A Stranger in My Dreams
By Larry White
Night after night I had the same nightmare—a dream of being chased by a man with a knife.
It didn’t matter where I was or whom I was with in the dream, he would pop out of nowhere and chase me. Around corners, down unlit streets and alleys, through abandoned buildings, he was always in pursuit.
To make things even less pleasant, the faster I tried to run, the slower my legs would go. It was like trying to sprint underwater. My legs grew heavier, and just before capture I awoke in a cold sweat.
My line of work demands an alert state of mind. The want of sleep was a threat to my job security, leading my boss to ask whether I held a second job. He felt I was sleepwalking through waking life.
I decided to end this dream madness.
The next time this stranger pursued me in the dream state, I determined to turn around and demand, “What do you want from me?”
After all, the Living ECK Master has emphasized how much one can learn from dreams. Confronting a dream situation face-to-face is better than running from it: a reminder to myself.
That night I lay in bed, ready for action. I repeated to myself, “Tonight I am going to confront the man with the knife. Tonight I am going to ask him what he wants from me.”
Eventually, I slipped into repose. In no time I woke refreshed from a full night’s rest—but without the recall of a single dream.
It was a better day at work than usual.
That night I repeated my inner directive to confront the man in my dreams. Again nothing came of it. Was this good? Was getting rid of one silly nightmare worth wiping out all my other dreams?
My boss didn’t care; he was happy to have his employee back full-time.
The third night I repeated the postulate. But I felt more detached.
All of a sudden I awoke in the dream state, flipping through albums in a record store. My search was for one particular album. What did it look like? No idea. However, I had every confidence of recognizing it once my fingers touched it.
About to give up and leave, I spotted the desired album on a wall rack. Its name was Look at Yourself. The cover was an actual mirror, and it was a strange feeling to see my reflection staring back at me: a very sad face indeed.
The reflection held yet another image: a man screaming, “You’ll never amount to anything!”
It was the awful man with the knife.
I took off at a fast run out of the store, then on through the mall. The familiar footsteps pounded hot on my trail. The faster I tried to run, the slower my legs would churn.
An instant later, I remembered my resolve to confront this mysterious stranger. So I stopped dead in my tracks and spun around.
“What do you want from me?” I demanded.
“Thank God,” the panting man said. “I thought you’d never stop running away.”
Shutting my eyes to await the worst, I was startled to hear an odd grating sound. My eyes snapped open. The man, crouched at my feet, was using the knife like a saw to cut a ball and chain from each of my legs, to set them free.
Then, with compassion on his face, he said, “You’ve got to stop blackballing yourself. There. Now you’re free.”
I awoke and recorded the dream. The realization struck how I’d been holding myself back. There was an opening for a much better job at another company that I hadn’t felt worthy to apply for, so the opportunity came to nothing.
Echoes from my past included “You’ll never amount to anything.” It was a message oft repeated and set into old, well-established grooves of thought. This recording played over and over.
But was that a reason to keep sabotaging my life?
The next day after work I drew up a list of all my job skills. Upon finishing it, I was surprised at the breadth of experience. The next step was to create a résumé from the list and submit it to the other company. They called me in for an interview that morning.
The company hired me on the spot.
Since this dream experience I have released many old recordings of fear and replaced them with the unconditional love of ECK. Whether hideous or beautiful, my dreams have been blessings full of truth.
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