Poof, and It’s Gone is an excerpt from my new book, Exploring Heavenly Places, Volume 8: Dreamspeak, which I’m excited to announce is now available. Print, PDF, Kindle, and Nook versions are all available via Aslansplace.com

Tourist traps abound as one travels just about anywhere in the world. On road trips through the southwestern deserts of the United States these may take the form of gift shops that are advertised miles in advance. Most of them are a huge disappointment by the time one arrives but by then you’re so ready for a bathroom break that you stop anyway. Inside, one usually finds a large variety of items of regional interest, though a close inspection will reveal that they are made in China or some other far-away land more often than not. Prominently displayed are the beautiful dream catchers, originally created by First Nations peoples who believed that the night air is filled with both good and bad dreams and that a dream catcher hanging over or near the bed and swinging freely in the air would catch those dreams as they flow by. Good dreams supposedly know how to slip through the holes and slide down the soft feathers so gently that many times the sleeper does not know that he/she is dreaming. On the other hand bad dreams don’t know the way and get tangled in the web, perishing with the first light of the new day. Nice, if it really worked, but it doesn’t!

It was eighth grade, and I’d had the most incredible dream ever, one I would never forget! Such a great plot; complete with everything necessary to finally get an A the next time our English teacher delivered the dreaded news that we had to write a story. Other writing assignments were fine, but coming up with an interesting story line was beyond me; so I remember very clearly the moment a few months later when the previously dreaded assignment was given. In shock, I sat helplessly at my desk with absolutely no memory of my award-winning dream. Too bad that nobody had ever taught me the truth of scripture:

He will fly away like a dream and not be found; he will be chased away like a vision of the night.[i]

Moses understood the transitory nature of dreams. In praying about the brevity of life, he compared it to a quickly vanishing dream:

For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.[ii]

Fortunately, Daniel understood too. Had he not, would he have been able to recall the details of his dream/visions of the four beasts?

In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream and visions of his head as he lay in his bed. Then he wrote down the dream and told the sum of the matter.[iii]

We don’t need dream catchers, but we do need to catch our dreams by following Daniel’s example.

[i] Job 20:8

[ii] Psalm 90:4-6

[iii] Daniel 7:1