I come from an interesting family. In this case, interesting in the sense of hypersensitivity to unseen things others may go whole lives never (knowingly) encountering. As a collective, we have a pretty intense set of experiences, both in dreams and reality, that make some uneasy or skeptical. However, thanks to Jesus, it’s also a set of experiences that can truly reach a subset of humanity that doesn’t know what to do with what they’ve seen, felt, and feared.

Vague enough for you?

For now, I’ll share on one aspect: Nightmares.

I don’t often use trigger warnings, but this ventures into a very vulnerable place I normally reserve for one-on-one conversation. One day someone who needs this will find it here, so I’m sharing publically for that one person, whoever they are, because they are worth it.

Trigger Warning: This post contains mention of pornography and a nightmare involving rape. However, it has an incredibly powerful and positive end result, so I encourage you to push past any past trauma and join me at the end in victory. If not, of course it is fine to close this tab and no one will judge you for it.

It’s not my place to delve into why we dream everything that we dream. However.

Certain life choices open your mind’s door to darkness, and darkness never turns down an invitation.

I can’t pinpoint the exact thing I did to invite darkness in too close, but it’s a safe bet that allowing pornography, astrology, and horror movies to breech my heart had something to do with it.

Several months post-salvation, I woke up crying from the scariest, most invasive dream I can remember.

My mom and I were working outside. A ram ripped into the backyard, horns front and center, and plowed into my mother’s side. She flew several feet, landing on her back. I crashed into the ram on it’s way to finish her off, lifting it by it’s enormous horns and thrusting it away with all my strength. I roared and it disappeared. I can’t remember if it left or if I’d killed it.

The atmosphere shifted. I felt an intrusion. Unless you’ve seen Inception, I don’t have a way to describe it. The plot device where you can be noticed entering someone else’s dream? The person’s mind just knows you’re not a product of their imagination? You’re foreign?

The man suddenly standing at the bottom of the hill in a standard black suit. He wasn’t “of me”—he’d broken in.

Fear and offense reared up in me. A part of my mind not previously active woke up. I opened my mouth and started chirping aggressively, like a mother bird defending her nest. A pair of birds mirrored the call and landed on the branches above me. I started defensively chucking like a squirrel guarding its kits. Squirrels joined me. Confidence grew with each and every animalistic call because two by two, those animals arrived. Faster and faster, as fast as my mind could imagine larger and larger, fiercer and fiercer animals, they answered my call until I was surrounded by a kingdom of species as angry and defensive as me. Lions and gorillas arrived roaring as I roared and beat on my chest.

I was safe. I was protected. I was strong.

The man had yet to move. Just the thought of him moving had sent me into survival mode. He just watched. And, as the gorillas roared and pounded beside me, his lips turned up with a condescending smirk and he walked back up the hill and off my property.

I had won.

End scene. Begin the next one.

Someone extremely close to me (the who, I just can’t say) was raping me in my bedroom as I lay paralyzed in horror. Yet, even as I stared at such a familiar face, I knew it wasn’t really them. It was someone using their face.

He left. I knew my mom would help. I needed to get to her. Then, I heard the doorbell ring. Somehow, I knew it was the one who had snuck into my room. He was after my mom. I ran through the house, catching my mom right before her hand grasped the doorknob.

Crying, I pleaded with her not to answer it; I needed to tell her something. She promised to listen after addressing the door, then, she opened it.

Standing there, suit and all, was the man from the hill. He locked eyes with me. He smiled.

He had won.

I woke up crying, more disturbed and distraught than ever before, sick from such realistic mental violation. I hadn’t been raped in real life, but I’d been invaded nonetheless. It made me sick to think of getting out of bed. I felt seen, exposed, in danger.

And then I heard God with more clarity than I’ve ever heard Him since.

“You could have called on Me.”

It wasn’t a voice you hear with ears; I heard it with my heart. His voice was calm and quiet, but strong with truth. It resonated with such love, authority—sadness.

Sadness that for me to learn this truth, He had to allow me to go through such a thing on my own. Now, would I take the lesson forward? Would I allow Him to be my victor?

With God on our side we will win; He will defeat our enemies.

Psalm 108:13 (GNT)

…for the LORD your God is He who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.

Deuteronomy 20:4

I hadn’t felt so much hope and so much shame all at once since the moment I realized I needed to accept Jesus. How had I not thought to call on Him? But thank God, from now on, I could.

That nightmare—night invasion—was permitted but I’ll never be mad at God for allowing it. Truly, the message was delivered powerfully and effectively but with such great mercy in that it did not happen in my flesh. In fact, hearing Him right after is the greatest gift aside from salvation I’ve ever received because I heard Him speak to me and His words were treasure.

As I lay there, suddenly calm and clear-minded, the dream began to unravel into its underlying message.

Sometimes, the threat comes out of nowhere, but you see it. If you’re stuck in your pride, you’ll engage it head-on (take the bull ram by the horns) with no thought at all to God.

Your pride reinforced, you’re now more vulnerable than you were before.

Sometimes, the threat comes looking much more put together, much scarier, but if you’re stuck in your pride, you will you throw everything you’ve got at it. Every. Worldly. Thing. (Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!)

And, wily as the devil can be, he might just let you think you’ve won.

Your pride reinforced, you’re now more vulnerable than you were before.

Sometimes, when your pride has you right where evil wants you, evil takes the bite it’s been waiting for the entire time—which is often a bite in an entirely different place than where the initial attacks came. In your limited knowledge, you protected the wrong things and left others exposed. You won’t see it coming, you may not even put two and two together. You may never give credit to the right source.

But—and this isn’t just in dreams—because you trusted solely in yourself and your means, they’ve suddenly won.

It’s a chess game that you were sure you had in the bag and then, out of nowhere, they have you pinned and—checkmate.

This can look like anything. Trials at your job that end up pushing you to behave in a way that wrecks your marriage at home. Frustrations at church to make you decide to isolate yourself and fall back into addiction. Abuse by a boyfriend makes you question if God is real at all, leaving you open and exposed and alone.

You don’t have to let them have the checkmate. You don’t have to waste your energy trying to figure out evil’s motives when God’s directing your steps.

Call upon Me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.

Psalm 50:15 (NKJV)

In that moment, I answered back, “I will now.”

In the weeks and months following, I experienced a surge of nightmares. Each time I woke up upon calling on Jesus. Seriously. That’s what did it. Like a light switch flicking on, the darkness scampered off each and every time.

God impressed on me a message:

If My name can do this is your dreams, what can it do in your reality?

Things quieted for a time. As they always do in a very strategic battle.

Pop quizzes wrapping up before the exam.

I can’t recall how much time passed. Let’s just say the first dream happened before Shea and I started dating and the second came after we married.

Evil is patient despite encouraging our own impatience.

A crowd meandered around a drab black and white art gallery. I was there. Artwork lined white walls. A sculpture on a large white dais stood tall in the center of the room.

Suddenly everything muted as if in a vacuum, dead space. Then pressure. A rip appeared in the center of the room, like a rip in reality. The rip grew larger as something on the other side worked at breaking through. It was angry; nothing like the cool facade of the man on the hill.

Something in me knew that when the rip grew big enough, I wouldn’t be alone anymore.

“Call on Jesus!” I shouted. People seemed concerned but lethargic in their show of it, as if they knew it would work but it would be too much effort. I tried alone but His name wouldn’t come out.

This thing seemed so big, so strong—it would be more powerful if we all called on Him, right? And yet numbers didn’t matter, only faith.

Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.

Luke 10:19 (ESV)

Despite not needing to breathe in a dream, all the air was gone and I was suffocating.

Evil likes to make you believe you need unnecessary things in hopes of disabling you.

“In Jesus’ name!” I forced it out in jerky syllables, but the rip stopped growing. It was angry, but paralyzed. “In Jesus’ name!“

I jerked awake and grabbed on to Shea. I’d been yelling for Jesus in my sleep but I wouldn’t wake up and he’d started praying.

First off, shout out to my faith-filled, prayer warrior husband who has enough sense to know prayer is not just words, it’s weaponry.

Second…

God wins.

I want to leave you with these points:

• Joseph (with the colorful coat, not Mary’s husband) isn’t the only one God’s used dreams to speak to and through. Some dreams are more than just synaptic firings sorting out your day.
• No matter the type of dreamer you are—lucid or not—calling on Jesus works. I know people who do it that say they never know they’re dreaming, but somehow they can still remember to call on Him despite not being able to think of anything else.
• What you let inside you through your “ear and eye gates” matters. Though that wasn’t the main point of this post, it’s still true. Don’t dabble with the darkness because it really wants you as it’s friend. And, darkness is a terrible friend.
• The Book of Job came alive for me during these experiences. The devil must ask permission, but for the sake of His glory and our growth, God can and sometimes does permit him to attack us. You can either be bitter and feel betrayed, or grow up and realize it’s for our betterment and growth so that we can level up, bring God glory, and help those around us that have yet to learn what we have learned. Your suffering isn’t just about you: God will leave a lesson in it for those who love others enough to learn it for others’ sakes.

And that, fellow dreamers and warriors, is that.

Dream in peace.