By Cynthia Aralu

About 4 or 5 days ago,

I dreamt that I saw Jesus. 

I would have known the exact day,

if I’d written it down when I told myself to.

He was so large and I was so small. 

His face was neutral one minute,

The next, He had a frown. 

His eyes were exquisite.

They gleamed with so much power and fire. 

There He was, only looking at me. 

There I was, staring right back at him,

truly a mixture of awe and question.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Hi everyone! Pray the Rosary!

It’s been a while since I published a post on my blog. I have been resting. I noticed myself getting extremely fatigued much more frequently, crying a lot more, and so I had to withdraw inwards and become even a lot more quiet, so as to be able to focus on the “need to do(s)”. I am feeling a lot better now and also learning to take deep breaths when I feel overwhelmed and allow stimming. I find deep pressure, such as hugging myself tightly, to be very calming but I can’t do it everywhere as it can be seen as standoffish but I don’t think about any of that when I am in church. I give thanks to God for strength.

I had a dream maybe 4 or 5 days ago. I wrote it down today and felt a desire today to share it while praying this morning. So, that’s what I’m doing now. It is a memory stitched back together, so take the meaning behind the general story without a focus on the details, that is, if there is a meaning to you. Only God knows. 

It so happened that in this dream, I walked into one of the rooms in the ground floor of my family home in Nigeria which used to be storage for a long time, and there was a black cat there which I perceived was a curse, so I just thought something along the lines of, “I’m over this scene and I’m going to God”. So, I began to rise upwards into the darkness until I reached a place where all I saw was Jesus. He was so large and I was so small. I remember feeling this way. He stared neutrally at me and then frowned and then shooed me away (His approach towards me felt that way. I felt fear.). I went back down to the earth into a room I do not know. I wondered if He was truly Jesus since He looked angry. It is possible that a better description could be that He looked severe. He came back to look down at me. I looked up at Him through what seemed to be a large aperture leading upwards to the sky above, from where I stood on the earth. He was larger than everything. I was surprised He came back. I thought, “He came back”. I was impressed by the gleam and fire in His eyes, and unsure of the reason He was frowning. I don’t remember much of what happened next, if I inched closer, maybe. 

I woke up wondering if I am doing something wrong or done something wrong. And if I’d really seen Jesus. 

He looked like one of the depictions/icons I have seen in Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity. Even the dimensions of His eyes; one is not the same dimension as the other, similar to how I perceive the Christ Pantocrator. I think His eyes were lighter but my memory of this is vague. What I know for sure is that they had been gleaming, striking and alive. Thinking back now on June 19, 2025, when I am including this update, I think his expression could be said to have been severe (which I had interpreted as a frown).

A day before this, I had my eyes closed and saw a snake slithering on the ground and then suddenly a light skinned strong feet crushed the serpent. It all went black after that and I opened my eyes. I don’t know if I was dreaming or if it was one of those moments where I close my eyes for 1 minute and I see a short clip of something. I have read it is unusual for dreams to occur soon after falling asleep. How do I know those short clips happened after 1 minute of closing my eyes? Well, I don’t have a timer on when it happens but it feels like 1 minute, like I’m sitting in front of the Tabernacle or at the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe and I doze off for a minute and at times but not all the time, I am jolted awake; that’s how it feels like. I also didn’t have much time to stay at the places I mentioned before I had to go off to the pews to join the mass or move on. So, I deduce roughly 1 minute, but it could be 1 – 10 minutes. Again, in university, it even happened while studying and also when walking back to my room to sleep. I was sleepy every time and I saw people I don’t know, in motion or chatting away or both, as if I am watching a video in front of me. One time, I became a part of it but that could have really been a dream or maybe not. Maybe it was just my imagination since I could rewind the action. I read about hyperphantasia because I wanted to understand this, but that does not explain it, since images in my head are of a poor quality when I am awake and I feel a strain in my head when I try hard to remember images. I only get a clear burst of an image for like 1 second before it is faded/hazy, or I am only able to call up an image in fragments, until I have seen parts of the images in my mind, but God helps me and uses it to heal my heart, even if this is the extent I can be present at the scenes during His life on earth.

Anyway, dream or vision or not, it took me a while to really think about what I saw and write it down, but at least it was on the same day. I kept thinking, “What did I see?”

This week, I received good news which I cannot share yet but I give thanks to God for it and I also seem to be better and more confident at driving, according to my mom, although my brother begs to differ, that I lack awareness and I drive weird. Honestly, it did not faze me because I am different and I am starting to embrace it. I struggle with noticing all the road signs because driving is an overwhelming sensory experience for me, and it is my tendency to not take in the wider picture but to focus on one detail. I am getting better at this, the more I am behind the wheel and I am getting used to the motion and the feel of the car. Sometimes, at stop signs, I have caught myself zoned out because I was overwhelmed. It was embarrassing because I was with my instructor. Sometimes, she had to tell me to move. I get better when I am more comfortable with my environment, the car, the person, the movements, the roads or when I am successful or day(s) after I fail, and with repetition; this is even the same when walking and using GPS, just more amplified when driving because I am moving fast. I have gotten lost multiple times while walking and using GPS. It is such a hard and overwhelming feeling to be lost, that in the past, I even dreamt about being lost and being rained on. I woke up on the verge of tears and the feeling carried over for a while, so, I curled up in a fetal position and hugged myself tightly in a bid to force the tears out or chase the feeling away until I calmed down.

I have been praying a lot about driving, pushing myself to keep going and disregarding the feelings which make me not want to drive. I think I have improved from the first time I got behind a car; even from 6 days ago. I know God is with me, taking care of me and I am pleased about the drive yesterday even if my brother is displeased. I am not seeking understanding. I hardly understand it all myself and I am not great at voicing out all that is happening to me. Sometimes, I lack the interoception to do so. As I understand more, I learn how to make accommodations for myself. One in particular is a low spatial awareness, which I only learnt about recently and everything in my life makes sense. I am thankful to God for bringing me this far and for leading me to Conquer Driving on YouTube and some other YouTube videos, who have given me tips which have helped me. I just need to make accommodations when driving, and do well enough to pass the road test and improve some more later. God is with me. God is for me. I give God thanks for His goodness, love and mindfulness to me.

On a final note, pray the Rosary!

Thank you for reading today’s post. Remember to like this post and share it with your friends if you enjoyed it. Follow me on my blog, Katmira’s blog or my podcast, Amara’s Musings, to receive notifications whenever I have a new post. You can also subscribe below to get an email notification whenever a new post is out. This is particularly helpful if you don’t have a WordPress account.

Let it be, until we meet again or “Ka ọ dị” as it is said in Igbo.