Interpreting Dreams

A friend of mine wrote about an intense dream, which had awakened her during the night and had left her troubled. She openly asked if anyone could understand its meaning. The following was a reply I sent to her.

“I am no interpreter of dreams. But I have a theory that there are various kinds of dreams. There are (rarely) those dreams where God speaks to us about something…like in Daniel and Joseph’s stories in the Bible. I am not sure that I have ever had one of those, and frankly I don’t think I would want to.

But I think that perhaps there is a level of our “self” that almost enters another dimension when we let go in sleep. It is a dimension of ourselves which we are not really in touch with, while awake. And in this dimension we are constantly trying to work out unresolved issues, either from the present or the past in our lives. Mostly it all seems mixed together, because in the spirit there really is no “time” as we know it. It is all a present “now”. So these dreams are trying to help us resolve things. I think these make up the vast majority of dreaming.

Then there are the dreams of things we are afraid of. These are probably areas we need to take to God and deal with the fears in order to try to find the reason/solution and rid ourselves of these fears.

Regarding the “time” thing mentioned above…it is really nothing weird. In fact, it is very scientific. One of the discoveries of Einstein’s work regarding “Relativity” proved that if we go faster than the speed of light, there is no time. It is an eternal “now”. (The spirit realm is in that “now”.) That is why God says He “knows the end from the beginning”, and He calls Himself the “I AM”, or “the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.”. It is as though we were in this great “book (like a biography) of time which is sequential from our vantage point, but God is the reader…outside the book so to speak. A reader can open the book at any place and see what happens at that place. God is able to do that with all of known history. Does that mean He “causes” all of our personal decisions to happen in certain ways? I don’t think so. Because too many things have happened, throughout our lives, that displeased Him and have broken His laws. But He is able to see it all as an ever present “now”.

When we enter that “no time zone” to any degree in our dreams, it all gets jumbled together. And we can find ourselves trying to resolve unresolved issues and relationships.”

She then expressed how she sometimes wonders if God is not trying to prepare her for the possibility that “her time here is shorter than (she) thinks.”

I replied: “I wouldn’t dwell on that. I think this is one of your fears. And I don’t see anything in your dream of last night that would indicate that. I think it is “unfinished business” and a feeling that you are in situations where you are out of control. From what I know of you, you seem to be a person who truly wants to be in control of her own life as much as is possible. (There is nothing wrong with that) So this “out of control” feeling is terrifying to you. Perhaps these particular persons in your dream all represent a measure of control that you have had to struggle to maintain.

Maybe a definite act in prayer, of giving all these areas of control over to God (which is in essence not just YOU letting go, but it is also taking it out of other people’s hands)…will bring a sense of relief. If God is in control, you have nothing to fear. But know that He is not a God who demands or enforces control. That would mess with our free will. But when we offer it up to Him, we can then let go and experience the resultant peace.”

I may be way off base, but these were my thoughts.