Seeing into the Unseen Realm

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At the very least it revealed some sort of spiritual connection across the miles.

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The terrifying nightmares started for me when I was about 4 or 5 years old when we moved to a wonderful 75-acre piece of property in central BC, where Dad had built us a small house, just big enough to squeeze in all eleven of us. I loved my family and am eternally grateful for growing up surrounded by nature, in a seemingly endless playground full of adventure and interesting creatures, both wild and domesticated. Unfortunately, like my brother and sister, I was affected by dad's alcohol consumption and the turbulence in my parents' relationship which, at times, threatened to break. I also experienced some sexual abuse on the part of an elder relative, of which my father was not told out of my mom's concern for what his reaction might be. I went unaware until about the age of 30 that Mom had dealt with the perpetrator; and I had been instructed to avoid the man, so I grew up believing that it was up to me to protect myself and that I was somehow at fault. So, yes, there were psychological causes for my traumatic dreams, but over time I became convinced that there was also a dark spiritual influence involved.

The earliest night terrors I recall were recurring dreams of men in suits who came to our door with brown paper packages. Inside side each wrapper was a bomb: one for each member of the family, intended to kill us all. For some reason, the biggest one was always for me. Comical as it may sound to an adult at a distance, it was terrifying to my young mind, and I would wake up inconsolable. Mom would have to get me out of bed and show me around the house to convince me that it wasn't real.

As years passed, other dreams developed. Often, I would find myself on my belly in the gravelly dirt, trying hopelessly to crawl up the driveway hill with vicious, snarling dogs snapping at my feet and I slipping closer and closer to the edge of a steep bank--expecting soon to fall off. Again, I'd awake in heart-pounding fear. Other times I would be on a town bridge over a river. My shoe would fall off and as I reached for it, I would suddenly be over the railing and falling head-first toward the dark, rushing waters below. As I grew into adulthood, my nightmares often had a pattern of beginning with a peaceful scene, such as a brown cow grazing gently in a green pasture, but as I stood watching, the animal would suddenly morph into a gigantic, raging monstrosity charging toward me and then be immediately right in front of my face, and I'd be defenseless and unable to escape. I'd awake unable to move for moments and then get up and reorient myself and hopefully get back to sleep. The dreams were not every night but were often enough that I accepted them as just part of who I was and believed there was nothing I could do about them.

When I was about 20 years old, I started to experience mild waves of depression but still had a zest for life most of the time. By then I had broken off an unhappy relationship, and then at about 22, I moved from my hometown to Kelowna, B.C. A few years later, having previously invited God to come in and help me do life, I had a stunning, unforgettable dream. In it, I was a child playing alone on the ground amongst the trees behind our old house. I looked up to see, heading for our home, a magnificent, glowing orange and black tiger walking calmly and silently on the air about two inches off the ground; it had a supernatural, sparkle, but, in spite of the incredible beauty, something about it was terrifying! I instantly knew that it had evil intentions, so I jumped up and ran ahead to the house to warn the family. I rushed in and shouted, "Lock the door, close the windows!! It's coming to kill us!" But everyone ignored me. They kept going about their business, wiping the table, sweeping the floor, preparing food, barely giving me a glance. And I woke up.

The dream was strange enough in and of itself, but then something even stranger happened. That winter, at our annual family Christmas gathering, while we sat in the kitchen late in the evening catching up with each other's lives, I shared my dream. My brother Gary, with a look of puzzled surprise on his face, said he had had the exact same dream somewhere around the same time, except that he was the one that ran to the house to warn the family that the deadly attack was coming! I think it's important to note that we lived in different cities, he in Kamloops and I in Kelowna. Furthermore, in those days we were not keeping in touch with each other. We had no shared experience affecting our dreams, and had barely spoken to each other in the months before the dream. There was no practical explanation. At the very least it revealed some sort of spiritual connection across the miles.

This event was my first clue that dreams at times for particular people may be much more than just one's brain sorting out and trying to make sense of the events of any given day. I was a skeptic regarding God's involvement in my life, and so decades passed before I received my miracle of deliverance from the tormenting nightmares. The miracle is described in the next post "Angelic Rescue".