Thoughts & Insight on Dreams & Visions

[All4HISglory]

Hey everyone.

So I've been thinking about a few things lately regarding the differences between visions and dreams. I wanted to ask a few questions.

1. In your opinion why are the clear differences between visions and dreams (other then the being awake and asleep)?
2. What are some of your experiences with visions?
3. What are some if your experiences with dreams?
4. Is there a general theme with your own dreams?
5. How often o you interpret other peoples dreams and do you interpret your own?
6. When do you know it's a God given dream or vision vs. your own carnal mind?
7. Have you ever been uneasy providing the interpretation to someone?
8. Do you always share the interpretation with the dreamer?

Just a few questions that I would like to use to provoke dialogue and hopefully provide a bet of clarity between what I deal with and what others may deal with.

~For Your glory Lord {iPad}

 

[paul1149]

All4,

I'm not sure of the asleep/wakefulness distinction, as I had a vision once just as I fell asleep. I think the critical parameter is literalness. Dreams use more symbolism, visions are more literal. But I'm not perfectly clear on the whole thing.

Spritual v soulical dreaming is something I grapple with. I generally think there can be value to soulical dreams though, if we take them as indicators of what's going on under the hood and then seek how God would have us respond. Here I like Paul's guidance:

Always be joyful.
Continually be prayerful.
In everything be thankful, because this is God’s will for you in the Messiah Jesus.
Do not put out the Spirit’s fire.
Do not despise prophecies.
Instead, test everything. Hold on to what is good.
Keep away from every kind of evil.
May the God of peace himself make you holy in every way. And may your whole being—spirit, soul, and body—remain blameless when our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, appears.
The one who calls you is faithful, and he will continue to be faithful. -1Thess 5:16-24​

I have dreams often, but they and their importance comes and goes in seasons. I have had some very powerful ones that will stay with me forever.

I have felt uneasy at times interpreting for others, because either I'm not sure of myself or I fear the effect, especially when dealing on an internet forum rather than RL. I'm learning to wait on the Lord in difficult situations, because how something is said can be critical. I do think it is possible to get the interp but the Lord would have us hold it, but that would be rare.

As you can see, much of this is not written in stone. I'm just learning.

 

[All4HISglory]

All4,

I'm not sure of the asleep/wakefulness distinction, as I had a vision once just as I fell asleep. I think the critical parameter is literalness. Dreams use more symbolism, visions are more literal. But I'm not perfectly clear on the whole thing.

Spritual v soulical dreaming is something I grapple with. I generally think there can be value to soulical dreams though, if we take them as indicators of what's going on under the hood and then seek how God would have us respond. Here I like Paul's guidance:
Always be joyful.
Continually be prayerful.
In everything be thankful, because this is God’s will for you in the Messiah Jesus.
Do not put out the Spirit’s fire.
Do not despise prophecies.
Instead, test everything. Hold on to what is good.
Keep away from every kind of evil.
May the God of peace himself make you holy in every way. And may your whole being—spirit, soul, and body—remain blameless when our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, appears.
The one who calls you is faithful, and he will continue to be faithful. -1Thess 5:16-24
I have dreams often, but they and their importance comes and goes in seasons. I have had some very powerful ones that will stay with me forever.

I have felt uneasy at times interpreting for others, because either I'm not sure of myself or I fear the effect, especially when dealing on an internet forum rather than RL. I'm learning to wait on the Lord in difficult situations, because how something is said can be critical. I do think it is possible to get the interp but the Lord would have us hold it, but that would be rare.

As you can see, much of this is not written in stone. I'm just learning.

Thanks so much for replying to this thread. I'm yet learning and pray to always be learning which is why I started this thread.

I am a lot more at ease IRL due to knowing the people so it's easier for me to gauge if what I'm receiving is somewhat close or so far off. Either way, I'm very slow to speak and quick to hear to ensure that it is indeed the Lord and then to find out if He even desires it to revealed.

It's a 50/50 I would say. Most of time if God reveals then it is to be revealed and serve as a confirmation to the individual (this how it works for me). The other part is for intercession! Sometimes I feel as if I spend more time praying then sleeping.

With every dream unless, God chooses to instantly reveal, I pray earnestly for what to do if anything.

Visions being more literal sounds right to me but here is my question. Would you say that visions come to pass more so then dreams? Visions that I have almost always include myself or family or the local body I'm attached to.

I guess I would be able to general say that the way I experience visions is that they occur surrounding an event or idea of what is to come or what is being prepared for. For example, I had a vision of my Husband and I working a conference of some sort in this beautiful building that has been for sale for years in our city. It wasn't just us but it was all of the Ministerial staff of my church. This vision was around the time we needed to start planning for our Marriage Enrichment workshop. My Husband is not on that committee so he doesn't know the details of the planning. Well we were driving and he said to me "I sure wish a whole bunch of saved people would put their money together and by that old restaurant off of ______ st." that's when I shared with him the vision I had.

This is why visions at times are a bit harder for be to distinguish between divinely inspired or carnal driven. Much prayer is needed for me in this area.

On the other hand, many of my dreams are very literal when it comes to warnings.

I really appreciate this area of the Forum. It helps stir up the gift outside of my comfort zone.

~For Your glory Lord {iPad}

 

[GarySneakers]

1. In your opinion why are the clear differences between visions and
dreams (other then the being awake and asleep)?

In a vision, you can interact with it. Visions are not daydreams. Most visions are really dreams. But you must test all dreams and visions.
Remember that Creation will believe anything and is very easily fooled.

2. What are some of your experiences with visions?

I had 3 dark-side spirits approach me. 1 red humanoid and 2 green ectoplasm s (mist like steam). Red one for 1 minute, the green ones
for almost 1 hour. The red one changed forms once and the green ones twice. There was no dialog. These visions were beings from the spiritual
realm. Once I saw them, I then knew what was true and what is not.
It was a big wake up call.


3. What are some if your experiences with dreams?
Some true, most false, Many spiritual, most of them causing dream
conflict. Many are stress dreams where I am working out problems.
Dreams of false death, false futures and false pasts and fun dreams.
Dreams are a mist and you should not really hold on to them they are
fleeting.

4. Is there a general theme with your own dreams?
It mirrors my current and past life. Reliving the past is fun, but dealing with current life's by having stress problem solving dreams is not so much. I have many recurring dreams. But when my dreams turn spiritual, Red flags are waved. Most of my dreams revolve around current events and current
or past places or things that I have done.

5. How often o you interpret other peoples dreams and do you interpret your own? Not often, I normally will say if I believe that if it is influenced by the dark side, by using common sense. It is not wise to give interpretation or to receive, as it leaves a person wide open, This forum has many sheep in wolves clothing. Who knows what everyone believes or who their lords actually are. The dark-side is all around this forum. I do not
interpret spiritual dreams from my self, I analyze them.

6. When do you know it's a God given dream or vision vs. your own carnal mind? Your forgot one sub category. Demon given dreams. You have to use
common sense and street smarts. You can not tell. So you have to test
the dream.
For instance a image of a jesus appeared. I challenged the image in the dream and I asked why are you here when you are spoused to be with the Father in Heaven. Blink, the image was gone. The one that makes my hair on the back of my neck stand up, is the dream of my dead Father approaching me. We were in the bedroom of my old house. I looked at my Father and said, You do realize that you are dead. He replied. "So are You". I replied, I am not, I am alive, be gone. and the spirit vanished. I have trained my mind to challenge any image that speaks in spiritual words. Regardless if it is jesus, angel in white dead friends, or relations.
I always ask it's business and it's name. The key to understanding when
a demon approaches is that there is always a spiritual message. And it normally involves a message that the dreamer just can quite remember all that was said or writings or symbols that could not all be read. Or the
images face that could not all be seen and a name that could not remembered. The New Agers will claim it is from God and give Bible verses.
The Father in Heaven does not confuse and will not provide riddles or partial information. A dream of a rock or horse, does not mean the foundation of Jesus or that Jesus as a horse will carry your burdens. Always use common sense. Never use the title or call an image lord, as
lord is a title and all the spirits use it. same as chirst which is a title as they all use that as well. Google or Bing the image of christ and you will see a million of them, all different. if any of these different chirsts appear
to you, including the little kid one, would you accept it's message and bow down. The 10 commandments say do not make a graven image, yet
I just looked at dozens of graven images on Bing. Some have circles on their heads and some were babies. Would you worship any of these images? At the beginning of Revelations, Jesus is described as having white
hair, do you see that image and at the end as having 7 eyes and 7 horns,
do you see that image?

7. Have you ever been uneasy providing the interpretation to someone?
I will only say if I believe that it is from the dark side, by using common sense. I would say 99% of the writers in this forum are fooled and most
will give a positive reply and say it is of God, no matter who gave or
or what the message is. For instance a couple of years back a a spirit masked as a poster's dead grandmother gave spiritual advice and reached out her hand and said she was going to take him to heaven. We all know Jesus is the only one who can do that. Yet her took her hand and everyone thought how wonderful. When I give caution, I am labeled
negative and mean. Or the recent thread of a Eagle taking the poster to a unknown destination. She went willingly thinking the Eagle was Jesus.
Another one was a claimed vision in which a bird like dove desended on
a woman who was lying on a bed, she allowed this spirit to come upon her
without, knowing what or who it was. She felt it enter into her. Yet she was not smart enough to ask it's name. Everyone on the thread said it was the holy spirit. Never allow a spirit to come upon you especially a animal or
bird. The bird left a key and she did not know the meaning. Maybe it was
the key to Hell. She did not ask the bird.

8. Do you always share the interpretation with the dreamer? No, sometimes, it is dangerous or a waste of timeOnce on the forum years ago a woman was contacted by the masked spirit of a young man who committed suicide.
He told her to take comfort and that he was in a better place. The dark-side spirit was not after her as the spirit told her to comfort another
girl, who was thinking about suicide to give her the message. If the message was given, she would have wanted to join her male friend in
a better place. I told the forum poster not to inform the girl, without
going into details. She thought the spirit was from the Father in Heaven.
God does not mask behind spirits of dead creation or other created beings
like, cats, dogs, eagles, etc. Other times people on this site are into the
New Age and metaphysics and it would be a waste of time. Every dream is
from God and everything is magical and positive. And the New Agers can
twist and make an image or message or object from God and give a Bible
Verse. Many to to so called Christian dream interpretations sites. I remember visiting a site and under the term Father was the name Satan.

If you play in dreams and visions and do not use street smarts you will get burned. Read some of my posts and then go look though this posts and
try and spot the demonic tricks.

 

[GarySneakers]

Try not to fall into dreams and visions. They will trap you. When you are focused
on Dreams, you do not focus on the Father in Heaven. I always point to the Father in Heaven, never to dreams and visions.

 

[Firewater]

1. In your opinion why are the clear differences between visions and dreams (other then the being awake and asleep)?
For me dreams tend to be more like a story whereas the visions are typically a single picture- perhaps zooming in on something or something moving. But not so much a series of scenes as dreams tend to be with me. Young men see visions & old men have dreams (Acts 2:17), so I like to boast I have a lot more visions than dreams although it's not true. I once heard someone say based on this scripture that dreams require more maturity in gifting to interpret them- maybe.

2. What are some of your experiences with visions?
In terms of visions where something is superimposed over the background & I see it while awake, for me they happen nearly always just as I am waking up. Most of the time I see them as relating to a dream I am waking up from. I also regularly have mental pictures when praying.

3. What are some if your experiences with dreams?
Although I am currently in a period where I don't have many dream that are appropriate to post here, I have had a number over the last 2 years which I have posted & you can refer to. When I remember I like to try & update them later with more understanding or relate it to life's circumstances or something in the news.

4. Is there a general theme with your own dreams?
Off the top of my head, I would categorise them as follows:
(a) Dreams coming from my subsonscious
I still think these aer very helpful as they can help in overcoming problems & seeing blind spots in my personality/character.
(b) Dreams from the Lord for information
The Lord confides in those who fear Him & sometimes He just likes to speak with us.
(c) Dreams which are prayer assignments
I will sometimes dream about a country or someone I know & I sometimes I see these as prompts to pray for the contry / person concerned. These can involve words of knowledge type of information. There was a detective going to a church I was going to & I had a dream about a cold case he was working on which contained information that wasn't publicly known. There isn't enough evidence agaist the person they know who did it yet. Lord bring justice for this family.
(d) Prophetic dreams
These seem to have images from the future & are difficult to interpret.
(d) End times dreams
These are more rare for me
(e) Warning dreams
This is where the Lord gives me advance notice about something to prepare me or warn me to watch out for something so I can pray or take action & avoid it

5. How often o you interpret other peoples dreams and do you interpret your own?
I fairly regularly provide feedback to otehrs on their dreams, mainly on this forum. Thankyou Lord for this forum! Yes, I interpret my own. I usually have an understanding of an "in a nutshell" interpretation. If I feel it's appropriate to post here. I will sometimes post it without thinking about what it means so I have more of a white canvas for people to paint.

6. When do you know it's a God given dream or vision vs. your own carnal mind?
There are dreams I have which are clearly "spiritual" dreams with biblical content or themes. But others, particularly ones relating to myself I find harder to determine whether it is something from my subsonscious or God directly. I tend to see the Lord speaking thru even my subconscious dreams so the delineation isn't so clear.

7. Have you ever been uneasy providing the interpretation to someone?
In terms of dreams on the forum I try to descern whether I have something & then post. This is an important area for me to learn & grow in. The better I get at picking the dreams to respond to, the more edifying & accurate my feedback will be. On the other hand, sometimes I will just start & there is a flow. There was one occasion when I started & then felt I should stop, not because of the content of the dream or interpretation, just didn't feel right to continue. There are times when I have felt I need to be very careful about my choice of words & how I present what I am hearing. I think this is one of the most difficult areas in providing feedback, particularly where sensitive, painful or correction issues are involved.

8. Do you always share the interpretation with the dreamer?
Sometimes I will just pray for people. I might have something but if others have already said something similar to what I was thinking I don't see the need to post it. I may write some kind of confirmation if I am lead to do so. I think there is a balance between a lot of feedback providing good coverage & digging in appropriately, verses sometimes just too much information for the OP potentially causing confusion.

 

[All4HISglory]

Thank you everyone.

I enjoy this forum and definitely use it to stir up the gift that I operate in. It's a safe way to break out if my comfort zone and allow God to stretch out in me.

I see that some are opposed to dreams and visions and I respect your opinion and experience.

I believe that dreams, visions and their interps. and revelation are a blessing. Anything used for anything other than the glory of God, is evil. I do not see that happening in my own experiences so I will continue to hold tight o what the Lord is doing.

I will add more later after a good nights rest. These letters are starting to merge together

~For Your glory Lord {iPad}

 

[SamsoniteBaggage]

I have had only a few spiritual dreams, they tend to be extremely vivid and the Spirit brings them to mind or compels me to tell people.

Usually, they are big picture metaphors, a sort of canvas which is not explained until later on.

Usually, they have some kind of ending message of general comfort, but vague on how that will happen.

"Visions"... those are either like dreams for me, and happen when I am resting... or, far more commonly, it is angels in disguise, or Christians with a message from the Spirit. Very often it is everyday events. The Spirit explains before, during, and/or after the event or statements.

Usually these are statements that are metaphoric but disguised in everyday speech. Sometimes they use a sort of exaggeration or negative psychology. Very often, various terms are defined beforehand, so it becomes like a separate language, with some words meaning something spiritual and often being repeated in various ways over the years.

Usually events are coupled with statements to really bring home the impact and show proof. Very often these events are disguised in similar metaphoric "language", which the Spirit explains then, before, and/or after.

 

[All4HISglory]

Firewater and Sam... Thank you so very much for your feedback.

GarySn... Thank you also for your contribution to the thread. I cannot say that I agree with you or share your same opinion on dreams and visions but I do appreciate your time in sharing.

In general, I truly believe in the gift of dreams and visions and their divine inspiration, revelation, impartation and interpretation that they provide. I cannot praise God enough or them.

~For Your glory Lord {iPad}

 

[SamsoniteBaggage]

Firewater and Sam... Thank you so very much for your feedback.

GarySn... Thank you also for your contribution to the thread. I cannot say that I agree with you or share your same opinion on dreams and visions but I do appreciate your time in sharing.

In general, I truly believe in the gift of dreams and visions and their divine inspiration, revelation, impartation and interpretation that they provide. I cannot praise God enough or them.

~For Your glory Lord {iPad}

Gary is a great example of an angel using negative psychology, though he would never admit it.

 

[rossignol]

Hey everyone.

So I've been thinking about a few things lately regarding the differences between visions and dreams. I wanted to ask a few questions.

1. In your opinion why are the clear differences between visions and dreams (other then the being awake and asleep)?

I had a dream of a classmate and the clothes she was wearing. The next day she wore those clothes. I don't think it was a vision because there would be no benefit to it if it were a vision. I have vivid dreams but if it is a vision there is a sense of God when it comes. Often that sense is peace that passes all understanding.

2. What are some of your experiences with visions?

Every one has gifts. Some people have a greater sensitivity to the spiritual realm and can hear God and maybe receive visions. When I was young I kept a book and when I felt or saw something I would write it down. All accept one has come to pass because the time is not arrived, including me going to Africa in a specific year, what nationality women my brother would marry etc. I out this book away and forgot about it and when I opened it and read it, it gave me a deeper trust and understanding of God.

I was a child that felt everyone and everything around me. I felt a person that was across the street from me, every ambulance siren that passed near me I felt.

3. What are some if your experiences with dreams?

After my mental breakdown, I moved in with my parents and didn't work. Before this I had night terrors that made me physically harm myself. I have always had vivid dreams and suppressed them with drugs at this point. Slowly as I delt with things I began to be interactive consciously with my subconscious. I started to learn how to interpret my dreams and that's how I knew what next to deal with in my life.

One example of how I interacted with my dreams is I would fly. Sometimes I would fly so high and not be able to come down to earth and other times I had a difficult time getting off the ground. I'm bipolar and when I couldn't control how high I flew it meant I was getting manic. When I had a hard time flying it meant I was depressive. At that time I couldn't consciously differentiate my moods but listening to my dreams I was able to begin to manage my bipolar mood swings.

4. Is there a general theme with your own dreams?

I have had dreams that I have one year, the same time the following year the dream continues. When I was young I had a lot of dreams of people dying including myself once. Other than that, me flying is one thing that is common.

5. How often o you interpret other peoples dreams and do you interpret your own?

I learned how to interpret dreams and once and a while I do for others. It's about looking at the little things instead of the story of the dream. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and other times things symbolize things. It is natural for our minds to be similar to one another. Dreaming about a cafe may mean your thinking about a friend that you haven't seen in a while.

6. When do you know it's a God given dream or vision vs. your own carnal mind?

When peace and clarity surrounds it.

7. Have you ever been uneasy providing the interpretation to someone?

Anytime I have ever said something to another person I had a strong feeling from God I should say it.

8. Do you always share the interpretation with the dreamer?

No. Often I think it's just giving me incite in what to pray for that person.

Just a few questions that I would like to use to provoke dialogue and hopefully provide a bet of clarity between what I deal with and what others may deal with.

~For Your glory Lord {iPad}

 

[lauraviv]

I'm not going to answer in full because there is a lot of great info here already. I believe that sometimes dreams and visions whether they appear to be obviously from the dark side or not serve more to distract us than to reveal the truth of God's Word. I also believe true visions from God are sometimes dismissed as just dreams or rationalized away.

I have had visitations from angels and demons while asleep and while awake that I believe to be authentic. Of the angels, they were of the fall to your knees variety and of the demons they were utterly terrifying. There was nothing to be interpreted about these, the messages were clear.

I have had one experience that I identified as a message delivered by a person from the Holy Spirit, but I suppose could have been an angel. I went to see a doctor for exhaustion suspecting a sleep disorder. That doctor failed to diagnose my sleeping disorder which was later confirmed, but he did something better. He began talking to me about the Madonna and Child (I had been carrying a picture of Michaelangelo's statue in Brugge at the time.) He then shared that his son was "really into religion and thought he might be called to ministry." He didn't even know if I was Christian. I was coming to feel a calling to hospital Chaplaincy at the time.

Dreams I struggle more with, and I am grateful for this thread in reminding me of the need for caution, prayer, and discernment.

 

[talitha]

1. In your opinion why are the clear differences between visions and dreams (other then the being awake and asleep)?
Visions are generally more literal, more real experiences, IMHO, but I honestly don't think it's that important to differentiate between the two.

2. What are some of your experiences with visions?
Like Firewater, I have had visions superimposed upon the background of what was going on, and I was actually able to move in both realms simultaneously - that was interesting. In one instance I was substituting for a high school advanced math class - they really didn't need me for anything, so I was just sort of a chaperone there, so I was reading that year's Shepherd's Rod from Bob Jones, and I looked down and saw an angel's feet on a stone floor, and some keys hanging from a chain, but I still saw the students' feet under their desks. I heard both the students moving around in the room and the keys jingling....... One of the most vivid experiences I've had was at a church that my prophetic team visited to hear a guest speaker there. In the front of the small church there were letters spelling out "Created to worship". After a while I looked up and saw the letters spelling out "Creative worship", then I looked back and saw the original words. This went back and forth several times until I finally asked the Lord what he was saying here.....

3. What are some if your experiences with dreams?
There are many, and I am sitting here trying to decide which ones to share here. I was attending a "releasing the prophetic" conference at a friend's church, and at the time the founding pastors were leaving to start a new ministry in a different state, and the new pastors (formerly the associates) were about to be inducted. One night during the conference, I had a short dream about the new pastors. I saw them sitting on a pew in a church; I saw them from behind and slightly overhead, as if I were in the balcony. Then I saw a bottle of grey hair-dye, the kind women use who want to get rid of the yellowish tint some grey hair has, and the bottle began to tilt and pour over the heads of the pastors in the pews. When I woke, I knew that the Lord was giving the pastors wisdom and that he wanted the congregation to know that he was giving them wisdom. I got Isaiah 11:1-2. On the way to the conference in the morning, my friend encouraged me to share this with the pastor who was acting as gatekeeper for the conference (whoever had a word was supposed to go through him before sharing). I didn't share it until something else interesting happened. We stood to worship, and I looked down at the chair in front of me, and the Bible there was opened to Isaiah 11, and verses 1 and 2 were underlined. When I shared the dream, I then told the people that I had a scripture, but I wanted the person who was seated in front of me to pick up that Bible and share what was underlined. It was pretty impactful. At the reception after the induction ceremony, the secretary of the church presented a cake with that scripture on it. The incoming pastors made significant changes in the church, including a name change, and I am sure that the people needed to know that the Lord was the one giving the wisdom for these things.

4. Is there a general theme with your own dreams?
Different themes in different seasons.... Many times (as with the one above) they have to do with the immediate situations, but not always.

5. How often do you interpret other peoples dreams and do you interpret your own?
I used to interpret several dreams a day, as I was part of a ministry that focused on that, but now it's just maybe between 1 and 10 times a month, perhaps, that I interpret dreams, normally. I have found that recently I don't remember my dreams as often, nor do I receive interpretive knowledge as often, as I used to. Different things are going on in my life.... When I do remember my dreams, I seek understanding of them in prayer and I have some people I trust whom I submit my dreams to. I believe that in most cases we are not meant to completely understand these things on our own, that we are meant to be interdependent upon the Body of Christ......

6. When do you know it's a God given dream or vision vs. your own carnal mind?
When I have dreams that seem to be jumbled-up, confused versions of what is going on in my daily life, I am pretty sure those come from my mind; the Bible says that many dreams come from busyness. When I have vivid dreams that stick with me, especially ones that seem real while I'm having them or ones that are very bright and sharp in their "cinematography", I usually attribute these to God. I believe that even my dreams and visions that have negative emotions attached to them, as long as they're not just extensions of waking worry, are possibly dreams I should pay attention to. Once as I was waking, I heard voices saying that they were going to kill my pastor. I felt these voices were demonic, but I also felt that my Heavenly Father allowed me to hear this because I was to pray. I spoke with my pastor later that morning, and he said he'd had a lot of pain over the night, but as it turned out, it was something minor. Who knows??

7. Have you ever been uneasy providing the interpretation to someone? 8. Do you always share the interpretation with the dreamer?
I don't recall being uneasy, but probably in some cases I should have been, because in the early days I didn't ask the Lord whether I was supposed to share. I just assumed that I was supposed to share whatever I got. I think this is one of those illustrations that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

 

[humblewatchman]

Hey everyone.

1. In your opinion why are the clear differences between visions and dreams (other then the being awake and asleep)?

I have always held the belief that they are only defined by being awake or asleep. Your question has made me look it up in the Lexicon and it seems that the word vision and dream are interchangable in scripture. This is what it said;

[SIZE=+1]1[/SIZE] vision, in the ecstatic state ׳ראה ח Joel 3:1; ׳גּי (&#1488 ח valley of vision Isaiah 22:1,5.
[SIZE=+1]2[/SIZE] vision, in the night חֶזְיוֺנ(וֺ&#1514לַיְלָה Job 4:13; Job 20:8; Job 33:15; "" חֲלֹמוֺת Job 7:14. [SIZE=+1]3[/SIZE] divine communication in a vision, oracle, prophecy: "" דברים 2 Samuel 7:17 ( = חזון 1 Chronicles 17:15); יֵבשׁוּ אִישׁ מֵחֶזְיֹנוֺ בְּהִנָּ˜כְאֹתוֺ Zechariah 13:4 they will be ashamed, every one of his vision when he prophesieth.

In Job it says ""Amid disquieting thoughts from the visions of the night, When deep sleep falls on men". This is one of many indicators that the terms vision and dream can be interchangable.

2. What are some of your experiences with visions?
I have only had visions while awake in the form of still life pictures or very short movement in them, as an answer to prayer for myself or during prayer for others. Like after asking where my car keys are...He shows me where they literally are via a mental picture. I consider this a vision. I have never had an "epic" or "panoramic movie" type of prophetic vision in my waking hours. I have had, however, many prophetic dreams. The first one that comes to mind was before I knew about prophetic dreams. It was my very first prophetic dream. In this dream, I saw my first love in bed with a woman who had extremely long black hair. I was walking up some steep narrow stairs (this is symbolic of a difficult thing to traverse in life) and at the top of the stairs, I opened a door (a symbolic transition) and I saw them in bed together. Shortly after that very heartbreaking tearful dream that I never shared with him, he came home from college and he had a new leather jacket on. I asked him where it came from(being led by the Spirit), knowing that he was a poor college student He broke down and told me that he was "living with" this girl, and he hadn't yet told me because he didn't want to hurt me..I asked him if she had very long black hair and he said "yes, it was down passed her waist". I knew that God was trying to buffer my immense pain, by revealing it in advance prophetically to me. This is the most common type of prophetic dreams that I have. Sometimes He shows me in dreams what He wants someone else to know about their life. I only share those if I have confirmation that a small piece of my dream is real (like the long black hair) and is in reality connected to that persons life. If I know that part of it is real and ihas been supernaturally revealed to me by God in the dream, then the rest of it is true too....and that is my indicator of sharing the dream with them.

4. Is there a general theme with your own dreams? I only have a repeating dream theme if I am spiritually deaf at that time, and He wants me to understand something, or to know something is coming.

5. How often do you interpret other peoples dreams and do you interpret your own? Dream interpretation is serious business, that requires a God given love for others and a true genuine interest in helping them....and is never a platform to promote ones self, ones knowledge of scripture, or anything else that is of "self". Having said that, and just to provide background (not promoting myself)...I have studied symolism and have read/interpreted thousands of dreams over the years (on line and in person), and I have a great passion to help people discover what their dream and/or God is pointing to. It is my ministry and not a hobby for me. Even with all of that experience, I do have the most trouble interpreting my own. I have also found that to be true for most others too. The reason is, we don't have an unbiased opinion of ourselves. We cannot see our true self clearly, like others directed by God can. We literally can't see the forest for the trees...we have too many misconceptions and broken self images caused by negative events of life, and too many other voices of outside influences, to have a perfect open view of our most base holy self. We are particularly slow to understand the good or complimentary dreams, or pieces within the dreams, that we have. God seems to inject uplifting compliments into our dreams more than we ever see. They are skipped right over. Someone else can easily point the good in a dream out to us, and then we are amazed at how we missed it.

6. When do you know it's a God given dream or vision vs. your own carnal mind? Yes, after prayer and setting it down to leave it at His feet. If we do those two things, and the dream continues to speak to us over many days, it is time to revist it as more important. I find that pizza dreams are more like a vapor that easily vanishes with time. I also have God given dreams that I can not only remember, but I can still "feel" them, years after they were given to me.

7. Have you ever been uneasy providing the interpretation to someone? Yes, but mostly in the wording of it, like Firewater said. It is difficult to express what you see that is corrective/directive when you have sensed that they are not open to it. But, then if I don't share it, I have that "blood on your hands" feeling and I go ahead and share it the best I can without diluting it with too much softness. I have had people get mad and then come back later and tell me that God showed them that He was talking to them in that dream, and that they were grateful I spoke the truth. I want to spare anybody pain, if I can. My desire is to help others see that God is indeed helping them and is talking to them. If what He is saying in the dream may be painful, then it is important, and will result in the dreamer being healed down the road. A smooth word is many times spoken by those who are manipulating us. The best way, I have found, is to lead them to discover on their own, what the dream is saying by asking the right questions of them in the first place. Jesus led the woman at the well, on her own self discovery without coming right out and telling her "all". She knew what to ask and how to answer too.


~For Your glory Lord {iPad}

Good questions. Sharing is learning, and learning is wisdom. God told us many times to seek wisdom.