Dream Lion

I had a very fascinating dream last Friday. There was a Lion in a room trying to escape. The Lion was more dangerous if he got out rather than staying in the room with me and others. I spent most of the dream trying to close off places where he could get out. We were in a tent of sorts but in the shape of a room.

The imagination is much like a lion. It needs to roam at night in our dreams. A caged lion is a broken lion. 

I drank a cup of coffee earlier that evening and I think this created the control vibe rather than letting the Lion go free. You'd think that I would be more scared of a Lion in a room with me rather than one escaped. I have not quite figured out what was going on.  Like Aslan the Lion, our dreams may not be safe but in God they are good. God does nothing and creates nothing without a purpose. Our dreams serve some greater goal.

C.S. Lewis writes in the Chronicles of Narnia about Aslan:

He'll be coming and going" he had said. "One day you'll see him and another you won't. He doesn't like being tied down--and of course he has other countries to attend to. It's quite all right. He'll often drop in. Only you mustn't press him. He's wild, you know. Not like a tame lion.”

Our dreams should not be tamed, they are what they are. We must let them come and go on their own accord. Suppression is never healing. The doings of the day are informed by the stirrings of the soul at night.       

We spend a lot of our time trying to make things air-tight, logical, and orderly. Then, the right side of the brain kicks in and presents themes in sleeping that need to escape that confining linearity. I have a theory that those who get heavily engaged in substance abuse are short-circuiting the restoration process that REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep is trying to enact and express. The dream-like state induced by drugs is a poor substitute for the real thing and leaves people barren and broken. Dream or Drugs, better than "Just Say No."

Our dreams are like potions...they are healthy but can be threatening in that they reveal motives, heart desires, and fears that our conscious mind may not want to face. Or, they can free us as they cause us to see the wonder of it all.

I have been in a pattern for years of drinking coffee in the afternoon to stave off weariness and kick-start work-outs. I am starting to wonder if I have wounded my psyche by doing so. My reflection on this issue has  caused me to examine why the idol of fitness is so compelling: What am I trying to accomplish, what is the underlying identity issue at play? Although I have generally slept OK, I am thinking that the sleep has been lighter and less restorative than it should have been. The body also needs to be renewed and repaired at night and adrenaline is counter-productive to that. I deduce that even half a cup of coffee throws off the rejuvenating rhythms.

I should rise with the sun and try not to chain it in the sky as it goes down. All this does is melt the chains and exhausts me. A temporary fix but lasting harm. The night is needed and my attempts to recharge my body and mind artificially I believe have actually wearied me. I, at times, feel like a drained battery of a man.

I am endeavoring to not consume caffeine at all after noon daily. That way it is ten hours until I sleep. And to dream.