What Does It Mean To Be Free?

Chapter 9 - Dreams I Have Been Having

            Throughout this summer, which is the summer of 2016, I have had some awful dreams that really make me question what is going to happen in the upcoming school semester/year. It is quite strange that I am asking myself this question as I am living the summer of my dreams as I am not working and the only activity that I have to do during the week is go to a class at Saddleback College, and the class only happens twice a week for about a few hours. These dreams are just so unusual and deal with what has been talked about in the previous section, about the massive temptation that entails me ruining my life.

            The first imagination that I had in my head one night early in the summer of 2016 that did concern and frighten me was when I dreamt that I was at Fullerton, in the double apartments that I normally do live in on the weekdays when the academic year is in session. It was the day that I completely and utterly dread and desire to never ever actually occur in real life. What happened in the fantasy was that I was screaming at my mom when I was talking with her on the phone and I was yelling, "I can't do this anymore!!!!!!! I am so tired of school!!!!!! I just want to become a ballerina and live at Auntie Julie's house!!!!!!" When I woke up from this dream, I immediately started to pray and I asked God to help me to never get to this point. I was very freaked out and scared by the fantasy that after I prayed to God, I then proceeded to do an activity that is fun to me, which is putting whipped cream onto a paper plate and smash the whipped cream onto my face. I did this to get my mind off of the completely horrific image of me saying those atrocious words to my mom which in turn, if I did it in real life, would cause me to be in deep trouble. I didn't understand at all why I had dreamt that horrendous fantasy, but I did infer that maybe it could possibly be foreshadowing what is going to happen in the upcoming semester. But, in order to be sure that this dream wasn't just an anomaly, I asked God to, in the clearest way possible, reveal to me if that dream was an anticipation of what is truly going to happen in the next academic semester.

            About a couple weeks later, I had another dream that was very similar to the previous, disheartening fantasy. This time, the dream dealt with me in a car with my mom in the passenger seat, and Uncle Rob driving the automobile. Uncle Rob is the husband of Auntie Julie, and both of these people are the rich relatives that I would live with if I ever did "go off of the deep end". Getting back to the dream, while I was in the car with Uncle Rob and my mom, I was feeling extremely regretful and remorseful for actually going through the temptation. I was feeling this way as my mom and Uncle Rob chatted, and I could tell that they were just doing small talk and I could sense that when I get home that my mom is going to totally lash out at me for what I did. I was feeling very apprehensive about getting back home. Then, after my mom and I got home, I remember how I tried to do something that showed my mom that I really did love her, but she just smiled at me, and it wasn't a loving smile. The smile was more of her sending the message that "You-know-what-you-did". Right when I got that feeling that that was what my mom was trying to tell me and also right before I woke up from the dream, I instantly realized that this was beginning of the long road of not only trying to regain my mom's trust in me, but also of seeking to rebuild the love that my mom had for me before I gave into the enticement. That repulsive feeling is what jolted me back awake as I woke up in the middle of the night, with me breathing heavily and panting a lot from the horrific things that I had just dreamt about. I then instantaneously began to talk to God about how I never ever, at all, whatsoever, want for me to both not fall into the allurement, and also that the imagination that just occurred in my head would never ever happen in real life. I also told God to even further strengthen me and to aid me even more in my fight against the allurement. This is certainly when I was starting to get all the more uneasy about these fantasies of me doing the awful temptation that would end my life and everything that I have stood for. A reason for this is because now these imaginations are beginning to occur more frequently. Another reason is because I noticed that just within the two imaginations that have been described thus far that deal with the deplorable enticement, both of those dreams are in chronological order. If the first fantasy happens, and I am stupid enough to actually want to live with Auntie Julie and Uncle Rob and become a ballerina, then it makes sense that eventually that my time as a ballerina has to conclude at some point, and then thus the second imagination would happen. By this time, I have been able to determine that this is God trying to get a message through to me, though I didn't and I still don't know what God is trying to tell me. How I know this is true is that I have had some awesome dreams that occur in between the disturbing dreams.