Nesting Dreams

Nesting dreams often accompany Learning Dreams, though sometimes they also have a lesson of their own to teach.

Nesting Dreams are those where I wake up from one dream and find myself in another dream. This can be just once or through a whole series of dreams.

In the dreams where I am aware I am dreaming, I can wake myself up. ... usually. But sometimes I wake up and find myself in another dream. There are many times near the end of the nesting dream line where I am waking up in the same room that I have gone to bed. This can either be my own bedroom, a room at a friend's or family's home where I am spending the night, or even a hotel room of which I've only experienced a few hours for the first time before I close my eyes to sleep.

When I "wake up" into these dreams, I have the half-asleep sensation at first, similar to when I wake up into life's existence. I look about my surroundings and realize "something is not right." If this were a movie, the "uh-oh something is wrong" music would cue. I have learned to recognize these dreams as they occur far too often now. The first thing I do is locate the clock and read the time. Then I lie there and study my surroundings trying to see "what is different."

Often in these dreams I am attacked.

I've had them as long as I can remember - from very early childhood. In the early childhood ones, it was a child's mind that worked it's way through this. I was lying in my early childhood bed, my sister was asleep in her crib in the room. The door was open to the hall, yet the closet door was shut. In walks this doberman pincher. My father had taught me to extend my hand for the dog to smell it to know I am a friend. Still lying in the bed, I flop my arm out, hand open. The dog trots over to my bed, sniffs my hand and bites it - hard. I wake up terrified.

Starting in college, the dog no longer frightened me. There was something much worse. It's in the darkest part of the room, usually the closet if that door is open - thank you childhood spooky stories! The attacker has no form, it is just ... darkness.

I remember one poignantly from a college ski trip. I had a nesting dream when I woke up from another dream into this dream; I noticed it was 4:00 am by the red-lighted digital clock on the nightstand between the two bunk beds. I was on the upper bunk bed beside the wall; my three roommates were all asleep in their bunks. The closet door was open; the darkness was in the closet. It was waiting.

At this point of my life, I feared the darkness, knowing it would attack me. I knew if I kept my gaze on it; it would watch me and not move. It was a waiting game. The minutes would tick by until I made a decision to do something. Even if I shut my eyes the "presence" is felt, and icy sweat of fear covered my body as I curled up in a ball under the covers. At last the wait was too much for me and I would challenge it along the lines of "come on!" It would lunge at me. I had learned to turn away, roll over, and I felt it's icy touch as it swept over me, just past me. Then I woke up into this life's existence. I noticed the time was 4:07 AM. As I said, I'm not patient.

It is always as though the clock in the dream matches the clock in this life, regardless where I am, what time this dream happens, or how long I wait.

Over the years, I became a bit braver and faced it down. That was when I discovered the darkness would go right through me - body, spirit and soul. It was COLD, colder than anything I have ever experienced in this life's existence. I felt it slide through me and out the other side. Then I would wake up.

Until it attacks, I am stuck in that dream; nothing I would do would wake me up. I've even tried to get my husband to wake me up. I've tried to call to him; I've tried to move my sleeping limbs to kick him awake so he would wake me up. Nothing. This may be what it's like for people in a coma. There is an awareness, but nothing you do can make your body wake up to respond to those outside the dream.
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Even times when I wake up from these dreams do not guarantee I wake up to this life's existence. Sometimes I wake up into yet another dream and have to go through it again.
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Since 2007, I've not only become braver, I've faced the darkness a different way. I think this may have started right after a particular ... eventful dream. I had fallen asleep in the living room, resting on a pile of pillows and blankets on the floor (my husband snores like a grizzly and our couch is a tiny sofa). In the dream, I had a bad Everyday Dream and woke myself up - into a true nightmare. I was on the floor in the living room. The security light outside shown through the blinds. I wasn't the only one in the room. Just beyond my feet, beside the couch, a demon - fully visible and beyond description, was there. He was reaching toward me with clawed hands, trying to grasp hold of me, but in vain. He was struggling against some practically-unseen golden light / force / energy. He was screaming at me, angry and frustrated, in a language I had not heard before but understood it as no language of this earth.
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I was petrified. This was beyond the icy sweat trickling down my back; this was the I can't even blink let alone move a muscle fear. While my eyes were on this horrific visage, my mind numb with shock. I just couldn't process what was going on; my mind didn't work. But after several long moments I finally realized someone else was there.
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Yeshua had his arms wrapped around me; He was lying there beside me the whole time. He kept repeating over-and-over the Lord's Prayer. It was recited in English. I could clearly hear the words with my ears; often He just spoke to my mind in the dreams but my ears were registering it long before my mind was able to register anything.
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When my mind finally found enough Peace, I realized Yeshua's repetition of the Lord's Prayer was keeping this demon at bay. I started to pray with Him. While it started out as a hoarse whisper, my own prayers gained volume, strength and confidence. When I was confident enough, Yeshua smiled at me, squeezed me one more reassuring hug and faded from my sight. I felt Him still with me and within me. His recitation was still clear in my mind, but no longer in my ears.
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I realized in that moment then, I had nothing to fear from the demon before me. I was safe. I woke up in the room. All was the same as in the dream, except the demon was gone.
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Now, the nesting dreams are a test of how well I deal with fear. Sometimes there's a darkness, but often it is this "something not right feeling." My mind goes to work and I use what I have learned in the Learning Dreams to dissipate this fear. Again, there are times when I have a "do it again" routine, where I wake up from a Nesting Dream into another Nesting Dream and I practice again. Different fears come to mind; I learn how to overcome them.
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Since I have reached this point in my learning, however, I feel more confident and less fearful in this life's existence.
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One last point I wish to make in this category: a lesson beyond facing the fear. Perhaps, just perhaps, this life's existence - what we all call RL or "real life" - is itself nothing more than a dream. When a great sleep was put upon Adam to make Eve's from his rib, there is nothing stating Adam woke up. Also, there are numerous times in traditional and gnostic gospels when Christ says "wake up!" to others. If I awaken from one dream to the Nesting Dreams, could this not be a dream which we all share?