I wake up last night from a dream, a dream I cannot remember now. It was in the early morning hours, the room was dark, but I didn't open my eyes. I hoped that, if I could stay in that soft, comfortable sleepy place, I might drift off again right away. But nonetheless I was very much awake.
I lay with my head at the foot of the bed, because Janey, 5, lay between my wife and me. Down in the empty space beyond her feet, there was more room.
I wish now I could remember the dream. I know it was something extraordinary, in the literal sense, something supernatural if you will. It was one of those dreams where you feel the world beyond the world of cold, waking reality.
Often there's some stress (at least for me) to those dreams, a tension that forces me to seek solutions outside the normal, like in a ghost story. I think there was stress last night, but there was also resolution, a divine rescue, but as I say, I don't remember the dream now in any way but the faintest of emotional echoes.
But I do remember this:
As I woke, I heard Janey's voice. She spoke normally, and I must note that this isn't unusual. A week or so ago, I woke to the charming sound of her giggling with delight in her sleep. Arbitrary words are often spoken. But this morning, I heard her voice in the darkness clearly say, "I do exist."
I knew, as I lay there, conscious but still sleepy and hoping for sleep, that the two were connected, even as I also knew that from outside the words could be as random as the giggle, the product of her dream about, what, some game with her sister? (And a word like "exist" is in her vocabulary, especially as it turns up in video games.)
For me, it was a clear signal, a message that in this time of stress far beyond some spooky adventure in a dream, there is more ...
"Be still and know that I am ..."
-- Psalm 46:10
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