Cleaning Gloves and Spiritual Warfare

I am loving the breathe right strips! This is my fourth night of wearing them, and I hardly wake up at all during the night. (Somewhat due to that, I've had a harder time remembering dreams.)

Last night's was unforgettable though.

It woke me up around 5 something. (I went straight back to sleep of course.)

I was cleaning a kitchen with my mom. The kitchen looked clean, but then she would advise me to look closer and as the camera lens of my eye zoomed in a whole bunch of yuck that surely wasn't there before appeared.

We mainly worked on the area above the stove. We weren't in my "now" house, or any other house I've ever lived in, it was a future house. Once in the dream my mom even made reference to my "old" house (this one), reminding me how dirty above my stove was there as well.

After that area was done we moved over to the sink. There were piles of minty green rubber gloves hanging over the side of the sink. They looked a bit like medical gloves, but were thick like dish washing gloves, but without the griping textured palms. My mom had on a pair. I also had on a pair of gloves but mine were coral in color and were truly dish washing gloves with the grips and all.

A couple of military men came in the room from the right and stood on the opposite side of the counter island. I started taking off my gloves and they called for the "others" to come and hear some bad news.

I knew what was coming. Then one of the officers said, "We have gone to war." 

There was a rumble of talking among the people (about 20 or so strangers). Basically, the soldiers had announced that World War III had started.

I asked the officer, "Can I say something?"  he motioned for me to go ahead.

"The Bible tells us all about this. We are in what it says are the 'Last Days'..." As I looked around the room a hand full of faces were turning demonic. I searched over all the faces to see if everyone was turning. The room had all but faded and all I could do was focus on one or two faces at a time. Each time one of them (or both) would morph into something out of "The Firm" (Al Pacino movie from the 90s) (or like the kids from "The Passion"). I finally had a thought to focus on my own face, though I couldn't quite get my true image in my mind, but even the image that I got as I tried to think of myself, turned demonic. As soon as I saw the ash gray color start to surround "my" eyes I felt a cold shiver go down my shoulder (I was sleeping on my belly). I jerked and woke my self up whispering "In the name of Jesus" in a strained breath.

This was the first demonic dream I've had in quite a while. I use to have them fairly often back in 2006-2007 when I was involved in a ministry that encountered some demonic opposition.

Anyway... I know that a kitchen is the heart of the home. I've been calling my mom lately to help me deal with some "home heart" issues. On the back burner my eschatology ministry has been sitting untouched, though I'm still listening to new material daily on different radio shows. 

I'm not sure if the demonic opposition was to my "ministry" specifically, or if the dream was saying that my "heart of the home" problems were demonic opposition, even in order to keep me from my ministry... which seems to make sense to me given how this week has played out.

I know people tell me not to live in denial and to work through our family issues; that other stuff can wait... but isn't that just like Satan to hit us in a spot that he knows will take our mind off of what we are called to do?

Guidance... Please God, a little guidance here.

Take the Wheel, Clean the Baby, and Dress Up.

I slept great last night... I bought some "breathe right strips"... Thank you to the inventor of those!

My first dream started in a parking lot. I can't remember too much of it, but I remember the main part, which is that my ten year old son was driving the car while my daughter and I rode in it... Me in the back seat. At one point he turned and was on the freeway facing on coming traffic. I tried to talk him through turning back around, but some cars started coming and he froze. When the next opportunity appeared I jumped over the center console and took over driving.

(I think this is as plain as it sounds... I'm letting a ten year old drive me around... I need to stop!)

My second dream was about a baby. The baby was a girl, maybe 4 months old. My mom and I (and I think my daughter) were all taking care of her. She looked a lot like my sister's daughter with curly brown hair, and a button nose and big eyes. She had on a red frilly dress. She wasn't mine, but I was helping. I took her to the bathroom to change her diaper. I was holding her by the belly and running water over her butt, wiping her clean. Then as I was drying her off I got angry and was being intentionally rough with her. I wasn't outright shaking her, but I was jerking her around and had a mean look on my face. I was frustrated with the situation... which had something to do with the baby.

(This one, I'm not positive, but I think has something to do with my daughter's trouble. I think the baby represents my daughter's "fruit" so-to-speak. I'm trying to help clean it up, but it's frustrating, and mainly I just wanna hurt the little 'red dress wearing' thing. )

My third dream was a good one, thank God. I was with my sister and we were kids. The look we had going was based on a favorite picture from my childhood. (In the picture we were at my Grandma's house and we had on fancy dresses and some of her makeup.) In the dream we had choices of piles of frilly dresses and skirts and boas to dress-up in. We had our hair curled and mine was in pig tails (as was often the case growing up). We had lip gloss on too. We were dressing up and dancing around enjoying being little girls. It was a very enjoyable dream!

(I think this one is a flipped coin from the MANY clothes trying on/sister dreams I've had in the past few months. In all the past dreams I've been a teen or an adult and the clothes rarely fit, and it's rarely 'even' between us and rarely fun. This one, being free and innocent, and just being ourselves, we had a great time. All the clothes fit, and we enjoyed each others company.)

While on my Trip

I'm always interested to see what kind of hotel dreams I have while away. Hotel dreams can be some of the wildest ones ever. This trip (to Vegas) wasn't as good as most, but I still had some interesting ones, and definitely some influenced by the surroundings.

The first night we were there we went to see the Blue Man Group, and I had a "drumming" dream. There were all types of things to drum on (just like the show) and different people from all over were taking turns on stage to drum for various causes. The last cause before I woke up was cancer.

The next night I had a 'not very nice' dream at all. I was with my husband and we were at a table in Vegas, I went to ask him something and he ignored me. I then attempted to ask him if he loved me, and a very fake bodied, brunette held my arm as I reached, pulled me aside and said, "Isn't it obvious... He's done with you." She gave me a very sympathetic look as I became dejected and walked away.

The next night (after a rather sad afternoon by the pool) I had a dream that I inherited a house. The house was built back in the "Little House on the Prairie" days but was still holding up. I was getting a tour of the property. (No one was with me, except 'the voice', my guide. I could talk out loud to him. If you've read way back in the beginning of this blog, you may remember "The voice", whom I assume is the Holy Spirit. If you can talk and ask questions of a "no body" in your dreams, and he answers, either with words or thoughts, that's Him, most likely.)

Anyway, the land on my property was a few acres I'd guess, and sloped down significantly in the back, where most of the land was. The house in the front of the property was very small, possibly 1,000 or so square feet. I didn't go inside the house until I had walked the perimeter of the yard. There were no fences and my dog ran to the neighbor's yard to the right of the house. The neighbor was a grumpy old man who yelled at me for letting my dog go. 

As I looked down to the bottom of the hill I thought of where to put a pool. There was plenty of room. The more I looked I saw a huge puddle at the bottom of the hill. The drainage was obviously bad. I tried to stay positive and say, "well, we'll put the pool there." I reached the bottom of the hill and walked around a small wall behind the puddle and back up the left side of the hill. When we reached the house, we went in. (Me and the voice). I looked only in the front room which was very quaint. You could see directly into the kitchen just beyond the front room.  The front door didn't quite fit in the door frame, like it had swelled over time and you had to give it a good shove to make it close. 

Just then it started to rain... really hard. The rain started pouring in through a hole in the upper part of the front door, in the center. It was only that one spot and quite a steady stream. I asked, "How are we going to fix it?" Just then He picked up a piece of wood from the floor that fit the hole perfectly. (I can't remember if He gave it to me to plug up, or if He did it himself.) But it plugged the hole perfectly and the rain could not get in.

...and that was the end.

I'd love it if this dream had nothing to do with me and I could give it a different interpretation, but as often is the case, houses/ property represent ourselves. This one is very telling of how my week, month, year... is feeling. I have a big property, but my drainage is terrible, my house is beaten down. My front door doesn't close well, and the rain comes in steadily. There are no fences. I live on a hill. 

I am happy to know that there is a perfect fit for the door to help the rain stop coming in... I will be looking for that... on the floor.

God help me.

#1 I grew up watching (loving) "Little House on the Prairie". I always wished my name was Laura or Lauren. 

#2 I let my dog off leash on walks when no one is around. I know it's against the law, I hate that law. I like how it is in other countries where they are free like cats. But unlike cats they are loyal to their owners and basically just follow them around. Anyway, I was yelled at the other day by a grumpy old man about the dog being off leash. Those type of things hurt me way more than they should.

#3 I am going to counseling once every few weeks these days, so I'm dealing with a lot of stuff that has just piled up over the years... in the back yard... so to speak. "Dealing with" would be a good phrase, but right now it feels more like we're just able to see it all... It's not moving. I had/have an optimistic outlook for what my 'land' could be, but  upon closer inspection you see the "puddle". Sure we can "pretend" like it's OK... just put the "pool" there, but really, It's a drainage issue, and I need to get rid of the water, not mask it.

#4 I don't want to shut people out, but I do think that there must be something to the front door unable to shut properly and having a hole where the rain comes in like a watering can is aimed directly at the hole. I think this is about how easily I am hurt.  (by family, friends, and strangers).

Rescuing Dogs

Yesterday  I saw a small black dog dodging traffic on Elk Grove Blvd. in rush hour. He made it safely to the side... while I watched. 

I also had a man reprimand me for having my dog off leash yesterday while on our walk.

I had a pretty pity party of a day (due to other things... not those) and went to bed crying.

Last night's dream was about dogs.

In the dream, the same little black dog was running around the street and another girl (long brown hair... could have been me, but I was watching from a distance) and my friend Cheryl (who works with dogs) caught him. As they were taking him away, through a city park (just grass) (Reminded me of the Curtis Park area in Sacramento) a box was dropped in the middle of the street. It was a large refrigerator size box taped with duct tape and it had holes punched in it. It had a dog in it; a big one. As they were about to get it open a van squealed around the corner and Cheryl and the other girl jumped back to the sidewalk. A man reached out of the open back of the van and pulled the box in. At the same time, he pushed a gray short haired large dog out of the van. The gray dog looked a little under fed and scared. As the van peeled away the girls took the gray dog and the small black dog to Cheryl's town house. (Really she has a house, but in the dream she lived in a small town house that also looked like it fit in the Curtis Park area... that era at least.) With both dogs inside Cheryl's roommate (the brown haired girl... not her real room mate) was sitting with her back up against the door and her feet on a wall making sure the door would not open. Cheryl was also sitting on the floor on the opposite wall.

It was like they were hiding out. 

On my walk yesterday my friend Carrie and I were talking about my pity party, self-condemnation, etc. The man had just walked by scolding me about my dog off leash and those type of things effect me more than they should. (On a side note... I've been to many countries, and America has THE worst dogs! Everywhere else they sit in shops, on the beach, free... And nice. Here, we chain 'em up, blah blah blah, and they get frustrated, and mean.) Carrie started to use dogs as an illustration for myself. Chained... we're frustrated, in bondage. My dog walks all zig-zaggy on a leash. He drags; he goes around you... He wants to be off. He does great off-leash (unless he spots a rabbit... then he chases it.) Anyway, my point is... I'm not sure if I was the brown haired girl in the dream... or one of the dogs... or just an on looker. But the dream definitely reminded me of being miss treated, and hiding from those that miss treat me. (not physically, mind you, but emotionally.)

Island Vacation, Bath Cave, and Highrise Homework

In mt first dream I was swimming in an enormous man-made lake. We were on vacation of some sort and had just arrived to our island home. The scene around the side of the lake that we were on was very 'other worldly'. It looked like a movie set. The houses were built way too close to the water, jutting out of the (not very high) cliffs. There was brown showing around the homes, and vines hanging sporadically. There were wooden deck walkways from some houses and others you had to use the vines to get to.

We had been dropped off somewhere in the lake and were swimming to shore with a group of people. The only person outside of my family that I recognized was our friend Greta. (That makes sense because we have been on vacation with her twice, and really don't see her otherwise.) A large man led us up the bank and then we made our way around the cliffs to our 'home'.  That's all the dream had in it.

The second one was also about water, and lots of it. It was a roman bath house type place, but huge, and more like a cave. I was with a few of my Swell Sister ladies and we were 'bathing'. There were a few tiers to the place, and above one was a large water fall that glowed with a golden hue. The whole dream was just swimming around and climbing and being in the water fall etc. No talking. I had to wake up from the dream to pee in the middle of the night.

The third one was in a city setting. I was with my dad and we were visiting my friend Dori. It was a school day and I had to get to school soon. We were up really high in a sky-rise in her apartment in down town LA. (Even though she doesn't live there, or in an apartment, but the school we went to together was.) She was showing us her new doggies. (She does have a new doggy since I saw her last, but these dogs were not the right breed.) The dogs in the dream were "purse dogs", one black and brown and white with furry pointy ears like a papillon, and  the other was like a white miniature poodle.  I was holding one and we were looking out the window talking about taking it down to pee. But I realized I was late for school and I started urging my dad to hurry and take me. I grabbed my back pack, but I didn't have my books. I scrambled to find the books, got them into the bag and then realized I hadn't done my homework. I had English and some sort of Science. Then I reasoned with myself that I wasn't going for a grade, I was a grown up, and it really didn't matter that I hadn't done my homework. Reasoning with myself led me to remember I'm not really in school, and then I woke up.

Once again, I am at a loss for any meaning... but they were interesting dreams none-the-less.

Awkward

My first dream:
I was with my mom and dad. We were at a mall because I wanted to go shopping. We had been walking for a very long time through halls with shops along the sides behind windows and doors. (It reminded me of Las Vegas when you have to go through a long hallway of shops from the parking garage to the main casino area.) The building we were in was old though; it was brick, and looked like a museum. After walking and still not shopping for a very long time, I actually said, "This mall is more like a museum." It was about at that point that we 'got some where'. My mom, in answer to my question, said, "Well let's go down this way." We started down some stairs that led to a Marie Calendars, but the stairs soon became a ladder. There were rungs every few feet, but the main handle on the sides was only every 6 feet. For some reason I wasn't using any of the middle rungs, only one every 6 feet that lined up with the handle. I was dropping, only holding the sides for the entire length of my body each time. My parents were coming down the ladder rung by rung, but face first... like they were crawling "spidey-style" down towards me.  I complained about the ladder. Almost directly after the complaint (and my mind thinking about what I was doing, and how I could do it differently) we were at the bottom. Instead of going through the restaurant, or sitting down, we went just to the right of the ladder where there was a bed. My mom lay on the bed on the right side, and I lay on my belly with my head and arms dangling off the end on the left side. Again, I stopped and realized what I was doing, and repositioned myself. The bed was very lumpy and I said it was better before. My mom thought that maybe I just needed less noise to be able to sleep, so I went to turn off the TV (no longer in the restaurant atmosphere). When I got to the TV I noticed that it had been recording every show for the past like 6 or so hours. I took some time to try to delete each show. (Probably more from my ipod frustration the other day... cause now I have so many unwanted songs to delete.)  The dream ended in frustration.


My next dream was far weirder.

I was riding the back seat of an open-air jeep type vehicle with four guys in the front and two more in the back with me. They almost all had guns (very skinny and short ones of varying colors, which they talked about,) and we were driving through a neighborhood to do a drive-by shooting. They weren't aiming for people, but they wanted to scare the residents. They were all very "hard" looking, and talked in a way that said "gang" to me. We went around this neighborhood like three times, each time I faced inward and didn't look at what they were shooting at off the left side. (I was in the far left of the back seat.) When they were satisfied with their shooting we headed for the leaders house. As we approached the house a small squirrelish animal (without a tail) got on my leg and tried to hump it. I grabbed him to remove him but he just grabbed on to my arm and did the same. I told the guy in the back seat about it and he said, "Just let him do his thing." At this the squirrel bit me and latched on again to my leg. I shook him off as we exited the car at the leader’s house. Once we were in I looked down at the clothes I was wearing. I was dressed like a streetwalker, and shortly after, treated like one. At this point in the dream, unlike in the car, I was playing the role. I smacked my gum, I spoke 'gangsta' and used my body (which was rather slim in the dream) to entertain. At one point there was poop on the floor and I had to clean it up before anyone saw. I knew my place in the gang; I was basically dirt.

A large screen came down from the ceiling and they began to play music videos. The walls of the house went away and the area became huge with three different levels for watching a concert. It wasn't like a stadium, but there were a few seats scattered around and outdoor heaters here and there. A band came to the screen/stage and started to set up. I started to make my way as far away from the gang as I could, I ran into my husband on the top level near a heater and stood with him. The youth pastor from our church, Josh, was there and was announcing this as a "Tribes" event. (That's the name of the youth's Wednesday night service.) I looked around and saw Tribes posters. The gang members and a whole bunch of other people scattered around the place.

Then I woke up.

Bugs and Clothing Options

Yes, I have been dreaming the past few days, but quite frankly the people in my dreams wouldn't want me sharing what I dreamed about. So I didn't.

Last night I had a few tell-able dreams...

One was about bugs. ALL kinds of bugs. They were flying and crawling all around me. (Perhaps because I vacuumed up so many yesterday from windowsills and sliding glass door frames.) I had my son's cricket pinchers that we use to feed his bearded dragon, and I was pinching them straight out of the air. It was a very frustrating dream.  (I actually think it had more to do with my ipod melt down right before I went to bed. I said "Yes" to something I shouldn't have and spent the last hour before bed deleting duplicates from my play lists.  Point, click, control, point click..... etc.) Tedious. 

I had another dream about clothes... 80's clothes to be exact. My sister again... and myself dressing for school or something. This time there was tons to choose from and I wasn't having any problems fitting any of it. (I'm taking that as a step in the right direction! I started a Zumba class Monday night, and am going to water aerobics occasionally.)

...and that's about it.

I hope your dreams are going great... becoming more memorable... and talking to you. :-)