Concerning Dreams

S. SEKOU ABODUNRIN

When we speak of our dreams, we often speak of our pursuits, goals and deep-seated aspirations. This is not the sense in which we are considering dreams in this article. We are examining dreams and referring to the images and emotions that occur during our sleep.

The guy who lives for 90 years, and sleeps 8 hours daily, if all his sleep hours were aggregated into one lump, he will have slept 30 years at a stretch!

This is true irrespective of your religious bias.

For 99.9% of Christians who fit the profile above, it is not only true that we sleep away the equivalent of 30 years at a stretch, but equally more baffling is the fact that the stuff that constitutes our dream life is shrouded in mystery and most of us never make any meaning of it from birth till death.

Sleep researchers tell us that a typical night of sleep follows a pattern of drowsiness where our eyes move slowly, followed by light sleep where our eyes stop moving, and then deep sleep when our immunity increases and finally REM sleep where we have rapid eye movements and the body behaves as if we are awake! This cycle occurs at least 3 times each night. (* REM means rapid eye movements)

The reason for the rapid eye movements while dreaming is because though closed in sleep our eyes are seeing something. They are focusing as they would if we were watching a movie.

Sleep Researchers and Scientists have found that we dream during REM sleep. They have discovered that depriving people of REM sleep affects their entire body’s immunity, creativity and mental balance. This means that not only is sleep a necessity, what sleep researchers call REM sleep is important for man’s psychological well being. It is a fact that you cannot tell the difference from afar between a man who is drink driving and another who is driving while sleep deprived for they are both accident-prone!

It is said that if REM sleep is disrupted one night, our bodies will experience more REM sleep the next time we sleep in order to catch up.

The word of God has vital information for us concerning dreams and we need not be baffled as to its purpose. God’s word will dispel any fears  that we have in this area. Firstly, I must remind you that we do not base our lives on dreams – We base our lives on the word of God. There is nothing that remains a mystery when exposed to the light of God’s word. If you are not full of the word you are full of the wrong stuff. I encourage you not  to subscribe to the superstitious stuff most people believe and teach when it comes to dreams, for there is no word basis for the things believed.

There is no use responding to a dream that contradicts the word of God no matter how enticing its message nor does it matter how many ‘prophets’ confirm it to you.

¹⁴ For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not.

¹⁵ In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed;

¹⁶ Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction,

¹⁷ That he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man.

¹⁸ He keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword                                                                    Job 33:14-18

We all dream. Many who think that they do not dream have really forgotten the dream.

In starting I must stress that not all dreams are divine in origin. It will take all the maturity at your disposal to be able to distinguish between a dream from God, a dream from your daily tasks and a dream that is really a demonic intrusion. The word of God will supply you with this maturity and wisdom – nothing else will.

When you walk in the word you are cleansed from the debris that the enemy uses as a handle into the dream life. This means that as we walk in the word most of our dreams will be from God or from ourselves as a result of our daily experience. Your greatest task then becomes distinguishing between when God is speaking through your dreams and when it is your inner man communicating stuff to you (see Ecclesiastes 5:3). Do not be confused about the fact that the spirit of man is also capable of picking up and transmitting spiritual communication. You see, your spirit is also aware of things that pertain to you and is therefore capable of communicating them to you.

There is a thin line between a vision and a dream asides the fact that you only experience dreams when you sleep otherwise the two experiences are similar. More properly the type of dream spoken of in this passage is a vision of the night. It was only called a vision of the night because in bible times, societies were structured such that those that work do so during the day while they sleep at night. In our day the lines are blurred and for a doctor who works overnight his dreams will most likely be “visions of day”.

For example the dreams of Daniel are not direct dreams but parabolic. He saw animals in his dream and by interpretation we know that these were not dreams instructing him to become a game warden or to get into the animal trade. The dreams were about kingdoms. Therefore in those dreams the animals were symbolic of kingdoms. (See Daniel 7)

Through those dreams the Lord was showing Daniel the destiny of certain nations. You do not need to bother yourself as to whether your dreams are about the destiny of nations though. This is because God will speak to you about nations if you have a ministry to nations. God speaks to you within your sphere of influence.

Joseph, who was the husband of Mary, had different instances in scripture where his dreams are recorded. Many of his dreams included reference to angels. This was not symbolic. They were actual angels that ministered to him in his dream. The information conveyed to him through the ministry of angels in his dreams was to be obeyed. His dreams were direct dreams.

If Joseph had been careless with dreams the whole of the New Testament would have been written differently!

I want you to notice that it would have been counterproductive for Daniel to receive his dreams as direct dreams just as it would have been foolish for Joseph to copy Daniel and assume that his dreams were symbolic. Thus it takes great scriptural maturity to understand dreams.

In the bible we see three types of dreams – The direct dream, which means exactly what it says, the parabolic dream, which uses one thing to represent another, and the third type, which conveys a message.

As far as God is concerned, man is still fully human whether asleep or awake and he communicates with us as he deems fit. God does hold us accountable whether we disregard our dreams or follow through intelligently to obtain the meaning and its message if any. Some folks are of the opinion that any message received through a dream absolves them of their responsibility to follow through. This is myth. Solomon’s encounter with God where he was asked to request for anything happened in a dream – it changed his life forever.

It appears that God does not use dreams as the primary way to get through to man. Most men are extremely busy in their whole being all through the day. We are mostly busy focusing on things that draw us away from sensitivity to God therefore we do not perceive as we should.

When we fall asleep, our conscious mind is no longer in charge. When the sleep cycle gets past the deep sleep stage, we have different things dropped into our dream life. Don’t forget that dreams have different sources. I am merely concentrating on the one that any smart word-taught fellow ought to concentrate on – dreams that are not a result of demonic intrusion.

In Job 33 we have the record of a discussion between Job and Elihu one of Job’s four friends.

¹⁴ For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not.

¹⁵ In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed;

¹⁶ Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction,                         Job 33:14-16

It seems that from the word of God, Elihu is instructing us about a significant fact – When God speaks to us through our dreams, he is communicating to us information that we have missed as we went about the stuff of everyday life. God’s primal method of communicating instructions to us is not through dreams. As we get into our busy schedules, our conscious mind tuned us off such that we did not pick up the information that God was transmitting to us and so there is a repeat transmission of sorts when we are asleep. God is making it hard for us to fail. We actually dismantle a lot of blocks that God puts in our path before  we manage to fail!

The bible tells us about one of the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar and how Daniel was used to bring forth a correct interpretation of this dream.

²⁸ But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these;

²⁹ As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter: and he that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to pass.

³⁰ But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but for their sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king, and that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart.

³¹ Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible.

³² This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,

³³ His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.

³⁴ Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.

³⁵ Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.

³⁶ This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king.

³⁷ Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory.

³⁸ And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold.                                                                                          Daniel 2:28-38

Nebuchadnezzar forgot his own dream (Hmm this means that you are not the only one that forgets his dreams). This king is tenacious. He is not frivolous with spiritual things, he pressed on till he got his dream and its interpretation.

If you study this out carefully you find that God caused Daniel to sleep and during Daniel’s REM sleep while Daniel was dreaming God gave Daniel a dream to know Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and then another dream to interpret it! This is proper Hollywood stuff. (See Daniel 2.19)

Now we learn that the fact that you dream does not mean that you know its interpretation! It is one thing to dream and a totally different thing to obtain its interpretation. The truth is that most of us don’t have a trouble dreaming – the challenge is in failing to see that dreams need to be interpreted correctly. If God gives you a dream, only he can give you the interpretation. In the New Covenant, you don’t call the psychic hotline to obtain interpretation to your dream – you yield to the spirit of wisdom and revelation. The more you pray the Pauline prayers the easier it will be to interpret you own dream!

Here is another fact – Nebuchadnezzar saw a great image with a head of gold. So, Nebuchadnezzar was there and so was the head of gold. According to Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar was the head of gold. Said differently, Nebuchadnezzar did not see Nebuchadnezzar as himself in this dream yet he was there. He was the head of gold!

Do not forget this fact.

You will be equally amazed how your dreams often speak to you about you. The trouble is many superstitious Christians think that they are seeing their Mother-in-Law chasing them in their dream and so conclude – My mother-in-law is a …..

Let me assure you that God is not in the habit of only discussing other people with you either when you are consciously awake or when asleep. In reality most of the things he tells you is to the effect that you might transform. Many people loose sight of this fact and they succumb to the cheap idea that all their dreams are about other people.

Except as he ministers through you to others, God will mostly speak to you about you. Thus your dream life, if it conveys any message at all from God, will mostly be about you and not about others

To be continued …

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