Supernatural Nightmare Experiences and the Illusion of Prayer
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By Science, Reason & Rationality
Article ID: 1223
It’s been almost ten years since my last supernatural nightmare experience. The last one I’ve had was way back in my late 20’s. This is because I’ve learned a little secret on how to get rid of such nightmares, once and for all. Let me share with you what led to my enlightenment.
When I was a kid, I remember not being afraid of the dark, or anything supernatural like ghosts, evil spirits, demons or the devil. I also never had any supernatural nightmares. Why? Because I didn’t know such entities existed. But later, I heard my family members speak about their existence. My big brother frightened me with it. My big sister shared an experience of being suddenly woken from sleep by an invisible entity pressing her down on her bed. She said that she couldn’t move or call for help, and was absolutely sure it wasn’t a bad dream. With this information and all the supernatural horror movies we watched at home, it became possible for me to believe in such things, which inevitably also made it possible for me to experience supernatural nightmares as well.
I have never experienced sleep paralysis, but in my adult years I realized my sister’s experience was just that. However, I did have my own share of supernatural nightmares which I experienced until my late 20’s. One of these gave me assurance that the power of God is real and Jesus is who he said he was. In this dream, I was chased by a demonically possessed girl who was going to torture, kill or possess me. She was really horrible to look at, exactly like Linda Blair from the movie The Exorcist.
Of course, I was influenced by the movie, but I didn’t realize that in the dream. So, while I was running, scared to death, in the dark, away from this girl making all sorts of horrifying sounds - just like in the movie - I suddenly remembered to call upon God and pray for help. I prayed while I ran. Then I stopped running, turned around to look directly at this girl eye to eye and said, “In the name of Christ Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit of God, I command you to STOP!” But the girl kept coming closer and closer. I stood my ground and placed all my faith in God and in his Biblical promises. When she got about ten feet away from me, a sunny light came down from the sky (I suppose it was from Heaven) and shone on me. The light was like a force field, protecting me from the girl. She couldn’t come near me. She couldn’t enter the light (I suppose because it was Holy). The dream ended there: I woke up refreshed in faith and trust in Jesus Christ and in the God of the Bible.
There was one problem. You see, I hadn’t always been a Christian. Before I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, I was following the teachings of Hinduism for approximately ten years. For the last two of those years, I’d been a loyal devotee of the Lord Krishna (an incarnation of the Hindu God, Vishnu). During this time, I was protected from evil entities in my nightmares in the same way that I was protected through prayer and in the name of Jesus Christ. The only difference was that it was done in the name of Krishna or Vishnu. Hindu prayer also worked much the same way: one says a certain Hindu Mantra or incantation while thinking of the god or gods that it’s associated with.
The second religious book that I studied diligently after the Hindu Bhagavad Gita was the Quran of Islam. I was a Muslim for about a year. During this period I managed to protect myself from the evil entities in my nightmares by praying to the God of the Quran, Allah, and by reciting specific verses from the Quran for this purpose. Guess what? Yep! It worked the same way.
After this, I studied the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. I also studied both the Catholic and the Protestant faith including their Canon Laws. I stayed a Christian for about seven years and almost started my very own non-denominational Christian church. Yes, I’d become a very staunch Christian, religiously educated and experienced enough to be a church minister or pastor.
Now, if you approach each religion to get an explanation for my dream experiences, each one of them will tell you, “Of course it worked, but the power that helped Nick through his prayers in his nightmares didn’t come from God, but rather from Satan or his demons who are always trying to confuse and deceive mankind from finding the right way and the true path to God.” Each religion will say that the God or Gods of their own religion are true while the God or Gods of other religions are either the same, or alternatives, or false, or their Devil equivalent.
To prevent myself from converting to a new religious faith every time I studied one, I decided to study them all before I made a choice again. My ultimate goal was to find the one true God and the one true religion. I was a very religious and spiritual person back then, so studying all religions, faiths and belief systems was a very exciting task to pursue while searching for the ultimate truth. I studied beliefs from caveman to modern man, and completing this took me more than twenty years of research and study. This task convinced me that all religions and belief systems have the same root of primitive thinking, superstition, desperation, confusion and delusion. These are combined with an author’s ideas, stories and philosophies. Some younger religions have additional negative motives, hidden agendas and cunning manipulations.
Today, I’ve liberated myself from the slave chains of religion, faith and belief systems. I’ve stopped converting because I chose to critically think about my beliefs and have taken the extra effort to investigate, research and study them. It won’t do much good if you choose to research and study just your own religion. You won’t really learn or understand anything else. You’ll only have adopted someone else’s delusion as your own. Research and study all religions of the world, then you’ll really understand your current religion’s roots, its real motives and other factors. Compare the religions, along with contemporary historical evidence. You will then see the similarities, modified ideas, the manipulations and so on.
“All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christians or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.” ~ Thomas Paine
So, what does this have to do with supernatural nightmares? Everything! Understand that the only reason you get these nightmares is because you believe in such things, or someone else convinced you to believe in them. These beliefs are introduced by the religious, the uneducated and the ignorant.
The same goes with any other kind of nightmare. A nightmare is only a nightmare if it causes you to fear it. Some people are only afraid of real things like wild animals, psychopath killers, rapists, torture and death. For these people, they don’t have nightmares of supernatural entities like ghosts, evil spirits, demons or the devil; they don’t believe in such things and therefore have no reason to fear them. No such nightmares are produced by the brain. Even if they were, they’d be considered hilarious to the dreamer, certainly not a nightmare. There have been times when you might have dreamed something that didn’t make much sense, but would be a nightmare to others. This dream probably wasn’t important to you because it didn’t have any personal meaning.
Belief in the supernatural and prayer comes from a poor understanding of psychology and perfectly ordinary but misinterpreted events. To top these off, we have cultural influences, traditions, superstitions, religion, faith and other belief systems. These create bizarre and delusional forms of prayer, rituals and stories. These further reinforce belief in the supernatural. People believing such things are bound to have supernatural nightmares, and for some, misunderstood experiences even while awake.
As you can see, the root of this problem is “believe“. This is why it is critically important that you do not believe in anything that is derived from faith-based and emotion-driven thinking. Everything that you decide to believe must be based on real empirical data or scientific evidence.
I still remember the last supernatural nightmare I had in my early stages of understanding what nightmares really were. For me, this was the scariest one of them all. It was a nightmare within a nightmare within a nightmare. Yes, a three in one nightmare. I dreamt of abruptly waking up in my dark room from another nightmare. I could barely see, as there was just a trickle of light coming through my window. I don’t remember what the first nightmare was about, but in the second nightmare in which I supposedly awoke from the first nightmare, I saw this black figure standing on the left side of my bed near my head, looking at me. I immediately thought it was a dark and evil spirit, or some kind of demon. But then, I started rationalizing, “Wait a minute, I’m smarter than this. I’ve learned and understood so much. Why am I still thinking this way? This is NOT real! It can’t be! It has to be a nightmare experience. I must wake up! NOW!”
I refused to believe in the nonsense. I tried very hard to wake up by forcing my eyes to open (even though it seemed like my eyes were already open). Struggling, I saw my eyelids slowly open into the same dark room. However, there were two images: one at the bottom (becoming bigger as I opened my eyes) and one at the top (becoming smaller as I opened my eyes). But there was a problem. When I managed to finally open my eyes, I was shocked to see that the black figure was still there! I had entered into the nightmare’s third layer. For a moment, I was almost convinced that this was real. I had no God or any form of faith to help me now. There was nothing to pray to. I was on my own. But I still had a most powerful weapon. Knowledge! Knowledge is indeed power! I used my knowledge gained from science and psychology. I did what a scientist would do. I used the formula that I wrote about in this article:
Faith versus the Scientific Method
It was obvious my own mind was playing tricks on me. This was because I still lacked the discipline to control my mind from wondering away into superstition and nonsense. I had to remind myself again that the dream images, the characters and all the behavior were from my own brain. There are no external supernatural sources whatsoever. I can decide what should and what should not be in my own dreams.
There was only one thing left to do. I got up and looked at this black figure. I thought to myself that if I can’t wake up from my nightmare, or snap out of my delusion, then I would face it and do something about it. I confronted my own brain (the root of the problem) to demand the nonsense stop, and realize the fact that there are no such entities to fear in the first place. These entities are only projections based on what my brain was made to believe. The fact is, the entities only exist because I allowed them to exist. It was a conscious versus subconscious battle. So I decided that it was time for it to go… for good.
The figure did not do anything at first. It just stared right back at me. So, I slowly attempted to touch it, and my hands went right through it while it disfigured and dissolved into thin air like how a black smoke would when you wave your hands through it. I smiled in relief and said to myself, “See! I told you it was not real. Now, WAKE UP!” This is when I really woke up from my sleep. I was still in my dark room, but no more black figure, and I was still smiling in victory and freedom because science had once again saved the day. This was the last supernatural nightmare experience I’ve had in my life.
At my current age of 38, I only dream of things that I allow and find entertaining. For example, if I’m in the mood for some thrills, I would allow Xenomorphs and Zombies into my dreams. When the dream begins, I can choose whether I want to proceed with it or not. I’ve got the power! However, I wouldn’t consider this a nightmare, because I actually enjoy these dreams as a form of sleep entertainment. Moreover, I can also control my dreams and choose the characters I want to be. I usually have some kind of super powers like flying, energy power shields, invisibility, the ability to discharge electricity from my fingertips and all the powers that people think a God should have. I am able to defend myself from all the evil entities including the supernatural ones, that is, if I’m in the mood to allow some in. I’m always the hero!
The best part is, I realize that what I’m experiencing is nothing but a dream while being in the dream itself, but I enjoy it anyway. At this stage, I have fun and thrills in my dreams like you would have fun and thrills in a virtual reality game. I have become my own source of help and power. The fact is, I was always my own source of help and power, but I didn’t understand how the brain worked. I chose to place that help and power somewhere else, like in God, because I believed that’s where it should really come from. This is the reason why having faith in a god, regardless of which god, works the same way. It’s nothing to do with the concept of true Gods, false Gods, Satan, demons or genies.
You can do the same thing by placing this source of help and power to anything you want, like your mom and dad, your dog, a jug of milk, Yoda or even me, who have all the powers of God and more within the dream world. So the next time you have a supernatural nightmare, all you have to do is to invoke my name, or any name of your choice. Use your own method to contact these sources of help and power through your complete and undoubting faith, and I’m sure we will all come to your immediate aid. No prayer required. Or, you can upgrade yourself: evolve your mind and choose to achieve what I’ve achieved.
Those of you who are not associated with any form of religious or supernatural beliefs, but have had some form of paranormal nightmare experiences like aliens or monsters, use the same formula. Check your current belief system. Identify your delusional experiences. Remember the keywords: Believe and discipline. “Believe” is the problem, and “Discipline” is the solution. Practice not believing in anything without real empirical data or scientific evidence.
If you need further assistance, seek professional help. It does not mean you’ve gone crazy. It simply means that you were programmed to believe and think in a certain way by your family, friends and other sources. Purge those beliefs and start fresh.
I leave you with two good videos explaining further the illusions of prayer. Though this video is mainly addressed to Christians, the same formula can be applied to all religious systems as well:
“I have never made but one prayer to god, a very short one: ‘lord, make my enemies ridiculous.’ and god granted it.” ~ Voltaire
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” ~ Epicurus
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