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I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me (Psalm 3:5, ESV).
We all dream both good and bad dreams. We feel blessed and euphoric from some dreams, and then we have a nightmare. Can we make sense of our dreams? What does the Bible teach about dreams?
The Bible mentions dreams about 100 times, with most of these from the Old Testament (OT), but this preponderance of mentions in the OT doesn’t eliminate dreams today. As Peter said in Acts 2:17 (NIV) while preaching about the end times, “Your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams.”
Dreams can be a rubbish removal system of negative thoughts or the rearrangement of memories (good and bad) for future use.
Memories aren’t stored in an alphabetized cerebral filing cabinet but scattered helter-skelter in bytes of memory throughout the brain. A dream can act like a mad scientist pulling this and that memory with no seeming connection — in one dream, we can see our high school sweetheart, then be sitting on a beach watching sharks chase seals, with our children in the distance skiing at a snow resort in Vail, Colorado.
Unusual dreams can be our brains cleansing and restoring, putting things back in place — like a good spring cleaning. But they can be more than that, too — a place of spiritual revelation and perception.
We know God spoke through dreams to saints like Solomon (1 Kings 3:5) or with a Macedonian appearing to Paul at night, asking him to come preach the Gospel in Macedonia (Acts 16:9-10). And the Psalms indicate that dreams can be battles fought in our sleep…
In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, O Lord, will keep me safe (Psalm 4:8, NLT).
His faithfulness is a shield and buckler. You will not fear the terror of the night (Psalm 91:4b-5a, ESV).
Though dreams act as veins flushing the bad from our psyche, they also provide a strategic battleground between good and evil. With the normal constraints of consciousness removed, our dreams can serve evil or godly purposes, where we illicitly enjoy or fight against sensual pleasure, experience godly or selfish ambitions, confront angels and demons, and tangle with false prophecies or godly visions.
In the entire Bible, the Book of Job provides the best description of God’s purpose for dreaming…
For God speaks again and again, though people do not recognize it. He speaks in dreams, in visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on people as they lie in their beds. He whispers in their ears and terrifies them with warnings. He makes them turn from doing wrong; he keeps them from pride. He protects them from the grave, from crossing over the river of death (Job 33:14-18, NLT),
God gives dreams to warn and protect. In these last days, let’s dream heaven sent dreams.
Amen!