epiphany

Tonight My Sleep Will Be Restless

I've had a lot of odd dreams lately, dreams that I can remember. Part of that is undoubtly because I haven't been sleeping very well. But a lot of them are just plain strange.

Quite a few of my dreams over the last two weeks have had a similar ending. I hear myself saying or thinking, "Wait until Dad hears about this. He'll love it!" Shortly after that I think, "Oh wait. He's dead." Then I wake up.

Some of the dreams have been fairly comic, knowingly surreal yet entirely believable while I'm in them. For instance, on Wednesday evening I dreamed that I was back at BJU helping the school get ready for an artist series featuring U2. I was taking some photos for them and basically shadowing Bono, who was trying his best to keep his language under control, knowing that he would be performing for a rather conservative audience. I couldn't figure out why in the world the school brought in U2, but I was looking forward to the concert. I remember thinking that quite a few of my friends would probably say they were "grieved" by the performance, especially since they hadn't particularly appreciated the Three Irish Tenors, which was a concert I had missed. In real life, I hadn't actually listened to any U2 songs for a while, so I broke out a DVD and watched part of a concert on Wednesday evening.

Last night I dreamed that I had taken several of my friends from China to my house in Seattle. Apparently it was Thanksgiving. I was really excited to see everyone and felt like I do when I watch Fellowship of the Ring when Frodo finds his friends and Bilbo in Rivendell. I've been imagining that's what heaven will be like: amazing reunions with people long gone, like you're waking up from a bad dream. It was great. Drew and Lisa were there along with the rest of the community group. They were showing me changes to the place, and I was showing my friends where my room was and different things we used to do together. We went upstairs to see Graham and Merideth and then out back onto the much expanded upper deck where they had a huge number of people (who said they were relatives) seated for supper. It felt awfully summer-y for Thanksgiving, but that's all I could figure out for an event of that size. Strange thing was, I never actually saw Graham and Merideth. I saw people that looked like them, but I didn't find them. I think they were about to come out to the deck when I woke up.