Sometime during the seventh night of our trek through the Andes after Mel and I drifted to sleep a dream from earlier in the journey returned to my awareness.

The ground spilled out far before me a deepening blue. Over the horizon hung a pale and hallowed moon casting a shimmering luminescence onto edges of objects within view. Slender blades curling softly into spirals grew before me, surrounding me. The night sky was black, and there was only silence. I was alone, and I did not move…“Open your eyes,” I heard her say…“Open your eyes.” Slowly, softly, steadily…“Open your eyes.”

I startled awake, but this time not to the inside of our tent as expected. Instead, when my eyes regained focus I was standing in a white room absent of detail. Its stark walls confined me, almost pressing at my sides. An oscillating fan whispered in a corner, painting slowly moving shadows onto a closed door in front of me.

I lifted my hand to turn the knob and the door suddenly fell away. My vision was wiped clean, and I found myself disoriented in the middle of a space that felt familiar, but that I scarcely recognized. It was dark and heavy with shadows. Everything inside was dusty and derelict as if abandoned many years before.

As I stood there reconstructing its broken features, memories of the space flooded my mind with a mix of strong emotions. In one moment I felt the happiness once experienced there overshadowed by a deep sadness that all life contained within had long since faded. It was cold now; it was hopelessly empty. Just as I started to put it all together I woke, pausing for a time to remember the details, but soon a sound crept back into my consciousness – the low drone of a fan at my side – and when I opened my eyes the door was again before me.

This cycle seemed to go on for an eternity. Each time I reached for the knob the door dissolved, opening to a different space. When its recognition came to me, I would wake again in the claustrophobic room with the same fan humming in my ear. Finally, the sound of birds in the distance broke through and I found myself back inside the tent. I laid completely still searching for understanding and all at once it came rushing in. Each scene represented a period of time in which I felt I had found acceptance. Each represented a group of close friends, but also the misuse of my mind and body, specifically with alcohol. I realized I had been holding onto those memories throughout the years that had elapsed since. I had been acting out old patterns in an attempt to maintain the acceptance I felt there, and in doing so was creating the very circumstances which perpetuated the opposite of my intentions.

I was vaguely familiar with the concept of cutting cords, and while I’m not sure that’s what this was, I have no other way to describe the experience. Lying there, I addressed each moment, each person, represented in the dream separately in my consciousness. I expressed gratitude for their contribution to my life and an understanding for why they had been there. I assured them that while I would not forget, I no longer needed them. Each time I went through this process a wave of energy coursed through me. It felt as though ice cold water was running up from the base of my spine and slowly melting in around my skull before washing back over the outside of my body to envelope me in a warmth that pulsed with the beat of my heart.

Upon addressing every aspect of the dream, a sense of grief set in as though I was morning the loss of a close friend. I didn’t know where the sadness had come from, but after a time it turned to a feeling of relief. The weight of a burden had been lifted, and I felt free. My mind shifted to the ceremony at Lago Humantay, the morning before the first dream, and I remembered the wish I had made there which took the form of this prayer:

“Prepare me Lord, so that in every moment I might realize your presence.”

I knew then the dreams were a response. They showed me that my attempts to avoid the fear of lacking acceptance were no longer serving me. The resulting thought patterns and behaviors were obstructing my experience of the present, and the growth I desired was not possible without identifying and then transcending them. The dreams shed light on a truth; that love is our natural state. That it is not something outside to be sought, but simply the absence of fear. I had to free myself in order to experience the true depth of God’s presence in my life. I had to open my eyes and see that it was there.

Since that morning the memory of the experience has continued to unfold, expanding into additional insights each time I consider it deeply. It is to a point now I can hardly hold them in my mind as a whole, so I am going to begin writing them down. And while I am unsure at this point exactly how to carry the lessons comprehensively into my daily life – how to assimilate an understanding so that it becomes practical, experiential, and finally known – I find myself in this moment almost overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude and admiration for God who gives freely if only we ask from the right place and with the right heart: Lord, give me ears to hear and eyes to see.