Dreams: 'I Can Only Imagine'

Dreams have always fascinated me – especially when I can actually remember details from them. Like John Lennon noted in his Imagine song, “You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.” And I, like most folks, really get goose bumps when I hear Martin Luther King's famous “I Have A Dream” speech! Sometimes, I've actually noticed how much in sync a dream's message may have been with some resolution to a concern or problem that I had been coping with.
 
From a Biblical standpoint, it is amazing how important dreams have been for even conveying God's Word to us, as with Daniel & Joseph from the Old Testament and Joseph in the New Testament. Since we all almost spend 1/3 of our lives sleeping, there really must be an important reason for us to rest, including what some may call the psychic release that we all need which dreams seem to provide for us.
 
While I don't put much stock in an over emphasis on what Freud and Jung noted about dreams, they certainly made some great contributions to helping us better understand the complexities and impact that they can have upon us. It appears that our understanding of rapid eye movements (REM) associated with the dream state has helped us accentuate the need for all us to get an adequate amount of sleep for physical and emotional health and well-being.
 
When we had one of our children go through a sleep study to help rule out seizure disorder, it was neat to learn more about the integral facets of getting a good night's rest. I had to sleep deprive our son by making him stay up late one night and then wake him up early the next morning to go for the tests, which he handled so well; thankfully, he was cleared of the problem.
 
As I am into contemporary Christian music (CCM), one of my all-time favorite tunes by Mercy Me is entitled “I Can Only Imagine,” which relates about a dream-like state as to what one will see when entering heaven. The song was released in 2001 when I was working as a social worker at a hospital on the telemetry (heart monitoring) unit.
 
Dana, RN, was a co-worker and charge nurse whom I worked with and who also shared a fondness for CCM. It was neat at times when we would start the work shift in a brief interfaith-like prayer for our patients and us, which included other nurses, aides, therapists, and doctors. This was such a great way to set the tone for what we knew was not just a job but almost a ministry.
 
During a break, Dana told me that she had gotten the Mercy Me CD that included the “I Can Only Imagine” song which I'd been hearing on the radio. This was long before there were YouTubes and iPods and Napster was just getting going, so most music was shared through CDs. We both couldn't believe how inspiring and powerful that song was.
 
Later that day, I happened to meet a patient who was declining rapidly from a chronic heart condition, and he shared with me varying ways he and his wife were coping with depression and how his faith was certainly being tested. He reported being very restless the night before and that he'd had a vivid dream that he couldn't understand.
 
Trying to be a good listener and “starting where the patient is at” as I learned in Social Work 101, I validated his concerns and allowed him to talk more about it if he wanted to. Next, he wanted to describe his dream, so I sat down next to his wife while he sat up in the hospital bed and began to describe the dream.
The patient went on to note that in his dream, he sensed that he was about to die soon and that he visualized that he would be going through the pearly gates and felt surrounded by God's Glory. Due to the incredible impact of that supernatural experience with the divine, the patient said he didn't know what to do – whether to dance or be still, to stand or kneel, to sing or be quiet? Next thing you know, he said, he was back in the hospital room.
 
After I heard the patient share about his dream, I had trouble keeping a non-emotional demeanor, as my eyes teared up. The description he had given was almost word for word for what is the Chorus in the “I Can Only Imagine” song that Dana and I had been talking about:
 
Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel 
Will I dance for you Jesus or in awe of you be still 
Will I stand in your presence or to my knees will I fall 
Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all 
  can only imagine 
 
I told the patient and his wife about the recently released song by Mercy Me that certainly sounded a lot like what he had experienced in a dream. He noted that he had not heard the song and mainly listened to country music, but mentioned that he would like to hear the song. I mentioned to him that I would try to see if I could get Dana's CD for him to borrow the next day. We used to keep a few CD players on hand to let patients use if they wanted to.
 
Following some other feedback that I gave to the patient and his wife about general ways to help increase their coping skills with the poor prognosis they were facing, I asked and got permission to join them in a prayer. Upon getting back to the nurse's station, I had to share the experience with Dana, who agreed to bring her CD to work for the patient to hear.
 
The next day, the patient got to hear the “Imagine” song for himself and noted that it brought him and his wife much comfort. While he did not survive that long after leaving the hospital from that stay and went home for hospice care, I can only imagine that he was certainly ready to meet his Maker.

Horcasitas, a licensed clinical social worker, is founder/owner of Prayer Care, LLC in Baton Rouge.