That night’s second visit was far more challenging than polite Peter’s chat –  this time it was life or death!

I went back in time – not in this blog’s ‘time machine’ but in a most unusual dream. One so lucid that, over twenty years later, it remains vividly etched within me. So it must be exceptionally significant.  Come back with me to the night of 13-14th September 1989:

I find myself in the lounge of my childhood home and in front of the large casement window abutting one corner of the room.  I look up into the inky, dark night sky.

A small flotilla of large, wingless aircraft drifts slowly across from left to right at high altitude and I groan, “Oh…not that flying saucer nonsense. I must be dreaming!”  (Occasionally in dreams I’d be aware of dreaming and could change the scenario.)

I’m sceptical about the existence of UFO’s, but now another ‘fleet’ appears from the right and heads towards the first.

Now, the dream changes gear (rather, goes up a level) from the normal mixture of mental material > to that of absolutely convincing lucidity:

The ‘light goes on’!  In my ‘knower’, I realise the first fleet is demonic and the second is masses of angels under the command of Jesus Christ. (I did not believe in them, and regarded Jesus as one of many world teachers – I didn’t know Jesus appeared as the commander of the Lord’s host, or angels, to Joshua when outside Jericho. Here, I cannot see any individuals but have inner knowledge of the situation.)

I think I’m about to watch an amazing heavenly battle…but…OH NO!  Somehow, I now know Jesus has espied me far down below and is coming down directly towards me!

All I see is a distant bright light very rapidly getting brighter and larger as it drops down to my location, just like an airliner approaching a runway to land at night. 

Instantly, I realise my life has been one of sin that contrasts starkly against Jesus’ own holiness. Right away I realise what’s claimed about the Judgement is true – but mine is about to happen right now!

Beyond any doubt I realise my involvement in the occult was most definitely wrong. Consequently, I deserve the undesirable abode!

“My number’s up!” I groan, inwardly trembling in knowing I’m about to die at any moment and an invisible trapdoor I’m standing on will drop me straight into hell.

Uttermost mortal terror strikes and I dive right under the drop-leaf table in the other  corner of the room to hide from Jesus. But he knows where I’m hiding and swoops down straight through the wall at the side of the window to stand in my room and right beside the table!

Cowering under the table with my back turned towards him, I glance over my shoulder and see him from the waist down, his face out of sight above the table.

Most unexpectedly, somehow I have the courage to reach my hand out backwards to grab at the hem of Jesus’ robe…

>> As I tug, the event goes into yet another level of revelation regarding my childhood…Then I awake! Thoroughly alert, further sleep eludes me!

The event reminds me of an evocative small picture that impressed me as a child – the return of Jesus Christ:

Later I understand that my terror had been ‘the fear of God’ brought through his Holy Spirit in convicting me of my personal sinfulness (ie. wrongdoing) and, thus, preparing me to receive God’s grace (ie. undeserved favour).

Also,  what happened when I touched Jesus proves he’s intimately acquainted with the private details of my thoughts as a little boy.  The last moments of the dream show he will topple my childish concepts of him and thus hint at his replacing them with a sure knowledge of his true identity.

“The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love” (Psalm 111). Mercifully, he plucked me from the domain of darkness to bring me into his own and receive its blessings. I deserved none of that. Truly, Amazing Grace – how awesome and wonderful..!

As a result of the most remarkable dream I’d ever had, I carefully reconsidered all my New Age notions. Meditational and mystical exercises had resulted in my having some unusual, ‘psychic’ dreams, but none whatsoever like this one.

The only remotely similar dream was that of an ‘altered’ state of consciousness known as ‘nirvana’, or bliss, where I’d been taken behind its alluring golden light.  However, ecstasy then turned to abject terror at the sight of an approaching hideous, devouring beast of blackness far worse than any nightmare!  (I didn’t take drugs.)  In this dream, however, fear had been overcome by Jesus himself and his wonderful mercy and love – and pervasive peace.

Confirmation that the event was real would come from a totally unexpected source…