My Weekend

I was really looking forward to an evening of comedy with some co-workers on Saturday. It turned into a comedy of errors or, depending on how you look at it, a tragedy. Our plan was to catch a stand-up show in Vancouver and then head for the Shark Club. We were chauffeured by a driver there and back in a snazzy SUV limousine. Of course, booze was involved and therein lies the source of our troubles.

I believe I know my limit and since I was driving a couple of my co-workers home after our night out, I didn't want to drink much. A few people did not have the same limit and as a result, there were more than a few awkward moments. All is not a total loss, as I did have fun when there was fun to be had, but I don't think the night turned out as well as we all had imagined.

Later that night, after I dropped into bed after 2am, I dreamt that I was walking through an one-storey dilapidated house. The wooden floor was smothered in filth of broken toys, shredded paper, dirty clothes, shreds of drab cloth, shards of glass (from the broken windows), dust, dirt, and leaves. I felt very sad. According to my dream books, a dream that features a house that looks destroyed predicts anguish and depression; the books suggest that the personality or body of the dreamer is in search of better health. A low house is a sign that my work relations in my workplace are about to break down. (Hm...)

I woke up Sunday morning feeling lousy and not because of alcohol. I didn't know what to make of what I experienced with my co-workers last night. I felt deflated, frustrated, sad, and disappointed. I went to church in this mindset and God met me there.

Suddenly, my spirit was uplifted! The sermon was particularly meaningful. The pastor spoke from the book of Romans and how sin separated us from God, but how God has given us a way out through the redemption of His Son. We have all fallen short of the glory of God, but He has given us hope, forgiveness, and grace. I realize that I must learn humility because in spite of what my co-workers did, I am, in some ways, no better. I have done things that I am not proud of, but when I come before the Lord, I am forgiven. There's no hiding my sins, my shame, my guilt. The Lord's mercy and grace has set me free! This inexplicable joy has lifted me out of my slump. Even in my feeling of excitement, I get the urgency again to share the good news of God's love to those who need it and I wished that my co-workers could have received the same message as I got today. At the end of worship, one of our pastors announced the engagement of his son and soon-to-be daughter-in-law. They are such a cute couple and I feel tremendous happiness for the two of them; they are in my care group this year and I look forward to knowing them both better and support and encourage them in this new phase of their relationship. As a congregation, we sang Happy Day (Tim Hughes) and I couldn't help but raise my arms and sway to the music (I would've jumped up and down instead of hop, but I didn't want to accidentally smack the people beside me).

It felt so good to be with people who are happy and don't need alcohol or drugs to be that happy. This is the joy that only God can give and nothing in this earth can replace it.

Dream Interpretations

I have always been interested in what my dreams say about me. I've had a few recurring dreams, many dreams about work, some sad dreams, and a number of nightmares. I even had a dream that continued from my friend's dream; when I went to tell her about a dream I had the next day, we discovered that we both had the same dream, except the people we dreamed about entered in the daytime in her dream and in my dream, the people exited at night. I don't think I get prophetic dreams, but I know I have dreams that speak a lot about how I view God. In one dream, people were jumping off a building that I was in and I would look out the window and watch them fall one by one, all the while, shouting at God, "Help us! Save this world from killing themselves!" A few weeks later, 9/11 happened.

Psychologists and astrologists believe that dreams send a message about our subconscious. Often, our dreams are mundane and reflect what we did or saw that day. Every now and then, however, our dreams pick up something in our brains that do not seem to affect us on a conscious level. I won't go into the history of dream interpretation here, but while most people would regard Sigmund Freud as the most recent modern expert on dreams and interpretation, I tend to lean toward Carl Jung who believe that dreams reveal our deep yearnings and help us to realize our ambitions in order to fulfill them.

I have two dream books that I consult, especially when I get a dream as vivid as the one I had the night before. One is called "Parker's Complete Book of Dreams" by Julia and Derek Parker and the second one is called "The Encyclopedia of Dream Interpretation" by Eili Goldberg. These books do not necessarily interpret the dream for me (no one is as good as Daniel), but they do provide suggestions on the symbolic meanings of objects and colours that I see in my dreams and guide me to make my own interpretation. As interested as I am in dreams, I take all of the suggested symbols with a grain of salt. Sometimes, a dream is just a dream.

But, for curiosity's sake, I'll try to interpret my latest dream. Would you like to help me?

Elevator = What is its function? Am I the elevator? Do I feel like I'm being pulled in many directions at once? An ascending elevator hints at success while a descending elevator suggests disappointment. I'm not sure how to interpret the way I traveled upside-down in an ascending elevator, though.

Glass = In my dream, the elevator was made of glass. If I were the elevator, what does the glass mean? It was very clear in my dream, so perhaps it's suggesting that I've reached some sort of clarity about something in my waking life, or perhaps, I need to make something clearer.

Gate = Alludes to security. What am I keeping in or keeping out? Did the Oriental ornaments on the gate mean something? The gate in my dream was more like an archway, which signifies opportunity. Traveling through the gate signifies surprising news, but would the news be good or bad?

Guard = I may be advised that something or someone needs protection. The guards in my dream allowed us through, but one motioned for us to pull over. Since D did not stop for them, I do not know if the guard was going to warn us or hurt us. This suggests that I need to be cautious in my waking life.

Car = A dream about cars traveling along a winding road serves as a warning sign to not take unnecessary risks and that I am looking for a way out. When women dream of cars, there seems to be a reference to ambition or assertion. What does my husband's car and the police car mean?

Police officer = Similar to "guard" in that they don't always represent authority, but rather behaviour to establish oneself. In my dream, I was having conflict with the police officer, which is a sign that I am feeling guilt in my waking life, but the fact that the police officer was female suggests to me that I am either already asserting myself or I need to do so in my waking life.

Gun = If an enemy is holding a gun, the dream hints that I have lost control, that perhaps, I am suffering from great worry and anxiety. An attack, especially when a weapon is used, often has sexual undertones. Although a car is also considered a phallic symbol, a weapon suggests sexual insecurity.

Put all these things together and I get....

Dream

The gossamer traces of sleep ebbed away as my whimpers and tears took hold of my senses. My husband got out of bed and gave me a tissue. Then, he held me tightly, closely and said, "It's just a dream, baby. It's only a dream."

With D by my side, I walk through the bland brown hospital lobby toward the glass elevators ("It even has glass doors") to visit a friend who just had a baby. Already waiting in front of the elevators is my friend's husband and their toddler. We give our congrats and some small talk and eventually, the elevator doors open and our troupe walk in. D presses the #3, but the displayed shows a 3, an upside-down 7, and a 1. The doors close and the elevator moves up quickly to the third floor. We arrive at the third floor, but to our surprise, the doors do not open; instead, the elevator flips upside down and moves up to the seventh floor without stopping. We grab on to the metal handlebars to avoid falling; I press the toddler between myself and the wall to keep him safe and I can feel his breath against my neck. Then, when we arrive at the seventh floor, the elevator flips again and we move one floor up. When the elevator finally stops, D and my friend's husband move toward the doors to pry them open. I am glad that D is safe because I know he doesn't like heights.

... Like most dreams, the next moments are a blur.

D and I are in the hospital parking lot walking toward his silver RSX. As we climb into his car, he says, "This is turning out to be such a bad day." He drives out onto a narrow street bedded on cobblestones. Tall dark buildings line up along both sides of the street. We turn a curve and see a huge gate decorated with lavish Oriental ornaments. Guards at the entrance are dark-skinned and seem to be of South-East Asian descent. They move aside to let us pass, but one guard motions for D to pull-over to the side of the road; it appears to be a routine road check. D turns his wheel slightly to the right and then takes off down the road, bumping the car against the cobblestones like a pebble rolling down a washboard.

"I think that guy told you to pull over."
"Forget it. It's such a bad day."

I turn around to see the guards running after us, but the road winds around and I lose sight of them. The road widens and we approach a busy intersection that has five roads meeting at its centre. Already stopped there was a police cruiser. D stops behind it. All of a sudden, the cruiser turns sideways to block us from leaving. A burly woman in uniform steps out of the car with a loudspeaker and says something to the crowd of people who have begun to gather around and look at us. She turns us into an example of what would happen to people who didn't follow rules and she glares down at us with her brown eyes.

Somehow she lets us go and we are driving away. D pulls into a back alley parking lot and sighs. He opens his driver's side door, but before he steps out, he turns to me says, "I can't wait for this day to be over."

A long-haired man behind the car catches my attention. He is holding a tan leather bag and as he passes in front of the rear left window, he pulls out a revolver. I shout for D to come back inside the car, "Get in, get in, GET IN" but it is too late for the man is already standing in front of D and pointing his gun at him. I pull D close to me and I shelter his head with my arms against my chest. "At least, he won't shoot you in the head and if he tries he will have to go through my arms," I think to myself, just as the man pulls the trigger and hits D in the the abdomen area. Then, he points the gun at me and hesitates before fleeing.

I frantically try to dial 9-1-1 on my cell phone, but I keep pressing the wrong buttons and the screen keeps showing me a map of somewhere. I try to find where I could put my hand over D's bleeding wound to stop the blood from flowing, but he grabs my wrist and says, "It's ok."

The dream ended and D is alive.

Musings with my Husband

Before I get to my main topic, I just want to thank everyone who has been keeping my sister in your prayers. She and her team have arrived in China, although they will start their two-week VBS camp at the orphanage tomorrow (or today?) in a little village in Hunan. So far, the only complaint is the heat and humidity. Other than that, A is having the time of her life.

D and I have pretty good chats after supper at the dinner table. This is the time when we do our devotions together (we read from The Message, but we would read the NIV for Psalms because we felt that the NIV is more poetic and less harsh than the Message). Often we go into long discussions before prayer, sometimes about the devotional article and Bible passage and sometimes about other things. Recently, we had a fairly long discussion about the latest Batman movie, The Dark Knight (although this didn't happen at the dinner table). He really enjoyed the movie; I didn't have an interest in seeing it because I can't stomach movie violence. But, we talked about the characters and how they represent certain members of society. Particularly interesting was Joker. D was almost rooting for him because he was such a brilliant character. Or maybe he was portrayed brilliantly by the late actor, Heath Ledger. Anyway, a really good movie often gets D and me talking. Too bad that some of the movies that intrigue me the most, like Momento or The Usual Suspects, kind of gets lost with him for one reason or another and we can't talk much about them.

What are some movies that get you talking?

Another instance in which I "talk" to my husband is in my sleep. True, we don't actually communicate then. Last night, I had dreamt about work and in my dream one of my students kept talking during a test. I leaned over her and said, quite sternly, "You don't seem to understand that you can't talk during an exam!" In the real world, I yelled out the last part, "An exam!" and jolted D out of his sleep. I must've really yelled it out because he knew what I had said. Usually I just mumble in my sleep, but this time, he clearly heard what I said. To top it off, I hit the snooze button on my alarm clock later that morning instead of turning it off and it woke D up (again) while I was in the bathroom. I came back into the room twenty minutes later to find two stuffed animals over his head trying to block out the noise. Good thing my alarm clock isn't very loud.

There was this one time when D accidentally rubbed his socked feet (yes, he wears socks to bed even in the summer time) over my legs. In my sleeping state, I thought someone was clambering from the end of my bed by grabbing onto my ankles and then clawing at my legs to get a better grip up. Immediately, I BOLTED out of sleep and called out, "Who's there? Get out!" I don't think I've ever done that before! D rolled over and kind of realized that he had kicked me, but he was pretty sleepy and before he could explain to me what he thought had happened, I threw off the blankets on my side and peered over the edge of the bed. Then I got out and readied myself to kung-fu anybody lurking in my house. After I searched the bottom floor, I went back upstairs and D finally had the chance to tell me what happened.

I'm glad that I'm not the only one who has a weird "habit" during sleep.

What happens to you in your sleep?