I wanted to title this one "Keep your head up" because I like Tupac, but that's ok. This is a dream I had about a year ago.
If I could find where I wrote this dream down, I would. But I have notebooks and notebooks of my dreams (the image above isn't of my journals, it just reminded me of them) and it would be impossible so I'll just start. It's not as if it's hard to remember, this one is one of the clearest, - to a point it's uncomfortable, but sometimes when I go back and read a dream I see things I've forgotten.
In this dream, my friend Jessica and I were standing in a room, it felt like my home but didn't look like it. Jess and I have been friends for about ten years and our sons are more than friends, they're like brothers. They play Roblox and Facetime almost nightly so we always hear each other's lives even when life is too busy for us to connect. Our lives have always also strangely paralleled and even when we go weeks with only the occasional text, we have a bond that's based on a deep understanding.
We both even went from heavy partying to finding God. I remember the night she prayed and asked Jesus to come into her life, it was so surprising, but she must have been just as surprised when I started to walk that path. We partied hard and God wasn't on either of our future agendas, but we were on His which I'm grateful for.
I'm writing this dream today because I believe it's needed as things look really bad in the world and after a couple years of things being extremely wild, it's like having no breaks craziness.
As I typed that, I was reminded of labor. You know how when you're having a baby, the contractions start off far apart and get closer, and more intense* until you're wishing for death and then bam, you got a baby? It feels like that in the world, right. Now isn't the time to die.
*If they've ever given you Pitocin during labor, you especially know, because those types of contractions are different, unnaturally difficult. I've had both kind of labors- no drugs and drugs, and am convinced Pitocin is from hell. Hugs to anyone who's had Pitocin. Just wanted to say that.
Anyway, as the world descends further and further into unchecked madness, I wanted to tell you this dream. Each thing that happened in the world, especially injustices, used to shake me to the core and feel like they were cutting at my heart. They grieve me now, I feel deep sadness, but there's a certain detachment, not a pathological dissociation- I can still feel things- more of watching from a slight distance, and it's because of this dream.
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In the dream, my friend Jess and I were standing in this room. The dream began the moment after an EVENT. I want to say "a sound," but that's not quite right. This is why writing down these dreams irritates me so much, because they're hard to describe.
When I say sound/event/moment, the only way I can describe it is with sports. I played soccer in my childhood, adolescence and some of adulthood. Being Nigerian means soccer is important and my dad ran drills with us starting young. I never got very good but loved playing.
I deeply enjoyed the intensity of games. Being on the field, in your position. My favorite is right wing. You get to do a bit of everything and need to be fast. From that position, you always have a good vantage point and can see everything happening on the field. During games, so much is going on and feels at stake, you're aware of every opponent, there's a constant scramble and emotions running high as one's mind never stops anticipating and reacting.
And then all of sudden there's the *brrr brr brrr* of the whistle and it all stops. Ninety minutes felt like five. That moment was always so jarring for me, but also a relief. All of the strategy, the seeing the people in the other color jersey as the enemy, the need to do your job and do it well for the sake of your teammates- with the three blows of the whistle everyone just stops where they are. I always felt a bit dazed as I transitioned from the intensity of the game, opponents, positions, and the pressure, to just standing on the field on the grass doing nothing.
That's the moment the dream began. I could feel that everyone, everywhere had stopped. They weren't frozen in some weird state, it was that all of the striving, emotions, the running, the being who they had been in their positions, had stopped. As if a massive game had ended with the whistle.
It didn't feel exactly like a relief, more like, "Oh. Wow." Suddenly everything that felt like life or death did not matter at all. The names and titles and causes, were all of no value or significance.
The next thing that happened is even harder to describe so I hesitate to do so but will.
I felt myself begin to come apart. I don't mean, body parts falling off me plague/zombie style. I mean my elements, the things I'm made of, began to detach itself. I don't know how else to say it. I only felt the beginning of it and it made my breath catch and still does because it was such a strange feeling. I don't want to call it scary, because it wasn't scary. It was one of those things, for me anyway, that I hold my breath against.
To illustrate: I hate rollercoasters but decided to get season passes to a theme park a few years ago with the kids. Two of my kids love them, and I judge them for that. My other, sane baby, does not enjoy being jerked around by shady machinery. To be a good mother, I rode a couple of rollercoaster rides with one of my adrenaline rush weirdos and held my breath for most of the time because I didn't like what it was doing to my insides.
This moment reminded me of that. Something was happening, I was aware it wouldn't kill me and needed to happen and wouldn't last forever so I held myself and was letting it. Then I woke up.
I know it sounds like a dream about death, but it wasn't. It wasn't the end but a beginning.
--
The most impactful moment of the dream for me was the moment it began. Everything was stopped. All of it. Around the whole world, I could feel it.
I knew there would be no more constant headlines telling us how to feel, no more working in the capacity we were working in, no more making names for ourselves, even wanting things. The game had ended. It was so abrupt. I can't get over how abrupt it felt. It made what happened before, not even seem real, it made it seem like a foolish illusion we were all caught up in.
I'm not saying we can't have emotions and that life isn't real, because it is, but the dream gave me an awareness that has stayed with me, that this will all cease very unexpectedly and there's nothing in this life worth losing your life over or even losing oneself in the whirlwind of noise.
There are times you have to fight, yes, but even in doing that, know it won't last forever.
None of this, this state we're in right now, will last. It has an ending and I'm not even talking about death. I want to. say again that this dream wasn't about death, it was about an end to life in this way.
--
I tell people a lot about Jesus these days because there will come a time when it all stops. I tell people who don't believe in God at all to pray and ask Him to reveal Himself to them. That's where I started: with a genuine desire to know for sure if He was real and who He said He was.
Then once God answered that question, I asked Him to show me who Jesus is to Him because I wanted to align myself with that God wanted and said no matter the cost.
Judaism said one thing, Islam said another, Christianity bothered me (putting it lightly), but I no longer cared, I just wanted to know.
I'd ask you to do the same. If you care about God, ask Him to show you the truth no matter what it might cost you, and it will cost you. But there's nothing in this world worth choosing over Him.
There's one last part to the dream that is kind of silly, but it feels right to say here. As my body was going through whatever it was going through, (kind of reminds me of that scene in Cinderella when she's outside by the pumpkin/carriage and the bippity boppity boo happens with all of the fairy stardust), as that was happening, my only thought was to grab my purse.
Don't ask me why, I wanted to grab my bag but knew I couldn't. I think it's a female instinct to want to grab your purse when things are going down. So alongside steadying myself against the bippity boppity boo, I wanted to grab my bag but there was no time to do or take anything. This time was over.
If I could tell anyone anything, it's to not let the waves of all the bad things happening in the world drown them. It's ok and normal to feel, but this isn't forever.
Sometimes I think there's a deliberate effort to get us so focused on events we don't even think about deeper, spiritual things. But if we choose to, we can allow the churning of this planet to turn our hearts above.
Pray and get right with God. Ask Jesus to forgive you of everything you've ever done (we've all done stuff). Tell Him you believe in Him and start reading what He wrote (it really is a good book and alive, you have to read it to understand). You can talk to God about anything and everything, He always listens. He cares about you and loves you.
Really, all He wants is to be with you and for you to know who He really is. Then you can start walking together and go on some adventures together (they're not all fun but doing anything with Him is better than doing anything without Him).
So that's that.
I hope you have a good day. xo B
*Edited to add this verse. I know God likes when I end things with a verse and I like what He likes (or I try to...). I asked which one and "Heaven and earth will pass away." Anyway, take care.
"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away." Matthew 25:35
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