Door on the Disney Wonder Balcony Looking into our Stateroom
April 2010
Genesis 1:27 NIV
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."
Lori, Lori! What did you tell that man last night?
Carmen and I traveled south on a train to Zurich from Narvik, Norway. When we changed trains at Hamburg, we pushed the fabric-covered seats together in our compartment to make beds, pulled the door closed, locked it, and shut the curtains as much as possible.
Now morning had dawned, and she shook me awake.
However, I had fallen into a deep sleep after a strange dream about a man who pounded on our compartment door and screamed at us in a foreign language.
Lori! Wake up. What happened last night? What did the man say to you?
Carmen sat beside me. I had rolled up against the window. My head ached. My mind in a fog.
The man. How could she know? I had dreamt him.
We had finished a six-week study program in Bregenz, Austria, and were now traveling across Europe. As we criss-crossed through nations, we had heard many languages and tried to speak them.
However, because we had traveled so much and shared so many train compartments with others, Carmen and I claimed this one as our private territory for the night as soon as we found it.
I stretched out and immediately fell asleep while she lingered to write in her journal.
I hadn't dozed long when I dreamt about a man, with children in tow, who banged on our door while screaming at us. I thought, why doesn't Carmen answer him? Clearly he asked if we had room in our compartment for him and his children. Why didn't she tell him, "No"?
She didn't answer him. He kept yelling. His screams and knocks interrupted the peace of my sleep.
In my dream, I sat up and answered in his native language that we had no room for him. He thanked me and moved on.
Ah, I sighed, lowered myself into the seats, and entered into the best sleep I'd had in weeks.
Now Carmen pestered me: Lori, Lori! What did the man say to you? What did you tell him?
Not until Carmen woke me did I realize the magnitude of what had happened.
I'd been exposed to different languages all summer, so although I was surprised to be able to talk to someone in my sleep in a language Carmen didn't recognize, I wasn't surprised by my mind's capacity to do so.
While awake, once my inhibitions are lowered, I can talk to people in their native language with the little vocabulary I know because I'm not afraid of making mistakes. However, if I'm nervous, then I don't use my language skills and become mute.
I suppose, since I talked in my sleep, my inhibitions were completely lowered, and not only did my mind recognize the language, but all the syntax and vocabulary I needed were also available to help me answer the man's question.
God created my brain, so it's capable of performing more amazing feats I've never yet discovered.
That summer, Carmen and I witnessed one of God's gifts from two different perspectives. I lived the event through a dream and Carmen saw it while she was fully awake.
The human body is God's perfect creation; there's so much about its workings that doctors and scientists still don't fully understand.
In 1980, I had a glimpse of what my mind is capable of, but I am not unique. Stories surface all the time of other people who have undergone miraculous healings or who possess amazing memories.
There are other incredible stories as well.
When I hear about them, I pause in awe to consider the miracles of God's handiwork.
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Lord, thank you for creating me in your image and for the many miracles of the human body.
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