Last night I had a dream so frightening it drove me to pray for deliverance from within the dream. In the dream I started praying, woke up, and kept praying the same prayer with my heart beating like I had actually been chased. “Dear Jesus, I pray for peace and sleep and safety. Dear Jesus,  I pray for peace and sleep and safety.” Over and over.

Then the thought occurred to me that I hadn’t locked the outside door to my bedroom. I got up, locked it, and then checked behind the shower curtain and all the closet doors in my room.  Then I crawled back in bed, prayed some more, read some on my Bible app, and tried to fall back asleep.

Normally if I happen to get spooked in the night, I just logically think my way out of it, focus on pleasant things, and sleep like a baby. This was the first time that method hasn’t worked out for me.

So what were those horrific images I couldn’t stop from cycling through my mind and caused me to implement an entirely new set of fear-based protocols? 

Ghost chickens. 

For real. I dreamed I was sitting in a rental property much like the one we’re in now and phantom poultry would fade in and out of view in front of me. And I thought,  “Well that’s weird,” and I went to where Mindy was in her room to see what she thought about it all. Freaked out, I crawled into her bed with her and described the chickens I’d seen. She said,  “Yeah, that’s strange.  I’ve been talking about boy problems with this giant orb of light.” And that’s when I had my dream-induced panic attack and petitioned the Good Lord for deliverance. 

Chickens. Not monsters or criminals or natural disasters.  Chickens.  And every time it replayed in my mind, the little yard bird pecking it’s way across in front of me and then fading away all smokey and sinister, my heart rate would shoot up and my breathing would get really shallow.

I told Mindy all about it as we headed into Savannah for the day. As soon as I began the story I realized how ridiculous it sounded.  “Oh, no! What did you dream about?” Oh, um…chickens.  But they were GHOST chickens and you were sharing your personal life with a ball of light, so….yeah.

Dreams are supposed to be your mind working out something that happened during your waking hours, but I can’t think of anything that happened that day to cause chickens to haunt my dreams.

I’ll show you a little slice of what we did yesterday and you can determine which thing might have turned me crazy.

Started the day with some coffee and my new favorite view.

Took a picture of a couple dads hauling a day’s worth of beach supplies in carts only homeless people pull around up in Washington.

Visited the lighthouse on Tybee and Ft. Screven. We didn’t actually go into the lighthouse or the fort because there was a line and admission costs and a bigger, badder fort down the road.

The coolest part about Ft. Screven is that next to the American flag flies the Jolly Roger.

Then we motored on down the road to Cockspur Island and Ft. Pulaski, a National Historic Site, which is fantastic. It’s got Civil War history, tunnels that make you feel like a gopher, a moat, and possibly gators.

And then look who’s car was parked in the lot right by ours!

That about wraps up our day. Anything stand out to you as something my mind would need to process through vividly haunting poultry dreams? No? Me, neither.

I am a little nervous about the idea of sleep tonight. We did just spend the day in Savannah where literally every brick and park bench has a ghost story attached. What if this ramps up to turkeys tonight? Or some kind of Franken-turducken? The thought is chilling.

I’ll give it a shot, though. If Jesus was with us in a parking lot at Ft. Pulaski, I’m sure He can find me again back here on Tybee if I need Him. 😉