January 6, 2009 10:26 a.m.
Let’s take the level of disclosure a notch deeper. Some time ago I was considering sleep and wondering if the time could be used more productively. I sometimes dream that I am working only to wake and find that I have accomplished nothing. The first step in this process would be to gain the ability to control dreams thus using the time to meditate, pray, consider decisions etc.

I once experienced the ability to control a dream and enjoyed a great vacation and conversation and awoke totally refreshed and happy. On another occasion toward the end of a block-buster dream I heard this interjection, “The plot line is running a little thin.”

In experimenting with the distinctions between a free-floating-dream-creator and an analytical-director as well as a moral-supervisor, I discovered that there were 3 parts of the brain each of which remained active or lay dormant during sleep.

These functions or “brains” roughly equate to Freud’s Id, Ego and Super Ego. Id the animal, Ego the moral store-house and preacher of beliefs and the Super Ego the analytical, ontological brain that seeks to arrive at conclusions to store in the Ego.

In discussing this, Theresa and I came across one more function or brain and I’m not sure where Freud puts this one, but we saw the function of religious intuition and mysticism that in the absence of reason or moral or instinct would make up stuff about God because hope demanded it.

I’ll save that one for later and speak to the animal the moral storehouse and the analyzer for now. Theses three brains can all be viewed in Psalm 42:5 which Martin Lloyd Jones wrote on in “Spiritual Depression”.

Ps 42:5 Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.

“Why are you downcast”
Here we see the analyzer talking to the animal trying to figure him out. There is an instinctive response to sustained feelings of bereavement tied to actual loss which causes the animal to withdraw and lick his wounds as it were.

The analyzer seeks to understand so that reason and right may prevail. Then the preacher from the moral storehouse joins in unison with the analyzer to encourage the animal…
“Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.”

The combined message from the analyzer and the preacher is this: "God’s praiseworthiness outweighs the reasons for despair, so decide now rather than later to respond to this truth."

Having all three of these functions working in unison is the key to how God shapes our desires and our emotions to honour him. When one breaks away there is internal strife, doubt and despair, thus… Ps 86:11 Give me an undivided heart.

I’ll write more on spiritual warfare on these three battle fronts next time.