Aug 24 2019 Genesis 28: 10-17

And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 

This is the story of Jacob’s wacky dream. In his dream with the cosmic escalator, God stands next to him and assures Jacob that God will always be with him, and keep him until God has accomplished what he promised.

Dreams are wacky, aren’t they? I’ve had dreams that put together things I hadn’t been able to solve while waking. I’ve had dreams that absolutely seemed like divine presence, like the time I was reminded that I wouldn’t have been asked to perform a magical marionette show in front of thousands of people, even though that’s what I thought I was supposed to do. The punchline of that dream was that God wouldn’t ask more of me than I can do, and if I think it’s too big of a request, I’ve probably got the question wrong. That dream came at the time when I was moving my feeble father across the country after my mom’s death. A challenging time, indeed. I absolutely believe God speaks to us in dreams, either directly or not.

And then I’ve had dreams that just make no sense. Singing dinosaurs. Very scary situations, that when I wake up, I wonder why I was afraid at all. I don’t know how much of dreams are God-inspired, experience-inspired, or living out fears from my day. But when I’m having a dream, things seem real. My heart can race. I cry in dreams, and can wake up with the residual effects of strong emotions that come from dreams.

This effect, the fact that dreams are so real when we’re sleeping was used to describe schizophrenia to me recently. The brain of someone with that disease is not entirely different than mine. The biggest difference is that I have the priceless luxury of awakening from that dream state. My brain conjures wonderful, or frightening, or wacky stories. While I’m dreaming, it is absolutely real. And then, eventually I wake up. When wakefulness is complete, I leave the dream world behind. I leave the racing heart, the idea that I can fly or that I’m being chased, I leave all of that behind. Maybe I’ll rejoin the fantasy when I next sleep, or maybe it’s gone forever. But I awaken, and leave it behind.

For people experiencing schizophrenia, they do not have that veil, that separates awake and asleep. Their brain goes through the same fantastic conjuring as mine. It’s as real to them, as my dreams are to me. But they are not sleeping, so they cannot awaken. It’s humbling to think that the brain function is the same; my brain conjures the same kinds of images as someone with schizophrenia. The only difference is that I wake up.

This morning, I’m thinking about dreams like Jacob’s, and about how grateful I am that I sleep and dream, and then can awaken and leave the dreams behind. I pray that God can peek in to that constant dream-state and speak to folks with schizophrenia, as God speaks to me in my dreams.