Dreaming of Reality

The other night I dreamt about this tap-dancer guy who was exploring an abandoned studio. Suddenly – in the middle of his tap routine – the studio caught fire and burned to the ground.  Umm ... ok?

Then I woke up and realized how extremely warm I felt. Hence Mr. Tap Dancer’s fiery death. Sadness. So I kicked off the covers. Which is weird, because my house is a freezer, and it’s never warm enough to just lie there exposed to the open air. Then my mom came in and tried to have a conversation with me, but I was too busy enjoying the breeze. And then I realized there couldn’t be a breeze. Because I was encased in flannel pajamas and buried beneath three layers of blankets. Also, my mom was definitely not in the room. Ergo, I was still dreaming! And then I woke up for real this time.

So, basically, I had just had a dual layer dream. You know, like Inception.
BRAHMMMMMMMM

Anywho, I think it’s interesting that in Mr. Tap Dancer World, my mind expressed the heating issue as a fire. But I think it’s even more interesting that the first time I “woke up,” my mind realized what the real problem was, and recognized the fire in my “dream” as an expression of that deeper issue. And yet, despite this incredible amount of self-knowledge, I still had no clue what was actually going on. I didn’t know that I was four-layers deep in flannel and quilt. I just sort of sensed I felt warm and interpreted the fire accordingly.

I think we live 99% of our lives in a dream world. Or a dream within a dream world. It’s very difficult for people to read their own hearts and acquire self-knowledge of the primary reality. Human hearts are too convoluted, human wills too manipulative, and human minds too murky. Consequently, no one can fully identify or express the reality of their soul’s condition (motivations, feelings, thoughts, decisions, morality etc.) – because no one really knows what’s going on inside! At least, not in the moment (hindsight may/may not be another matter).

So for the most part, I think we live in a secondary reality, a dream world. A world informed by, but not necessarily aware of, the true issues at hand. In which we recognize the problem as a heating issue, but do not understand the cause of the problem, namely flannel pajamas. Actually, I think that’s giving us way too much credit. We’re way too distracted/ego-inflated to be that self-aware. Or, at least, I’m not that self-aware. Instead, I think we normally operate in a tertiary reality, the dream within a dream world. We live in a world constructed by our own perceptions (subjective interpretations of objective realities) of ourselves and others.

And when something goes down, and the dance studio randomly burns up, we struggle to understand it all. And then we wake up to the secondary reality, with a clearer sense of responsibility and self-awareness. And that’s when we realize there’s an internal issue, a personal character flaw, behind the meltdown drama. The wake-up call brings about a reexamination of our actions and assumptions. Which (hopefully) yields a clearer image of the real problem. But even an x-ray is only a 2D image. It’s not the full picture.

There’s still a deeper layer, a layer of myself that I don’t usually have access to, a layer dealing with decisions, fears, and motivations. Sure I realize that I'm cursing my friend's name because I haven't forgiven him. Sure I know it’s wrong and that I need to stop. But how do I get myself to stop? I can confess my sin others, I can pray for the grace to forgive, I can quote verses to myself about the need to forgive others. But it feels so empty and cliché sometimes. How is that possible if I’m speaking the truth of the situation and citing the Words of Life?

Here’s the thing: I’m not speaking from an authentic understanding of the situation on the ground level. Yes, I've figured out that I've got a forgiveness issue, based on the fact that I'm still cursing my friend, but I don't understand why.  I’m stuck in the dream world, only reading the symptoms (the 2nd world intuitions, 3rd world antics) and prescribing the textbook medication. Which means there’s a lot of room for misdiagnosis. Or at the very least, insincerity.

So while I may be speaking the truth of the situation (Hello, my name is Erin and I have a heating issue), I don’t really understand what the root of the issue is or what needs to happen to overcome it. I’m not aware that I’m covered in flannel. And while God’s Word is addressing the flannel issue, that doesn’t help me to feel the flannel. Not as long as I’m living in the dream world. Which melts all the arrows of cynicism I aim at people who spout clichés about deep soul issues. Because maybe those cartoonish cliches compose their best understanding of the situation. And maybe they are misinterpreting the carichature. But maybe they’re not – maybe it’s just too crude a drawing to feel genuine.

One last thought: we might be tempted to think that we just need to wake up – really wake up – to the prime reality. Be done with all this dreaming nonsense. The problem is I don’t think we can. I don’t think we were made to function on that level, at least not for very long. Maybe it’s a part of man’s curse, to be stuck in the dream world. Maybe that’s what redemption means, to finally wake up from this haze.

“… this is why it is said: ‘Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.’” Ephesians 5:14