At 4:30 a.m. nerve pain in my foot roused me to a dream in progress, its images horrifying. It was rough to record it, let alone work with it.

 It is night. The house smells of the soiled diapers of sick babies, moaning, whimpering. Nightlights shadow their huddled forms laying on the floor, some wrapped in blankets; others, free of them. Against the walls toddlers suck thumbs, their eyes glazed with exhaustion. Two cars, filled with more malnourished fidgety, babies, stop at our door in need of help. I’m overwhelmed.

 This corrective dream speaks to the deplorable condition in my psyche; its symbols, macabre in tone. Night symbolizes my end-times; the house, my psyche; sick babies, my need for attention, understanding, and support from others. I am stunned, paralyzed by fear, starving.

The dream also resonates with the chaos in Kathleen Dowling’s book, The Grace in Dying, in which the mental ego is shocked by the bald truth of its mortality. This appears to be true in my case, despite the orderliness of my daily, albeit slow, functioning. Yet no amount of exercise, nutrition, prayer, or any modalities of self-care can stay this course. When my last breath comes, no walk aides can prop me up.

And certainly yesterday’s pseudo-energy, buoyed by the little blue pill that still works, did not help. Beast was around and stoked my frenzy over irksome time constraints. Only at day’s end when I crashed upon my bed did the madness lessen, only to reappear in the dream.

The antidote to this madness: “Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my (frazzled) spirit.” Psalm 31:5