Basics of Christian Dream Interpretation - Part 1

"For God may speak in one way or in another, yet man does not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, while slumbering on their beds, then He opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction."
                                                                         Job 33:14-16

The premise of this blog is that God can and will talk to us through our dreams - if we pay attention. How do we know if a dream is from God? First of all, we have to be able to remember some part of it. If all you remember is sketchy, mumbo-jumbo that fades within minutes of waking - then I believe it is safe to assume that was not a "God" dream. I believe that one reason God will communicate with us at night is because that is the only time we are not consumed with doing something else. He can actually get through to us then - if we allow Him.

We tend to be so busy during the day and evening hours. Many of us are addicted to noise and sound. We always have the TV, music, radio, computer or video games going. How are we supposed to hear from God with all that racket? I'm not just preaching to you, I was the worse offender for many years. That's another story. But, I finally learned to keep all of that to a minimum, except my praise and worship music and videos. When I did that, the spiritual atmosphere in my home and car totally changed. It's a decision I have to make every day. I can easily be pulled into watching TV, hour after hour, or mindlessly surfing the web for an entire evening.

Even harmless things like watching funny animal videos can be a distraction. Then, at some point, I find myself too tired to read my Bible or have any meaningful time with God. We all need some down time. That's not what I'm talking about. But, we also need to have some discipline in our lives to do those things that are most important and beneficial to us. Same thing with exercise....I know, you don't want to go there. Let's get back to dreams.

For a Christian, a dream is likely from God, when it is vivid and clear enough that you remember all, or most of it -  with some details. We've all had dreams like that, but most people don't realize God is trying to tell them something. I believe that for most Christians, the dreams will be fairly simple and not very complex. I'm giving general rules here. There are always exceptions. 

When is a dream not from God? Usually, when you wake up terrified, as with a nightmare. Again, there can be exceptions, but in general, those type dreams come from the enemy, who wants to torment you. I suffered from those dreams from early childhood until about 7 years ago, when I finally found out how to get rid of them. Almost every night, I had nightmares. Now, I have only had maybe 2 or 3 in the past 7 years! I will cover that in one of the upcoming posts.

So, what does all this crazy stuff mean that I dream about? Again, keeping the biblical perspective, I would tell you to always look for symbolism that God used in the Bible. That assumes, as a Christian you know at least a little about your Bible. Let me give you some common examples. Think of the different analogies that Jesus, Luke and Paul used in describing the Holy Spirit. Water, fire, wind and wine can all be symbolic of the Holy Spirit. For example, I recently had a simple dream in which I saw a swimming pool. I love to swim. So, I jumped right in and tried to swim. Once in the pool, I realized it didn't have enough water in it to swim. The water only came up to about my knees. Then I woke up.

There are three very important things to do, if you want to hear from God in your dreams. First, if you are not already hearing from God at night, tell Him you want to. I assure you, He will be very pleased and will start giving you spiritual dreams from Him. Secondly, you must record them as soon as you can, before you forget it. Next, it is very important to ASK God what the dream means. It is from Him and He wants you to know something. It is so easy to just start guessing and maybe going down the wrong trail. Ask Him! And then start listening to your thoughts.

So, I asked the Holy Spirit to reveal to me the meaning of this dream. He quickly reminded me of the Living Water mentioned in both the Old and New Testaments. The interpretation was that I was trying to do a project without being filled with the Holy Spirit. I did have "some of the spirit" in me. But, I was also just going off on my own, like I am sometimes prone to doing. This ususally gives me less than  the desired results.

Important question - how did I know I had the "correct" interpretation of the dream? After asking the Holy Spirit for the correct answer, I pondered several possibilities. When I got to the one about the water symbolizing the Holy Spirit, something deep in my spirit "leapt" and I knew it was right. I learned this from Mark Virkler, who has taught me many wonderful things over the last few years. He has books, DVDs and conferences on several topics, including Christian dream interpretation and "How to hear from God".  His web site is http://www.cwgministries.org/.

I have seen this happen many times when I tried to help people understand their dreams. When you finally hit on the right answer, they will know it. If you are a Christian, you just have to try this and you will see what I mean. I wanted to give one other dream example, but this post is already getting long. So, I will save it for the next one, which I will post in the next 2-3 days. Until then,

Sweet dreams,
Melody