Dreams: Your Spirit's Dais

My son has been studying dreams in his psychology class. Not only has he learned that sleep is "periodic, natural, reversible loss of consciousness," (I love that definition!), but he has also read that dreams represent our brains' attempts to make sense of random neural firings. Yes, we have heard that before from the character Graham in Mel Gibson's Signs, a naturalistic, hope-deprived view that he outgrows by the end of the movie.

Any Christian who has ever received a revelation, understanding, or encouragement from a dream must wonder, "Was God speaking to me through that dream?" We have multiple examples in Scripture of God doing just that. Was that only something God did during Bible times, or does He still communicate with His people that way?

The prophet Joel and the Apostle Peter predicted that God speaking through dreams would be a sign of the last days (Acts 2:17), although perhaps only if you are one of the "old men." We've been in "the last days" since Peter's time, but perhaps these signs will be getting more and more common as we get closer and closer to Christ's return.

Sometimes you might wake up from a dream with a clearer understanding of yourself and some emotional issue you have been dealing with. You may not even recall the events of the dream very fully, but you suddenly have a grasp on the emotional reality of the situation you've been involved with that you didn't have before. As I've thought about these instances, I've wrestled with whether they were direct revelations from the Lord, or whether they were something else.

It has occurred to me that my dreams may be the playground, the stage, or the dais for my spirit. During sleep, my body is somewhat inactive, and my conscious mind is out of the way. All the distractions that usually keep my spirit under wraps and stifled have been removed. My spirit, however, is awake and as active as ever. Perhaps my spirit broods over my brain cells, causing some of them to fire in a way that can send a message to my mind. Or perhaps there is a random physiological process that my spirit strings together creatively to send the particular message it wants to relay to my mind.

Either way, whether a dream is from the Lord or the creative declamation of my spirit, it is certainly worth my attention.

Not all dreams are the same. Some you wake up and brush off like so much lint or cat hair. But some stay with you and touch something deep inside. Those I like to ponder. Whether they represent a word from the Lord, or a word from my spirit (which, after all, is created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness, according to Ephesians 4:24), I can use them to improve my relationships, my understanding, and my service for the Lord.