Dreams... maybe

One of the Ethnos elders started a forum thread on dreams. This is what I posted in response.

I have lots of dreams, weird dreams. I have dreams that I would classify as nightmares. I have dreams from my childhood that I could tell you about in detail. Saturday night I had a frieghting dream. It verged on reality. I'm still not completely sure it was a dream...

At 2am Sunday, I awoke. I was just settling back into bed. I was quickly falling back to sleep. I was on the sleep threshold, when my visitor arrived. He was standing at the foot of my bed. He was dressed in a dark munkish type robe with the hood down. He was holding a piece of paper in his hands. He said, "Just one question. Is this a picture of Wendy, Matt, Cyndi, or Carol?" I responded with an actual verbal word, "What?" (Not because I didn't hear, but because I didn't understand.) That's when he began to move along the side of the bed. I didn't see him move, but I felt him. He had and hand on the bed and I could feel the pressure from it as he moved from the foot to the head of the bed. There he turn towards me and bent down, placing a great deal of pressure onto the bed. I could feel it, I could feel the bed move. I could feel his heat near my face. I turned my head towards him and popped my eyes open. I really think I saw something there. My face felt a strange warmth. I was wide awake again.

For about the next 3 hours I prayed. I prayed for the people he named, I prayed for people those people made me think about, I prayed for my family. I was scared, for myself, for others. When I would doze off, I would have more strange dreams that would wake me and start me again to pray. At about 5, I fell into a dreamless sleep for the next couple hours.

Now all this leaves me with questions: Was it real? Does it matter if it was or not? Was it from God? Did these people need prayer at that hour? Was it demonic? Was Satan using my fear of the bizzare to stir up fear in me? Would God use fear to spur one to prayer?

Here's the other thing. This is not the first time I've had a "visitor." I've had many. Mind you, it's been a long time. I believe this is also the first time one has spoken to me. Before college, while I was still living with my parents, I often had visitors. I could since there pressence. I could feel them on the bed. They didn't have weight as such, but I could feel them put pressure on the covers that seemed to tighten down around me. When I opened my eyes, they weren't there, the pressure would ease. I would pray hard. I was terrified for myself and the people around me.

Sunday was the first time I told anyone about these kinds of dreams. I told Wes before we got up. I think I'd kind of forgotten about them to some extent. I never told my family for fear that they would laugh at me. Now, I've told many.

So I've been praying about this. I think if it's God's doing then I'm okay with it. He has my permission (not that he needed it) to scare me to prayer at night. If it's demonic then, "Hey, get out of my dreams, Scum." I wonder if I can be more rational next time, if there is a next time. I wonder if I will be able to ask, "May I take a look at the picture?"