...when you're talkin' in your sleep." ~ Talking in Your Sleep, The Romantics
Recently, y'all would have heard me secretly battling my demon-possessed 9-year-old son or my long-deceased grandmother.
It's no secret that I am a life-long insomniac who is cruelly plagued by nightmares when I DO sleep. Over the years, I have learned to determine the difference between PTS induced nightmares, stress of life induced nightmares, and spiritual attack nightmares. Lately, there seems to be more of the latter.
Twice in a short period of time, I have woken from horrifying nightmares involving my youngest son ~ as the source of the evil that is tormenting me. This is not the first time the evil in my nightmares has been a child, by for it to be my own child is a new twist. My somewhat strained relationship with my youngest son makes this scenario quite ironic. Much as I love my sweet-hearted, happy-go-lucky, good-natured boy, he is not always the kindest to me. Though I am sure he doesn't intend to be hurtful, he seems to intuitively know just what will cut me to the quick. He's almost bipolar in that in one instant he's following me around with his arms wide open asking if I need a hug and then shunning my existence in the next. So to dream that he is Satan-spawn is not so much of a stretch. But to come to the realization that the image of my own child is being exploited in spiritual warfare against me is not only disconcerting, it is infuriating.
I have been blessed to encounter several spirit-filled, faithful people on my path who have helped me find the power of Christ within myself. There was a time when I doubted that I was worthy of such an endowment, but walking along side me, these folks continually and patiently reminded me that the power of Christ is mine simply because I am His follower. Now that I have accepted that power, I am learning how to wield it.
Mercifully, enough time has now passed that I cannot recall details of these nightmares, but I do recall the moment I recognized the spiritual elements within them. At that moment, I began an attempt at rebuking the demon embodied as my son. I was so passionate, so adamant about this in my subconscious, that I woke myself up by screaming this rebuke in my reality. Totally freaked by the experience, it took a beat to comprehend what has just occurred. Fearing slipping back into the nightmare, I was hesitant to fall back to sleep. Finally, a peace settled over me and rest was welcome in its arrival.
Yet, all has not been well in Dreamland. Once a person catches on to the latest nuances of spiritual attack, the crafty offenders tend to change tactics, or at least faces. Prone to nightmares all of my life, this seems to be a favored means of torture. Instead of changing the battle plan, it appears to be the subject matter that they like to shake up.
My grandmother was my childhood caretaker. Being very much alike in all the wrong ways, we did not always get along. As I became an adult, however, I learned to love and appreciate my grandmother while she still this side of heaven to know it. So why she is the embodiment of an evil presence in my nightmares is a bit of a conundrum.
Unlike the dreams involving my son, who is the main player in intentionally inflicting misery on my subconscious self, the dreams of my grandmother function differently. Though they are no less frightening or demonic, they are fascinating on a psychological level because my grandmother is not actively taunting me. It is her mere presence that evokes a supernatural response in me. She only needs to enter the scene of the nightmare, and I can feel the reaction beginning in my gut and rising through me, as if something has just crawled inside of me and is fighting for control. Grandma is simply standing there, with no malice or evil in her face, watching me loose the battle within until I succumb to the force that has taken hold and unleash a blood curdling, supernatural scream. This is now a predictable scenario if my grandmother enters my dreams, to the point where I have actually had the wherewithal during the rising of one reaction to apologize to her for what was about to occur. And what made that particular incident all the more intriguing was the look of forgiveness on my grandmother's face.
This is a tactic used off-and-on to infect my dreams, but I never had the enlightenment to see it for spiritual attack before now. So when Grandma appeared in a nightmare recently, and I felt the reaction welling within, I began the rebuke, again so passionate and adamant in my subconscious that I woke up yelling in my reality. I wish I could remember the look on her face, if it was still one of gentle forgiveness, or if it was one of horror at having been discovered.
My husband might be able to tell a tale or 2 about idle chit-chat muttered in my sleep. But it seems as if I've got some dark secrets locked away. Are you sure you want to listen?
