The Power of Dreams
Don't dismiss dreams as pure fantasy. Dreams can be very powerful. They can reveal areas of our character. They can help us make interesting connections and develop vividly new ideas. Though seemingly random, they are a medium through which God often communicates.
All about dreams. We define a dream as "a series of images, ideas, emotions and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind." There are a few facts about dreams. First, dreams usually manifest when we are asleep. The deepest sleep, REM sleep, which is associated with dreams, occurs at irregular intervals for about 25% of sleeping time for most individuals. Dreams occur on average every 90 minutes or so, and are through to be the result of random electrical impulses that occur in the brain during REM sleep. Dreams last an average of 5 to 30 minutes. We still don't know exactly what causes dreaming to begin.
Dreams are usually egocentric, which means they involve you. Dreams are also usually like a television show--they have a plot or actions, characters, props, a location. Dreams often involve recent events or activities in which you have been involved. They can also involve your fears or anxieties.
You usually will not have any control of your dream. Very few people whose dreams have been analyzed admit to being able to yell or scream in their dreams. Additionally, the body emits a chemical during sleep which causes your muscles to relax, which is why most people don't move during dreams, even though your brain interprets your actions during dreaming as real. People who don't produce this chemical may suffer from sleep-walking.
People who have been awakened repeatedly during REM sleep exhibit increased fatigue and irritability over time, leading to the conclusion that REM sleep and associated dreams are important for mental health and physical wellbeing. Staying awake more than 36 hours in a row will often lead to hallucinations and inability to maintain attention.
Remembering dreams. Most dreams are forgotten long before we wake up. Some especially vivid dreams, however, can linger in our thoughts after waking. Nightmares can cause a person to wake as they become too intense. There is a school of thought that believes in something called lucid dreaming, which is dreaming with a limited to full awareness of the dream. Daydreams are considered lucid dreams. There is little evidence to suggest that lucid dreaming is useful for anything more than fantasy--an adventure of the mind. But then again, who doesn't like a little adventure?
God uses dreams. Throughout the Bible God communicated through dreams. The scriptures tell us that God often gave instruction or warning through the medium of a dream. Though no physical evidence is available there is reason to believe that God still speaks to us through dreams.
"And God said to him in a dream..." Genesis 20:6
Have you ever had a vivid thought or image in your mind as a result of a dream and felt that God was directing you through the dream? When we pray and ask God to answer our prayer or respond to us, the Holy Spirit can direct our thoughts. A dream is one likely place for this direction to be realized. A dream is, after all, purely thought. What better place for God to inhabit and to make His thoughts known to us?
Just remember that God will never instruct you or answer you in a way that is inconsistent with His Word. If you dream that God told you to have an affair, for instance, you can be assured that was not God talking to you!
Creativity and dreams. The ability to remember and utilize information from dreams is often a characteristic of highly creative people. Songwriters and artists often speak of inspiration coming to them through dreams. A common practice of these dreamers is to keep a pad and pencil on the nightstand to record thoughts on waking from vivid dreams. Many creative individuals use this practice, as the moments just before falling asleep and just before waking from sleep can generate especially interesting or bizarre thoughts in the mind. Sometimes if our thoughts are fixed on a problem or challenge just before sleep, the mind will make an unusual or useful connection during a dream.
Daydreams are a great tool for creativity, especially when confronted with a difficult challenge. The daydream itself is not the problem-solver. Rather, a daydream can allow us to break away from a task for a moment to refresh our thoughts. Have you ever found your mind wandering when work stress begins to build? You disengage from work for a moment and find yourself thinking about your favorite past-time, or a place you'd rather be, or a song you heard recently. You may come back to a task more relaxed, your mind attempting to make connections between your daydream and the problem. Sometimes thoughts click. These "thought breaks" should only last a few minutes and be rather infrequent or they will quickly move from useful to lazy and unproductive.
Dreams are. Dreams are windows to our thought process. They may be elements of truth in them, but there is always an element of the imaginary. Dreams are a sign of an active mind. They can be scary, or inquisitive, or inspirational. We encourage our children to dream. Let me also encourage you as well, the adult, to never stop dreaming.
About the Author. Eugene L. Mason has more than two decades of experience in ministry communications and technologies. More...
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