Dreams of the Freaky Variety

On the third-trimester dreamworld, and the one I just can't shake

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When I was in college, my roommate had a dream dictionary.

It lived on our coffee table and I thought it was completely hokey, but you also better believe that after a night of particularly intense dreaming, I’d be nose-deep in interpretations, trying to figure out if waterskiing down a mountain while eating chocolate meant that my life was falling apart or if it was a sign that it was on the cusp of true greatness.

I can’t remember if this was the one, but it was something to this effect ☝🏼

These last few weeks, I’ve been missing that dream dictionary. Apparently, along with shooting sciatic pain and multiple trips to the bathroom, another fun nighttime perk of third-trimester pregnancy is what sleep researchers call “dysphoric dream imagery.” Or, in layman’s terms—really freaky dreams.

I wake up every morning and tell Ethan about my exhausting nighttime adventures:

“Last night, we were swimming in a really deep, really clear pond, and it was infested with sharks. And we were watching them swim all around, and then suddenly, you were sinking down in the water! And I grabbed you by your big toe at the last minute and used supernatural strength to rescue you. You almost drowned.”

“Weird,” he mumbles before turning over in bed.

“I think what you meant to say was, thank you. And, you’re welcome. I’d save you from shark-infested waters any day.”

Based on my very topical Google research, scientists don’t really know why pregnant ladies have such disturbing and vivid dreams, but some chalk it up to spiking progesterone levels, while others suggest that our brains are just trying to process the thousands of emotions that come with a human being living inside us.

Most of my dreams are straight-up wild, and I laugh at them as such and move on with my foggy-minded morning, but there have been a few that’ve made me stop and wonder, "Is there more here?” After all, God does speak to his people in dreams all throughout the Bible. Would it be so outlandish to believe that he may be also trying to tell me something?

I had a dream last week that was so disturbing and clear and specific that I couldn’t shake it from my mind; I had watched in terrible awe as it unfolded in my sleep, and when I woke up I understood immediately that it was an illustration meant to startle me—and also to teach me. Here’s how it went:

In my dream, I saw a caterpillar. And—to my fascination and horror—I realized that it had missed its chrysalis stage. It was clear that it had somehow skipped a step in the natural order of things, and before me was a poor, tortured creature.

All over its body, black tufts had begun to sprout; wings were trying to form even as the earthbound body clung to the surface of its leaf. The situation felt inherently wrong and—not only did I feel sorry for the thing—I also felt somehow responsible for it. Something inside of me knew that I had been the one who’d tampered with it, who—earlier that day, perhaps?—had interfered with and touched it, and now nature itself had been tainted.

My impulsive desire to help the caterpillar’s process along, I understood, had accelerated and altered it. And it had turned out not to be helpful at all—I knew at once that this caterpillar would never be able to become the butterfly it had been designed to be. It would instead become some shadow version of itself—a contorted black twist of worm and flight. The hint of what should have been was present, but it lacked all luminosity and liberation.

I had rushed its natural progression, and the result was grotesque and misshapen. It would never fly.

I didn’t have the dream dictionary, but I didn’t need it. As I sat with this disturbing scene the next morning and asked God if there was something more to the imagery than run-of-the-mill pregnancy lunacy, he quickly pointed out that yes—yes there was.

And—surprise surprise—further reflection suggested that it was a lesson about trying to grab my dreams and goals by the throat and choke them into existence.

I had gone to bed in tears a few nights before, feeling incredibly discouraged after a flopped book pitch. [And I’m not talking a few drops—I’m talking massive, spluttering gushes of salt water that make your face puffy for the whole next day.]

In the days that followed, I prayed a lot for God’s will for this book, but I also prayed for all the things that I thought would help me finally make my dream of writing a book a reality, like:

• A steady influx of new followers on social media, so that I could prove to publishers that I’m somehow worthy to write

• New insights, followed by the energy it would then take to wrestle them into the two-dimensional objects we call words

• Amazing, other-worldly opportunities to talk with decision-making people who would think my ideas are exciting

In short, I was trying to short-circuit the long and painful process of trying to bring my dream to fruition.

Unfortunately, I do this a lot. Don’t we all? I mean, who wants to be a caterpillar when we know we were born to fly?

[This is where I simply cannot resist singing, “And how do you keep your feet on the ground, when you know, that you were bor-orrrrorrrrrrrrnn, you were born to fly?!”]

But now, I keep seeing that caterpillar from my dream, with its strange black tufts and poor, twisted body. I had tampered with it—tried to make it get to the ‘good part’ of its life too soon. And the result was not that it was free to embark on new adventures and live its glorious, airborne life; no, the result was that it had missed important stages of its growth, and that it was now stunted. And not only that—it was tortured.

I can think of many authors, musicians, and other creatives who—while they experienced incredible amounts of success in their careers—were also incredibly tortured in their personal lives. Hemingway. Elvis. Marilyn Monroe. David Foster Wallace. Robin Williams. The list, unfortunately, is expansive.

And this is where God comes in with the dream interpretation, telling me firmly and lovingly: Deidre, it is not your time yet. Do not rush it. Do not scorn the chrysalis stage. There is work happening here, too. It is quiet and it is deep and it is mysterious, and it is more important than you could possibly know.

Natural progression is natural protection.

I hate slow. Don’t you? We live in an instant world. We can order our groceries and book a massage and make ‘friends’ and create our own podcasts in one single, productive evening if we want—all from the comfort of our own couches!

So when things take work, and are slooooooooowww to unfold, we get frustrated. Irate, even. We want to shake God by the shoulders and tell him to hurry up, we’re dying over here. We want what we want, and we prefer if it’s delivered on an Amazon Prime timetable.

But thankfully, God often says no. He sees that a natural progression is our natural protection. He understands what we want, but also knows that we are made out of dust, and that we hardly ever recognize our limitations. He knows that that the beautiful things that are meant for our futures will also crush us if we’re not properly prepared—for beautiful things are heavy indeed.

If we lack the spiritual maturity or physical, mental, and emotional capacities that are developed in the secret places of the chrysalis stage, we’ll end up like that twisted caterpillar—darker versions of what could have been beautiful, if only we hadn’t tampered with the plan.

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Right now on our kitchen counter, we have a glass pitcher with two monarch chrysalises hanging from the top. Every morning, we rush to peek inside, wondering if this will be the day that a beautiful butterfly has magically materialized.

Today wasn’t the day, but maybe tomorrow will be. As God says in Isaiah, “I am the Lord; I will make it happen quickly in its time” (Isaiah 60:22, emphasis mine). Until then, I’ll keep them safe on the counter—and remember to keep my ever-loving hands off of them.

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Have you ever had a dream that has changed the way you think, or taught you an important lesson? I want to hear it!