You treat these nightly visions as though they were solid things, exerting real force over your life. But what are dreams? Shadows of the day's anxieties, phantoms that vanish when true light appears. The soul that is weighed down by such fears has not yet fully awaked from the slumber of this world. You cry out for God to fight against these images, yet the battle is not with what you see in sleep, but with the desires and dreads that give them shape. For the present life itself is no better than a dream. Riches, glory, human attachments, all these flit before the mind and then are gone, like figures in the night. To cling to them, whether to possess them or to flee them in terror, is to walk in sleep while thinking yourself awake.
You ask the Lord to rebuke and cancel these dreams. But consider: do you not grant them power by your very fixation on them? The adversary delights in nothing more than to find a soul so tangled in distrust that it treats vain imaginings as prophecies. Instead, say within yourself, “That was a shadow, nothing more. I will not make provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts or its fears.” You pray with Psalm 35, calling on God to contend with those who contend with you. But see whether the real contention is not within your own heart, where suspicions rise like enemies against peace. The psalmist trusted God to be his shield; he did not then spend his hours rehearsing every possible evil.
Wake, then, from this lethal sleep. To watch and be sober is within your own power, if you will choose it. Sobriety is the intensity of watchfulness: it refuses to let the mind drift into the intoxication of anxiety, the drunkenness of controlling every outcome. You fear the coming of certain people, the loss of others, the misunderstanding of those near to you. These are dreams fashioned from self-love and a desire for a comfort that this age cannot give. The saints of old wandered in deserts and caves, afflicted, destitute, tormented, yet their hearts were fixed on the Sun of Righteousness. No dream could shake them, for they did not seek their security in human bonds but in the will of God.
Do not imagine that pleading against a dream is the same as repentance. True repentance weeps for the sins that cloud the soul’s vision, not for the mere discomfort of an unpleasant thought at night. If you would be rid of these nightly specters, then in the daytime prune away all that feeds them. Do you entertain suspicious thoughts about those you say you love? Do you nurse grudges or rehearse speeches of self-defense? That is the raw material of your troubled sleep. The heart stuffed with excess of earthly cares cannot rest peacefully; its dreams will be full of monstrous visions. But the soul that fasts from such passions, that is clad in virtue and keeps the doors of the senses shut against vain imaginings, lies down in peace and wakens as one already alert.
Pray, then, not merely that these particular dreams be cancelled, but that your whole soul be roused from the lethargy of this life. Beseech God that you may look another way, unto Christ the true Light. Make no provision for the lust of certainty or the lust of unhindered earthly love. Entrust those relationships to God and seek first the kingdom of heaven. When the day dawns and you rise to prayer, shake off the night’s remnants as you would shake off drowsiness, and set about the works of the day: mercy, humility, watching over your own thoughts, and guarding your soul more carefully than you would guard a virgin daughter. For that soul, once defiled by many adulterous thoughts, is not easily cleansed.
If you do this, those dreams will lose their sting. They may come, for the flesh is weak and the mind still drifts, but they will find you armored with the breastplate of faith and love, and with the helmet of the hope of salvation. You will not greet them as messengers of doom but dismiss them as the empty vapor they are. Stand on the rock of the divine promises, not on the shifting sand of your night visions. For what can be more unstable? The same matter appears desirable one moment and fearsome the next, all according to the humors of the body and the wandering of the mind. But he who builds his life on the words of the Lord, watching and sober, will not be moved, either by the dreams of the night or by the trials of the day.
Prayer Focus: God, Thank You for loving me. Thank You for loving me, Jesus. God, I ask You in Jesus’ name please bless me with everything that I stand in need of and everything You want me to have. 
