I was going through a spiritual crisis. My orthodox exoteric Christianity was crumbling. I was a mess. I was losing my faith, as I understood it at the time. I was plagued by nightmares with a recurrent theme - chased by dogs.

But I couldn't stop believing...I felt trapped. Until one day in anguish I actually prayed to God to let me go, to let me stop believing. Paradoxical, I know.

Then I had a dream. My wife and I were being chased down a long hallway by dogs, and we tried to hide from them in a room at the end of the hallway. The dogs were just outside the door...I could see their shadows through the key hole.

Then I saw through the key hole a HUGE man walking down the seemingly infinite hallway toward us. He seemed to fill the entire hall, and he was muscle-bound. He seemed to radiate power. He had slightly dark skin, black hair, and a thin black beard. I got an Arabic impression. He walked up to the dogs and placed a bowl of dog food on the floor in front of them...all the while staring straight into my eyes. His eyes glowed. The dogs ate, and then I woke up.

Shortly after this dream, I got turned on to the works of Joseph Campbell by a friend of my wife. I watched The Power of Myth series, and it truly liberated by faith. It allowed me to transcend it and transform it...free it from the cultural and temporal chains that were trapping it. And I knew as I watched that this was the bowl of wisdom that fed the dogs, and I wept with relief and liberation. Since then I haven't had the recurring nightmares