Visions, Dreams, & Deities

For most of my adult life I didn’t dream, but a few years ago I made some drastic changes in my life and for whatever reason, I began to dream again. Most of the time, my dreams are fleeting, ephemeral things, gone within minutes after waking. But there’s one dream that I’ve had several times in the past few years, and sometimes I think I could spend the rest of my life contemplating it and still not fully understand.
…

It’s Sunday morning in spring or early summer, and the sunlight has that ethereal quality one might see after a heavy overnight rain. The air is thick with wisps of rising vapor capturing the early morning light. I’m walking alone in Liberty, the small town a few miles from where I live. The streets are empty, though I’m aware of the townspeople stirring inside their homes.

There’s a small Quaker church near the middle of town. The building probably half a century old, maybe older. It’s a small, unadorned structure, beautiful in its simplicity.

Many of my ancestors were among the Quakers who settled this region two or three centuries ago, but I have never attended a Society of Friends meeting. My knowledge of the denomination is limited to unstructured research and a few family narratives I’ve read.

In my dream, I approach the front door of the meeting house and, finding it unlocked, go inside.

There are two rows of plain wooden benches on either side of the room, a wide aisle separating them. The church is empty, I’m the only person present, yet I get the distinct impression that I am not alone.

Sunlight streams in through the windows, highlighted by the dust my entry must have stirred. I wonder briefly why a church would be empty on a Sunday morning. Maybe I’m just early, which suits me fine; I have a deep seated dislike for organized religion of any kind.

I take a seat on one of the benches, a warm sunbeam streaming in through a window enveloping me in its light. I close my eyes and sit there in the silence, enjoying the solitude of the moment. Within seconds, no more than a minute, I’m overcome by an intense sense of peace, a euphoric feeling of absolute bliss and tranquility.

Is this Nirvana? God? What? There’s no voice booming from the ether, no message from beyond. Only an overpowering sense of calm and rightness in the world.

In my dream, I sat there, unmoving, for what seemed like hours, maybe even days. Time seemed to stand still and the world outside faded into oblivion. Nothing beyond the present moment, the here and now that I perceived seemed to exist, or to have ever existed.

And then, at the moment that I thought, “I never want to leave this place,” I woke up…and felt so empty, cold, and alone I could barely stand it.

…

I walked around for days in a horrible state of despair after the first time I had the dream. I wanted to go back more than anything in the world, yet there was no return path, no trail of breadcrumbs through the forest. I remember thinking that what I felt must be the way hardcore drug addicts feel when their heroin or crack cocaine is taken away. What a horrible way to live.

When I was young I experimented with psychedelic drugs a few times and experienced something similar to the ecstasy I perceived in my dream of the little Quaker church. I can only assume that what I felt, in both the dream and those other experiences must be what mystics describe as ‘touching the face of God,’ being one with the universe, or dancing in the spiral of all that is, was, or will be.

If that is indeed what I glimpsed, if only for a second or two, then yes, there is a “God,” and it’s far too big to fit inside any box as small as the human mind.