Sleeper
Sr. Member
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Faith: Orthodox Catholic
Jurisdiction: Antioch
Posts: 981
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« Reply #1 on: February 28, 2011, 06:21:49 PM » |
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I had a discussion with my Priest about a dream I had, not too long before I started inquiring about Orthodoxy.
I was in a foreign city I had never been to before. It was probably close to midnight and it started with a very strong sense of being utterly alone. I was wandering the city, and it was pretty much desolate. No vehicles driving around, no people walking the streets. There was the occasional alley with homeless people staying warm by trash can fires. The whole city had that eerie, dull orange glow of street lights at night. Somehow I knew that the city had been laid waste in some sort of war or catastrophic event perhaps. I eventually felt this magnetic-like pull toward a specific building, which, upon entering, ended up being a cathedral, and I went inside to find a service under way. Both sides of the aisle were packed with people, there were no lights on, only candles and somehow light coming through stained glass windows (even though it was midnight). I felt a strong urge to go to the front, almost like they were waiting for me, and as I made my way down the checker-floored aisle, those on both sides turned toward me, almost as you would for a bride walking down. When I reached the front, the people conducting the service picked me up, and laid me on the floor, carrying on with the service as if this were just part of it. Then a children's choir started singing and though I could only see him from the waist down, Christ appeared. I didn't see His face or anything, but I just knew it was Him, an overwhelming and unmistakable Presence. He began to pull these white sheets from my chest and covered me in them, one by one, and I wept tears of joy as the choir continued to sing.
The dream faded away after that and when I woke up I remembered every detail and it had a feeling of real significance. It was one of the dreams that wasn't random and tangential, but very linear and complete, you know? I wrote it all down the next morning because I didn't want to forget it. I never really knew what it might mean, if anything, and it has been the only dream I can recall where Christ made some sort of appearance.
It wasn't too long after that I first picked up a book on Orthodoxy and found myself being drawn to the Church after a year as an atheist. I told the Priest I had been emailing about the dream, right off the start, because it felt very significant and he seemed to think so too. I know now that the service at the cathedral was an Orthodox service. I remember thinking it was strange that I didn't know why the people conducting the service were in robes, why there was a choir singing, why there were stained glass windows, etc., because neither of those things had ever been involved in any part of my life.
Anyway, I just wanted to share that because I think, in some small way, that some dreams really do matter and can have a significance on our lives. That dream came out of nowhere and I honestly credit it with softening the heart of a bitter and resentful atheist and getting me to open myself up to the possibility of Christ and His Church again.
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