dream. When pressed by a young couple performed one last abortion which ended in such a terrifying fashion that he refused to continue, even after the state sanctioned him, reduced his salary, etc. He became an Orthodox Christian—not, apparently, one of the group of Orthodox Christians that I once found online, who savage Aquinas regularly—and has since advocated for pro-life causes.

(Hat tip: Christifideles)

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The non-existent class project

I've heard of the recurring nightmare people have where they walk around in their underwear, or even without underwear, and no one seems to notice. If I have that dream, it recurs so rarely that I don't remember having it.

Over the last year or two, however, I have had a frequent occurrence of a nightmare with a similar theme. I arrive in a classroom where I am a student, and I realize that, either in this class or in another, I am unprepared for the impending end of the semester.

The reason varies with the specific nightmare. On one occasion I was misinformed as to the class meeting time, and was too busy with other matters to get around to obtaining the correct information until that point. By the end of the semester I have no idea what the professor is talking about, and little chance to get up to speed before the exam.

On another occasion, the professor has assigned a major project for the semester, and it is due the day that I arrive in class. Again, I was too busy with other projects, because I was enrolled in four or five graduate-level courses. I obviously have no chance at doing the assignment. Worse, the material learned by completing the project is an essential aspect of the course that I have failed to learn.

Never mind that these sorts of things never happened to me in real life—never. The really interesting consequence is that I sometimes worry during my waking moments how I will complete the soon-to-be-due project in the course that, even today, I've failed to attend.

This is no exaggeration: the very thing happened to me yesterday afternoon. I "remembered" that "soon" I have to turn in a major project for a class I'm taking, and I've done absolutely no work on it. It took me a moment to remember that I take no classes, and even in real life no major projects are approaching a due date.

As disconcerting as that was, at least I don't start to worry in real life that I'm walking around only in my underwear, even though I'm fully dressed.

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St. Gemma and the poodles

I dreamed the other night that I was praying to St. Gemma for protection. I also dreamt that she protected me in the dream, although I don't recall any specific sight or conversation with her. It was curious, because I hadn't thought of St. Gemma in a long time.

That dream later involved three French poodles. One had pink fur, another had green fur, and the third had lavender fur.

You read that right. I've wondered if the ice cream had anything to do with it. I wish I could tell you how it turned out, but I'd rather not explain what little I recall of the rest.

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Dreams of ghosts

Ever since I was a child, I have seen vivid dreams of ghosts and other supernatural creatures. These are not pleasant dreams, and I usually lie in my bed afterwards praying in the darkness. You can guess that this is on my mind because I had another of these episodes recently. Wikipedia has a nice little article on the explanations of such phenomena, including sounds at frequencies less than 20 Hertz and carbon monoxide poisoning. Neat.

I don't remember any dreams of saints or angels. All my supernatural dreams are of the darkness. I do wish I would see an angel or a saint sometime, but I'm not one of those people who can control their dreams.

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