Rewriting the Ending

I had a bad dream last night.

It was the scary type, the kind that leaves you gasping when you wake up as your mind struggles to grab hold of reality but your emotions are still so very tied up in the dream.  You know it wasn't real, but you feel it so strongly.  You know the kind?

The theme of the dream was a tornado; and in the rough and choppy manner of dreams, these are the scenes I remember:
~ looking out the windows to see if a tornado was approaching
~ all of us being in Shav's room (of all places!)...it is certainly NOT a safe place in the event of a tornado, but I think we gathered there because of the two windows in his room...we could look both north and west
~ seeing leaves swirling upward from a tree, and realizing that a tornado was indeed forming (and, I think, telling Jeff about it)
~ racing downstairs to our cellar while frantically grabbing blankets, etc. on the way
~ carrying a bundle or something...I think it must have been Shav wrapped up
~ looking out the kitchen window on the way downstairs and seeing the woodshed doors open...wishing they were shut but realizing that there was no time to go out and shut them (as if shutting them would be helpful against a tornado anyway!)
~ opening the door from the house to the garage, seeing the garage door wide open, pushing the button to close it (again, why would that be useful?)
~ ending up in the cellar where it suddenly dawned on us that we should NOT be in the cellar (our cellar has a little window of sorts so it's open to the outside air; and because of the home-canned jars on the shelves, a tornado would turn that room into a terribly dangerous swirl of glass shards)
~ going into the laundry room (which is our safest room)
~ everything being incredibly chaotic, despite my desire to be orderly and prepared in the face of such an emergency
~ realizing with a start that Rosalie, our neighbor's oldest daughter, was with us
~ realizing with an even bigger start--a horrifying one--that Josiah was not

In the dream, my mind raced.  Where was he???  Had he overheard my comment that I wish I had thought to grab a flashlight (despite the fact that all of this was happening in broad daylight, and the storm would be over long before darkness fell), and had he run back up to his room to get one for me?

In the dream, that seemed like something that my kind, responsible, helpful son would have done; but as I stood at the bottom of the downstairs steps, looking up into the empty gloom and hearing the incredible and terrible roar of the approaching tornado, I wanted Josiah to know that HE DIDN'T NEED TO GET THE FLASHLIGHT.  All he needed to do was COME!!!  Be with us!  Be safe!  "JOSIAH!!!!" I yelled with all my might as the most awful fear and grief took hold of me.

And then I woke up.

I lay there reeling, telling myself the truth that it was just a dream, that all of us were safe, that there was no tornado.  I mentally went through my list of sons:  "Josiah is safe in his bed," as I pictured him sprawled on his bunk.  "David is safe," and his image flashed through my mind.  "Tobin is safe," and I saw, with my mind's eye, him snuggled in his bed.  "Shav is safe," and another picture of peace came to me.

But I was still shaken, so I did the only two things I could think to do.  I did what Lamentations 2:19 instructs, "Rise during the night and cry out.  Pour out your hearts like water to the Lord.  Lift up your hands to him in prayer, pleading for your children."  I arose, walked to Josiah's room, raised my hands to the Lord, and poured out my heart in prayer for my firstborn.  That was a very good consequence from a very bad dream!

The second thing?  I rewrote the ending to the dream.

Do you ever do this?  When a dream you have ends abruptly at the worst possible moment or ends in an outcome that is tragic, do you ever replay the dream, so to speak, and change the ending?  I do, and you know what?  It actually helps.

For example, as I lay in my bed last night, in the state of semi-wakefulness and semi-sleep that occurs when sleep is interrupted so suddenly, I thought of how my dream could have ended differently; and this is what I came up with:  Josiah had seen Jason, the youngest child of our neighbors, outside in the yard as the tornado approached, so Josiah went out to get Jason.  As I looked up the steps, calling Josiah's name and feeling as if my heart would break from the loss of my son, I saw the most wondrous sight:  Josiah coming towards me, with Jason.  Both of them coming towards safety.  I wasn't going to lose my son after all, and even better, neither was my neighbor.

Ahhhhhhhhh!  BIG sigh of relief!  I like that ending much, MUCH better!  And because of that revision, in the wee hours of this morning, my heart gratefully smoothed itself into a peaceful pattern, and my mind relaxed and released its overwhelming burden of pain and worry, and my body let itself drift off into sweet slumber again.

It might sound silly, but who cares?  It works for me; and in this case, that's what matters.  :)