Phantasia

Art provided by my friend Shellie Summers.

January 11th

The Gardener

A little old woman had a garden and enjoyed sharing its fruit with others. The world was in crisis, and she was glad to help others. The world asked her for vegetables from her garden, so she bagged and sent them to everyone. Some were unsatisfied with what she gave and wanted more than others. The woman heard their complaints and began setting some vegetables aside at her own home. This was seen as scandalous because nobody knew that she planned to put her portion aside and give it all away. No one knew that this old woman was God in human form. Working quietly and discreetly as He tends to do.

Unbreakable

This dream took place inside of an abandoned facility, carved into an underground canyon. A doctor

lived and worked here in secret, infecting people with a parasite that allowed him to manipulate them. Four people wandered into his cave, potential victims, my brother and I being two of them. The doctor had a clinic in this underground city where infected individuals worked. They appeared calm and average, a brilliant ruse that helped people lower their guards in the presence of these nurses and physicians. In this dream, I had a solid adamantine right arm covered in realistic-looking skin. I used it to smash his machines and the living parasites that scuttled across the ground, seeking potential hosts.

Beastly

Three people raced through the interior of a cave, crisscrossing through the mountain in search of a

mysterious power. The closest to this power was a young woman who had been the first to arrive in the

cave. Despite this advantage, she would fail to attain the power that she sought. Deep within the cave

was a black beast with eyes that reflected silver in the cave's dark interior. It judged her unworthy of its

power, choosing instead to bestow its gift on one of the two young men that had followed her into the

depths of the cave. The gift was given to him because there was no divide between his human

persona and that of the beast, or so he claimed. His eyes glinting silver in the dark of the

cave.

Leviathan

Mankind sailed across the ocean on the backs of massive whale-like creatures. These whales were so big that they pulled nations through the vast waters that covered the planet. The oil from these monsters' skin was polluting the ocean and would continue to do so until we decided to use something else to move our floating cities. On one such island boat, I looked for things of value that my sister could sell to make a bit of extra cash. She had a whale of her own that could use echolocation to highlight items of value for us by painting them with a reddish color. On this island boat, I saw strange mechanical fae-like creatures swimming through the air. They had the power to show you what you wanted to accomplish, making it difficult to discern if I was doing something of value or trapped in their illusion. They looked like twelve-inch wide machines with a six-inch inside that contained a differing number of eyes for each one. They were shaped like sea creatures, mostly jellyfish, and hovered through the air silently. Others were a foot tall and looked like small people.

In Genesis chapter 1 and chapter 2, God states that humanity's purpose is to cultivate and work the Garden that He designed and to fill the earth. Presumably, spreading the Garden as we would go because the fruit would be our food. Could it be that climate change is a direct result of mankind doing the exact opposite of what we had been designed to do? Instead of cultivating the earth as the garden God created it to be, we are uprooting it over-time. Is this a consequence of subverting part of our original purpose, that consequence being, climate change?

January 14th

The Shape-Shifter

A young man's friend had amnesia, or so he thought. After a storm/flood, he and some friends gathered

to make sure he was alright. A group of strangers helped him climb up the side of a wooden raft to

greet his friend. Due to an affliction of weightlessness, he needed help to travel safely from one place to

another. This was described as being, "A man that was not weighed down by the world's problems."

For him, this had become an actual problem." They leashed him and held on to keep him from flying

away.

The setting shifted to an old victorian style world. Within, the young man met the daughter of a wealthy family, and he decided to keep her company. Besides his weightlessness, he also had the ability to change his own form in any way he wanted. He had been walking with her and a brother of his to an old building, but his leash was nowhere to be seen. To remain grounded, he abandoned his human form for that of a gerbil. The gerbil was too small, so he decided to become a dog. This was not his satisfaction either, so he became a sea monster in a little water tub. It looked like a hairless, scale-covered black cat with yellow markings like lightning patterned along his body. He stayed at the bottom of the tank while the young lady laughed, pleased by his dissatisfaction and his power to change shape.

Their joy would be cut short as the party was to be crashed. Manifesting from his own flesh weapons of

metal, he fired an arrow into the assailant, proving just how vast his shapeshifting powers really were.

Though the assailant's strength and speed far exceeded that of any human, the young man had

momentarily overcome the limitations of his affliction in a new form. With one hand, he effortlessly

stopped a punch that could shatter wood and stone. The dream ends during this test of strength.

Instead of focusing on any specific dream, I would like to focus on a common theme. The theme I am contemplating is empathy. To sympathize is the ability to share in the suffering or grief of another.

In the very first dream, we see God in human form. This automatically reminds me of Hebrews 4:15, where it says, "For we do not have a High priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things just as we are, yet without sin." Hebrews 5:2 conveys a similar idea. The point is that God took a human form so that He can sympathize with us.

This dream got me thinking, is it more than a stretch of the imagination to suggest that we can do the same thing? In dreams and thoughts, we can switch perspectives and attempt to understand others' feelings and positions. In this way, we are also shapeshifters, and with this gift, we can sympathize with others. Should I upset my friend or brother, I can imagine the situation from his perspective and experience what it might be that they are feeling. Of course, this is flawed by our own ability to understand others, but it certainly seems worth the effort to just try and see the world through the eyes of others.