The Barrel I Can't Ignore

I had a dream two nights ago.  It was an intense dream.  I spent yesterday mentally trying to unpack it while simultaneously trying to ignore it. My brain fights itself like that often.

In my dream I was back in my early childhood home.  The first one that I can remember living in.  It really was nothing like that first home, but in my dream that is where I was.  I was an adult in the dream. I was in my bedroom trying to make it nicer.  There was a large barrel like a rain barrel in there.  It was filled with mucky water, smelly water.

I emptied the barrel and moved it over to a corner of the room.  The room already felt better.  Then I decided that I should move that barrel out completely so I put it out back in a shed.

When I looked out the window towards the shed the barrel was glowing and lighting up the whole shed.

Someone told me that I needed to go out there and deal with that barrel, see what was in it.

I told them, "No way! Out of sight out of mind, I am not going to deal with that. It can just stay in that old shed."

The next thing I knew the barrel had moved into my living room where it could no longer be avoided.

A mist was rising from it and it had a glow coming from within it.

It's presence was not welcoming.  It was an evil presence.

I stood across the room from it. I stood there casting out the presence inside that barrel in the name of Jesus and by the blood of the Lamb.  It wasn't working.  I was too far away.

I walked up closer to it. I looked inside and it was swirling, like a portal.  I put my hand inside and the presence above it grabbed me, trying to pull me in.

My sister was there with me.  I called for her to help me.  She walked towards me and then froze, face down unable to help.

I was telling her to say the words, cast it out.  As I was speaking my words were unable to come out well.  My speech slowed, my mouth would not work right, everything was slurred and took extreme effort to say. She was frozen and I could not speak.

Then I woke up.


Unsettling.


I know what the barrel is.  I know what the dream is telling me, but
I really just want to leave that barrel in the shed. Out of sight out of mind. I really don't want to have to enter the barrel and deal with it.
Alone.