Somnambulist's Redemption

Return to your dreaming. I’ll return to my sleepless night. Dreaming with my eyes open, watch the shadows dance on the ceiling.

~ Sweet Dreams, Joseph Earlier this year, I very nearly bought a pack of tarot cards. …Just for the artwork, I promise! This oft-fretful mind need not concern itself with when it may take a tumble down the stairs or otherwise meet its demise. Not that it believes a whit of it anyway… This particular deck was of interest to me solely because it showcased the dreamlike work of a photographer whose work I admire. Dreamlike because it literally deals with the province of the night—sleep. Particularly dreams and sleep disorders like sleep paralysis. His symbolic images are beautifully ethereal but at times dark and disturbing. [Check out @nicolasbruno on Instagram if you’re curious about his work]. The span between hitting the hay and rising again is like that sometimes. It’s not always as simple as drifting into peaceful slumber. Falling is indeed an apt element of the familiar idiom While I’ve never dealt with sleep paralysis—thank you, Lord, because it sounds horrifying—I’ve often struggled with insomnia and hypnogogic hallucinations. The latter sounds serious, but is essentially just dreaming with one’s eyes open. When you’re half asleep, your brain can trigger visual, auditory, or sensory information that you think is really occurring but is, for all intents and purposes, a dream. For me, these ‘hallucinations’ have been mostly visual, ranging from insects in my bed or crawling up the wall to something blowing away that I need to catch. A little gnome standing in the door jamb was one of the weirder ones from childhood. And perhaps the scariest, when I thought, several years back, that there was a ‘fire’ outside the front door of my house. With most, I leap out of bed, adrenaline kicked into high gear, and run into the hallway until I realize roughly twenty seconds later that none of it’s real. That incident in particular took me halfway down the stairs and a handful of panicked minutes to snap out of. Unsettling when your mind is clouded to such a degree that it sees reality only through a haze embellished with its own confusion.

Then there was the time, as a child, I recall sleepwalking. Or rather, recall waking up in a ball on the hardwood floor of the hall hearing echoey footsteps—of a concerned father—approaching. Screams ensued as you may imagine! Another disorienting experience which I’m happy to report has not been repeated. Also grateful that my hypnogogic hallucinations have been somewhat improved this year.

... So why expose this bizarre facet of my life that frankly makes me sound loony? I suppose it’s because I’ve finally alighted upon a metaphor in my quest to distill the disparate jumble of thoughts I’ve had over these last couple of months. (If you thought this post wouldn’t involve a metaphor, this is clearly your first read ;). As I’ve recently begun my penultimate revolution around the twenty-something sun, I’ve found myself reflecting—perhaps more than I ought—on this near-rearview decade. ‘Tis been a mite depressing if I’m being honest. More than a mite. In my relatively brief life, I’ve already accumulated a seemingly massive stash of regrets. Most folks on the cusp of thirty with such a cache lament their foolish actions, whether reckless, promiscuous, or just plain idiotic—perhaps drunken, academically-slothful college days or having a kid too young. I regret my foolishness also, but not necessarily in the same way. More than anything, I regret my inaction. Which, in the end, mirrors action identically. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer once posited when speaking of silence in the face of evil, "Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."

Walking while asleep. Dreaming while awake. The echoes of eve reverberate into morn. Sleepless nights bleed into an exhausting daylight half-life. So, too, does sleeplessness of the mental/emotional/spiritual variety.

Perhaps you won’t resonate with either, but I find that the cares of this life—positive, negative, and somewhere in between—alternate in their effect on me. At times I feel that I've been living the life of a somnambulist, walking through existence in a blind, self-constructed trance of misplaced focus till the wrecking ball of clarity crashes in yet again to remind me that my priorities are severely out of whack. More than that, crashes in to scoff, "Look at the wreckage you leave behind when you forget. When you cast aside what's important."

The more that I've pondered it, however, the more I think hallucination-esque ways of seeing are the norm for me [and perhaps you if you read on]. In case you had started dialing for help, just thought I'd reiterate that I don't actually hallucinate ;) What I mean is that a part of me is asleep at the wheel, while the other, more significant part knows exactly what's up. And there's the truth of it for any of us who claim to follow the Light of Day: we're no longer true sleepwalkers. Even when our minds are clouded with sin and cares and we fail yet again, we're no longer totally blind. Though not fully, we can see and recall truth.

Non-metaphorical sleepwalkers generally can't remember their midnight escapades [can confirm it's freaky to meet one] and will often deny that they sleepwalk at all. Sadly, there a lot of people wandering about during the day who fit this description spiritually-speaking. Without tumbling into a theological rabbit hole, I often find it difficult to understand how they can be held responsible for such blindness. But I digress. And yet—such thoughts aren't unrelated to the point I'm trying to make.

Earlier, I said that what I regret most is my inaction. But I've come to the realization that "inaction" is too generous a term. Shrewd readers may already surmise my replacement: neglect. Though the haze can make me feel helpless, I'm ashamed to say that at day's end I've allowed what's important to slip out of focus in my vision. Because I'm not a sleepwalker. At least a part of me, the part that the Holy Spirit is working in (though often imperceptibly), remembers. At least a part of me sees. Hallucinator's Redemption would have been a more accurate title, but who'd click on something so strange, much less read it?

I like to think of myself as a reflective person. And the truth is that I am—and I'm not. Lately I've been convicted of being an obsessive person more than a reflective one, mulling over a thing until it's this swirling, unappealing soup [much like my pitiful white bean recipe attempt of last week]. "Overthink" and "reflect" are not synonyms. Obsessing also tends to be circular, leading you round and round till you've come upon where you started more times than you can count. Reflection, on the other hand, should be linear, no? Or at least, trending in the direction of growth.

Theological matters—which, truly, are more applicable to the nitty gritty aspects of everyday living than I once thought—are a case in point. Mulling over difficult or frustrating issues has often led me to irritation with God and increased distance from him because I've merely obsessed cyclically in my own mind rather than sought for answers externally.

There's been a hell of a lot of misplaced seeking in my twenties. The clouds have been many. At times I feel that the time I've wasted and misused is too much. That lasting change of habit and heart isn't possible. But though I struggle mightily, I choose to believe that there's redemption for the sleepwalkers and the hallucinators alike. Even when the haze is thick. The Light can cut through.

"I believe. Help my unbelief."

...

"Strengthen our souls, animate our cold hearts

with your warmth and tenderness,

that we may no more live as in a dream,

but walk before you as pilgrims

in earnest to reach their home."

~ Gerhard Tersteegen

...

"Sweet dreams, my love…I’ll find you new in the morning, where we’re all made light."

~ Sweet Dreams, Joseph