A practitioner asks: “Creator, I have a well-crafted prayer I use every night for a protected night’s sleep. I also add that all prayers be extended to all timelines and to get divine protection for my dreams. I am still having some dark dreams that seem to be a manipulation of some kind and not divine. What am I missing in my prayer?” What can we tell her?

We think your prayer construct is sound and effective but prayer is not an impenetrable shield nor an instant answer that can make things perfect. A prayer is a request and whether that can be answered will be variable depending on many, many factors in play, primarily your own energies that can make you vulnerable and even block divine intervention on your behalf if you undermine yourself too greatly. We certainly cannot make your life experience perfect given you are in a very difficult arena with many sources of stress that are unavoidable. The art of living is maintaining composure and inner strength and resolve so you can stand strong so as not to be blown about by the winds of change. Having a bad dream is part of being human and a normal way of processing negative emotional experiences, including the ruminations of the subconscious, because it will worry about what is happening and what might happen based on all it knows. Much of those ruminations becomes fodder for dream material including nightmares. While unpleasant, they can provide a useful outlet for releasing negativity. It is also the case that all people have unhealed karmic negativity from past trauma, and that can bleed into the current life to stir things up and be a source of concern as well. Many unpleasant dreams seem to come out of nowhere and that is because they are coming in through the deep subconscious and not perceptible to the conscious self. That does not mean something is wrong or flawed within you or that your prayers are not working. There will be bumps in the road along the way, so you can expect negative things to happen, it does not need to be a cause of further worry and concern, especially if you simply apply new prayer work and healing requests with the protocols for any signs of negativity that are troubling. It is better to be safe than sorry, and healing always has value.