Delighting in a Day-dream

 

One hundred movies in a year, selected off a scratch-off poster that now hangs on my bedroom wall – another retirement activity, selected off the list of things to keep me occupied and engaged rather than bored and idle in my newly gained freedom from schedules and obligations. Eagerly I'd begun, and thus I soon found myself settled in and ready to watch Movie #2 of the year: The Sixth Sense. Never a fan of the horror/thriller genre, it was an odd choice for me, but it was a movie I'd have to watch sometime if I were to accomplish my goal. And so it began...

Surprisingly, I loved the movie. Oh, I jumped and gasped my way through many scenes, but I was mostly taken by the incredible acting of the young star, a boy of just 11 years old. One frequently-quoted line from the film stayed with me, as apparently it has with others...

“I see dead people.”

Surprised that I was still thinking of those words a few days later, I wondered why. It was then I realized that it's because I have several friends who do the same... and perhaps I am a little jealous that I don't.

Repeatedly on Facebook I scroll across posts detailing people's nocturnal visits with departed loved ones in their dreams. The clarity with which they describe those encounters, the laughter they enjoyed, and the peace and happiness they experience upon awakening inspires a little envy in the heart of this one whose nighttime slumber is devoid of any such interactions that I l can later remember and recount.

I, too, have departed loved ones I would so love to see and spend time with again. I wonder if perhaps the issue is that I sleep too deeply, seemingly never getting enough hours of the same, to enter and play in the realms where dreams abound.

Surprisingly, science seems to support that thought. A study suggests that “while we dream all throughout the night, it's easier for us to remember dreams that occurred during the REM stage of sleep. And people may miss out on REM sleep by cutting sleep short.” However in the few weeks since I left the working world, the hours I devote to sleep have become luxuriously lengthy. Still no change in the dream pattern; maybe I just need to give it more time.

 

The dream study went on to say that day-dreaming is much like the nighttime version of the same in terms of activity in the brain. Goodness knows, I'm good at that... maybe I'm “dreaming” more than I realize. And suddenly an instance occurred that seemed to prove the point.

I was sitting in church last Sunday morning, and something suddenly triggered thoughts of my late husband. I don't know exactly what it was... perhaps the song selection, one we both liked, that took me back to the times we used to worship together in the years before cancer stole so much. Gone three years now, my memories of Jim have been stuck in the last three months of his life when life itself suddenly became so difficult... adjusting to the changes we had to make because of his illness, to simply making it through each day and long night just to get to the next one and do the same. The struggling version of my husband was the only one I seemed able to pull up in my memories with any regularity, perhaps because that was the last one I saw.

Until that morning. Suddenly the laughing, smiling, joke-telling version of the man I loved was back. For just a few moments I was able to see him again as he once was... and it was wonderful. Perhaps the best part of the episode is that it has remained with me. The healthy version of my husband is now the last one I've seen... and I seem at last to be able to hold on to that vision. How incredible that in just a few moments one can receive such a powerful gift!

Apparently I was wrong in my earlier assumption. I do see dead people... or maybe just the one I needed to the most... and I am ever so grateful.

“And when that which is mortal puts on immortality, and what now decays is exchanged for what will never decay, then the Scripture will be fulfilled that says: Death is swallowed up by a triumphant victory! So death, tell me, where is your victory? Tell me death, where is your sting?”

(1 Corinthians 15:54-55 TPT)