If you have ever woken up from a dream and thought, "Wait a minute, I think there is more to this," there probably is.
Eighteen years ago, I had a recurring dream. Three nights in a row, the same exact dream. God got my attention...I felt like He was telling me this was Him, and that He wanted me to see something.
That dream started me on a journey of learning to understand and interpret the God dreams he sends me…
In last week's article I shared the biblical proof that God speaks in dreams, and some practical things you can do to start understanding them and capturing what God is saying to you.
This week, I want to go deeper on how I interpret dreams and share some of the things that have helped me get good at this over the years.
One of the first things I learned is that sometimes it is very clear what God is saying. But most of the time, he gives us clues, puzzle pieces, little bits and pieces that he wants us to explore and search out with him.
I needed to understand that recurring dream, so I started searching for biblical dream teachers. I found a man named John Paul Jackson.
He has since passed away, but was a prophetic teacher and master in this area. He had a lot of curriculum about biblically based dream interpretation. His course was one of the first courses I ever bought to learn something.
One of the books in his program was called, Top 20 Dreams.
Oh my goodness, it's a great little book to get you started. It has 20 short chapters that highlight the meaning of some of the most common dreams people have, like seeing deceased loved ones, flying, falling, being naked in public, going to the bathroom…then he gives you a powerful call-to-action for what to do with your dreams.
For example, one of the most common dreams is about teeth. If you dream about teeth…think of wisdom teeth as discernment, right?
So if you dream about a tooth being loose, painful, broken, chipped or falling out, then it usually indicates a loss of something or growing inability to understand and discern things.
So a call to action in this case could be to pray and ask God to reveal to you what you are not understanding, and then help you see what is blocking you from being able to discern it.
Good biblical resources like this can be very helpful when you're just starting to learn how to interpret your dreams, but most of the time God speaks to us in ways that are individualized and meaningful to us personally.
This is why I always say, you yourself, with the Holy Spirit, are the best interpreter for your dreams.
Learn to use the books and tools, if you want to…but process it and search it out with the Holy Spirit, because he is the only one who can reveal what God is really saying to you.
I love to process my dreams with him.
For me, the most popular dreams I have are pregnancy dreams, and vehicles. A vehicle dream is a huge one for me. It usually represents something to do with life purpose, business, or ministry. Right?
Anytime I have a dream, I start by asking, "God, Is this you? Are you trying to tell me something?"
Once I know it's a God dream, then I look at the content of the dream to find the clues.
The way we do this is by asking some basic questions, like…
Who is the primary person in the dream? Are you in the dream? Where are you? Are you "in body" participating in the dream or are you watching the dream like you're "out of body?"
Who else is in the dream? What is their relationship to you? What are you doing?
This gives you clarity on what the dream is about so you can put the clues all together and look for the message that God is wanting to communicate to you.
For example, when I have vehicle dreams, I might process them with questions like…
What kind of vehicle is it? A car, a big truck, a bicycle, a boat, a plane? This can give you hints as to what area of your life the vehicle represents.
Who is the driver? Because the person driving is the one in control.
Where are you going? That may tell you the domain the dream is referencing.
Who is with you? This lets you know who is involved, influencing or affected by what's happening.
How are you feeling? Are you joyful, afraid, anxious, sad, confused, confident, searching for something?
Is something happening with the vehicle? Is it falling, spinning out of control, driving fast, or at a stand still?
The answers to the questions you ask are your clues, your puzzle pieces.
And as you look at all the pieces, wow…it's like everything starts coming together to form a picture that makes sense.
I believe dreams are one of the most beautiful ways God speaks to us, and it's our joy to search out what they mean.
Interpreting your dreams doesn't have to be complicated, it can be simple and fun when you do it with Holy Spirit.
Use tools and resources to help you, but remember you and the Holy Spirit together are the best interpreters for your dreams you'll ever find.
I've been teaching this inside of our Kingdom Seekers mentorship program, and next week we'll be doing dream shares where I will help guide some of our members through questions to help them process their God dreams live on the call. It's going to be fun.