Understanding Your Dreams: Finding the Focus

Posted on by Jennifer Arimborgo

Old Treasures on Tuesdays 👑

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“‘We both had dreams,’ they answered, ‘but there is no one to interpret them.’ Then Joseph said to them, ‘Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams’” (Gen. 40:8, NIV).

Today we continue unpacking the “how” of dream interpretation. If you are just now joining us, you can find the beginning of this series here.

20) Don’t include every detail from your dream in your list of symbols. At least not initially. If you do so, you may become bogged down, lost in the forest so to speak. What you need is to get a sense of the big picture, as opposed to studying the bark on every tree. As you start out on the process of seeking the interpretation, only include the imagery from your dream that sticks out the most. Remember, each image is a symbol. Each symbol means something. However, only a few symbols will be necessary to grasping the main point that Holy Spirit is making. Once He shows you what those main symbols are, you are out to a great start.

This is similar to the concept of writing an outline for a paper. You first need to identify the central concepts. Later on, you can zero in on smaller details and specifics, fleshing out the fuller meaning of each part of your dream. However, if you get ahead of yourself in this process, it will be much harder to find the dream’s focus. Find the focus, or the main point, first. You should be able to sum up Holy Spirit’s message in just one or two sentences.

21) Think about what each symbol means to you personally. Holy Spirit will pull from your own life experience and your own heart language as He crafts your dreams. When Jesus used parables to teach spiritual lessons to the crowds, He chose imagery familiar to them. He wanted them to be able to relate to what He was describing, so He spoke of harvests, rulers, servants, and sheep; all components of their daily living. He will do the same for you in the night parables that He imparts to you as you sleep. He wants to make them very relatable for you.

Here are some examples. For someone who loves to knit or weave, He might use yarn and needles as a symbol of His artful work in their life. A mail carrier might see letters and packages often in his/her dreams. An athlete might dream of marathons or sports matches, each one with an important message from God incorporated into the plot.

So, contemplate the main pictures that jump out to you as you reflect on your dream. Do they have a unique meaning to you as an individual?

23) Avoid linear thinking as you seek God for the interpretation. Dream language is not logical nor categorical. The components of your dream will not fit into neat boxes. Holy Spirit has no problem mixing metaphors in seemingly bizarre ways. His aim is more to communicate a strong overall impression through a picture, than to assign a specific, systematic meaning to every little facet of that picture.

This is why we need a spirit of revelation from God, to be able to decode His mysterious night messages. “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:14, NIV). Truly, the enigmatic pictures God uses in His dream concoctions often may seem like foolishness if we approach them from a natural perspective; that of our own human understanding. We can only discern their true meaning through the Spirit that God has given to live inside of us.

The preceding verse sums up dream interpretation nicely: “This is what we spak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words” (1 Cor. 2:13, NIV). Human wisdom will not get us anywhere truly meaningful as we contemplate our dreams. The wonderful news is, God gives His Spirit without measure. As we ask Him to explain His spiritual realities to us, His Spirit-taught words will begin to flow through our spirits and illuminate our understanding with real messages from Heaven!

Stay tuned next Tuesday for more specifics on understanding dream symbols!

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How comfortable are you with embracing the non-linear symbolism that appears in your dreams?

 

12 thoughts on “Understanding Your Dreams: Finding the Focus”

  1. I love your expression “night parables.” And your good advice to get the main idea first. I used to keep a dream diary, and there were so many details – colors, numbers, objects, etc. – I could spend an hour every morning writing down my dreams and what they meant. I’ve remembered much fewer dreams since asking the Lord to help me remember ONLY the important ones.

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    1. Thank you, Annie! Sounds like He definitely answered that prayer. I’m curious if you still keep a diary of the ones He does bring to your memory? (Catching up on my blog comments now that we finished hosting four summer missions teams in a row!)

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      2. Thank you so much for the link, I look forward to reading it! Thank you also for answering my question and my curious nature hehe.

        Yep! Actually, it was five this summer but we had a couple weeks between the first and second teams so it was like one plus four in a row, followed by a three week visit from my oldest daughter. She just left back to the U.S. on Friday so I’m back to catching up on everything again. It’s all been truly delightful, my heart is full!

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  2. Jennifer, you really caught the essence of dream interpretation. What does the is thing or whatever me and what revelation does the Holy Spirit want to bring? It goes so much easier when we let the Holy Spirit, interpret the dream!

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  3. Hello, this is a powerful topic that i am glad you wrote about.

    Ive always thought to myselgmyself that it wasnt difficult to imterpret the dreams i was having. Especially if you pay attention to meanings and are able to connect the dots.

    But here are some things i never connected:

    Dreams is a bad word, bad term to describe what they are. Why? Because dreams, is imaginary, yes they may contain meaning and direction for our lives but the dream itself is fiction,imaginary.

    Right?

    Wrong! Yes some dreams are just that, fiction, or meaningless leftovers from the horror movie we watched before going to bed, but what i would like your audience to know is-

    Not all dreams are dreams. Our spirits never sleep. We REST. Our bodies REST. So what happens to our spirits? I dont know, i dont have all the answrs. But what i do know is – thats why its extrrmely important to pray before going to bed and ask God to watch over your spirit. Like Christ as He committed his spirit to God before departing.

    When we lay down to rest, our spirit is awake , we are in a vulnrrable state, the enemy knows this and seeks to exploit our lack of knowledge.

    “Lets attack em! Besides they will wake up and dismiss everything as a bad dream.”

    But some dreams are NO DREAM. Its the spirits or minds interpretation of what is actually transpiring in the material world as we sleep. I had to, was forced to learn this the hard way. For a certain period of time i was being chased by family members in my dreams. Old buildings, i would hide, they woukd call my name..as i grew more aware, i could also remember more, in one occasion i saw a hand with rancid looking cat food. I was being fed this nastiness. During this time and before ever seeing this hand, i had been experiencing bloating, inflammation, and the worst foul smelling gas possible.

    I had no clue what was going on. I write all this to encourage all of you, no matter how good you think you are at interpreting yourself, even with Holy Spirits help, there is always someone closer to God than you, and with experience you dont have. Ask someone, share..dont think you understand everything. I had to, be enlightened. And now im sharing it with you all.

    See my dear brothers and sisters, my mind could not reconcile how being fed in a dream, that nasty food, how that food would crosd over and i would wake up with it in my belly. From dream to reality? How the hell is this happening? My mind simply could not grasp what was right in front of it- some dreams ARENT DREAMS AT ALL..THE EVENTS ARE HAPPENING AS YOU ‘DREAM THEM’.

    GOD BLESS

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    1. Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment and sharing, Ben. What you wrote here brings to mind the biblical term, “visions of the night,” which I believe are distinct from dreams. I absolutely agree that oftentimes, what we see in our dreams is our spirits picking up on what is actually happening around us. I have a good friend who has often fought spiritual battles, and won, in her dreams. I have a strong understanding in my spirit that those are not imaginary battles, but real ones of real importance.

      Also I am reminded of the verse from Song of Songs, ‘I slept, but my heart was awake.” I absolutely love how you brought in Jesus’ prayer when He committed His spirit to the Father. I am going to try that out! Of course I have learned over the years to pray over my sleep, but that particular verse is SUCH a good one for this application!

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  4. Jennifer,

    I apologize for the graphic details, but its a topic that our christian body do not know enough about. Which is why we are easy targets, how can we defend against what we cant see or even know what is happening. Spiritual attacks are real, and this is one area that many many folks are exploited. Which is why i shared. God bless.

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