In the deep watches of the night, prayers are heard. The veil is thin. Note that word “watches”: it reminds one of a watchtower.
We are, or should be, both on our guard against unwelcome nocturnal “visitors” as well as in joyful lookout for holy ones.
“When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches,” says Psalm 63:6.
“Now the watchman was standing on the tower in Jezreel, and he saw the company of Jehu as he came, and said, ‘I see a company,'” says 2 Kings 9:17. “And Joram said, ‘Take a horseman and send him to meet them, and let him say, “Is it peace?”‘
Adds Lamentations 2:19: “Arise, cry aloud in the night. At the beginning of the night watches, pour out your heart like water before the Presence of the Lord.”
Have you not noticed how powerful, how vulnerable, you are in deep slumber?
This makes it doubly important to read Scripture before falling asleep and to seal sleep with prayer and more Scripture (even if only a phrase) when we arise.
For to us all come “strangers in the night.”
Make the song “Jesus in the Night.”
We may have dreams of deceased ones, who seem to connect at that time; we may have dreams of angels; there is the joy of saints; but also, we may have nightmares; we may feel the intrusion of demons. “Pray without ceasing,” advises 1 Thessalonians 5:17.
How many of us suffer insomnia, especially as we grow older?
Some is a simple lack of the hormone melatonin. Often it can be stress. But too, there is the “spirit of insomnia,” and that should be cast out in the Name of Jesus.
Night terrors? Or “tares”?
(“While men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way,” Matthew 13:25.)
The enemy loves to sow confusion, doubt, and fear in our minds. A Scripture in Isaiah 34:14 refers to a “night creature” in Hebrew. When Samson went to sleep, Delilah cut his hair away.
From a purely medical viewpoint, at least thirty percent of people have encountered what’s called sleep paralysis, “when you can’t move any part of your body right before falling asleep or as you wake up,” says the Cleveland Clinic.
“It happens when your body is in between stages of sleep and wakefulness. An episode is temporary and only lasts for a few seconds to a couple of minutes. It’s a type of parasomnia. You’ll likely feel scared or anxious during a sleep paralysis episode. When it ends, you may feel confused because you’ll regain movement of your body as if nothing happened.”
Even secular news outlets have acknowledged, if not from a spiritual perspective, the phenomenon of night terrors—what no less than CNN, in a recent headline, more accurately called “the sleep paralysis demon.”
Recalled one young man who experienced such paralysis and went on to become a major researcher of the phenomenon of his first experience, “I tried to call my mom (and) dad, but no words would emerge from my throat. … I had this ominous presence of a monster, and it lifted my legs up and down. “It strangled me, trying to kill me. And I was one hundred percent sure that I was going to die. It literally feels like all the evil of the universe is condensed into a bubble, and it’s in your bedroom.”
You can’t move your arms or legs, says the clinic. You can’t shout or otherwise speak. There may be sensations of pressure (suffocation) or moving out of your own body. There are “hallucinations, like there’s a dangerous person in your room.”
Hallucinations—or clearer perception through that thinned veil?
For ninety percent of those who hallucinate, the illusions are terrifying. “They can include ghosts or cat- or alien-like creatures, and their actions can be as innocuous as simply approaching them or as nefarious as molesting or trying to kill them,” said the news network.
People living in Egypt and Italy often see witches and evil genies and hold them responsible, fearing they could die from sleep paralysis, says that young man and researcher, Baland Jalal, from Harvard.
People in Denmark, Poland and parts of the United States, on the other hand, have less supernatural or exotic explanations and less fear.
Of course, too, Jalal—who suffers sleep paralysis about twice a year and has since that initial episode at age 19—sees it all as the subconscious swarming into visions and dreams, thoughts bombarding the body as it tries to move but is unable to respond to mental directions.
His theory is “that your brain says, ‘to hell with it’ and concocts a story it thinks your body must be facing to be experiencing such bizarre symptoms,” in the words of the report.
Stress. Sleep deprivation. Jet lag. An irregular sleep schedule. Narcolepsy. Genetic factors.
Yes, how scientists see it. And such factors can figure in.
But curious it is how Christians who have endured such experiences report that the episode ends when, in the watches, they blurt out the Name “Jesus!”
[resources: books on spiritual warfare]