Mindlessly Watching

Last Friday the 13th at 4:24am, the Lord woke me from a dream. It shook me, and I was unable to return to sleep.

I was in a large, open space similar to a convention area. There were different sections, and each section was the same: a projector screen playing a film with many rows of wooden church pews before the screens, filled with people. I would walk around these sections and ask questions of people, inquiring as to what they were watching, but no one would answer me as they were all mindlessly locked on the screens.

I looked to a screen and a vintage film was finishing, and the title appeared and it read, A RETURN TO JINX, spelled backward. (Jinx means to be cursed.)

On that same screen, a retro TV appeared, and a demon residing inside emerged. He was speaking to another demon and said, “My people are so easy to lull.”

All around me, people were positioning themselves for worship at the alter of television, as they mindlessly communed with the spirit of entertainment, bringing curses into their lives.

Parental Guidance

The Lord then took me to a movie theatre where many different films were playing, and I went to admission to purchase a ticket, but I couldn’t. Though I’m 29, Parental Guidance was forbidding me from entering as I was not old enough. In my heart, I heard the Lord tell me his Fatherly direction and protection was preventing me from entering.

Since May, the Lord has been speaking to me through dreams numerous times each night. My dream life has been completely transformed, and I have had visions, trances, encounters, prophetic dreams, and heavenly experiences. I have awoken to the sounds of heaven filling my bedroom, among many other wild experiences I won’t share at this time.

A History of Nightmares

Prior to this and since my childhood, I would have nightmares and demonic encounters as I slept. I would wake up and see giant snakes made of television noise sliding across my ceiling, shadowy figures standing in front of my bed, and at one point a translucent blue, naked demon that looked uncannily similar to Nightcrawler from X-MEN, just sitting there, watching. I have gone from [likely thousands of] demonic dreams of various types to a consecrated dream life where I expect to hear from or encounter the Lord on a nightly basis.

Neutral Programming

So what changed, why the shift? A number of years ago, I was addicted to television. I would watch a couple hours a day, sometimes more. (Side-note: the average American watches over five hours of television a day.) If I watched a violent TV show, it wasn’t uncommon to have a hyper-violent dream that night. Yet, I didn’t make the connection. I awoke, often forgetting the dreams, while my spirit did not. This reduced gradually over time as I began to encounter the Lord in new ways and my desires shifted, and up until a few months ago, essentially the only show that I continued watching was Masterchef, as I believed an hour of “neutral” TV per week could do me no harm.

Over time, I noticed this was not the case, and while I would hear from God each night, the one night a week I watched Masterchef, my sleep was filled with noise. I would have weird dreams that didn’t appear to be from God, if I could remember my dreams at all. Needless to say, I no longer watch TV.

Things Above

Church, I encourage you to take a two week break from television and film and watch the shift that takes place in your dream life. What we allow our eye and mind to behold is critical. Matthew 6:22-24 tells us: The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

Colossians 3:1-4 goes on to say: Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Idols take many forms, and if we’re allowing the television to program us each day more than we allow the Lord to, we’re hosting and communing the wrong presence in our lives, unknowingly giving ourselves over to something the Lord desperately does not want for us.