Decoding Your Dreams: What the Lord May Be Saying to You While You Sleep

by Jennifer LeClaire, James W. Goll (Foreword by)

Overview

What is God saying to you in your dreams?

Decoding Your Dreams is a beginner's guide to understanding the true source of our dreams, dream classifications, and even dream symbols. This book answers questions like:

• Can we control our dreams?
• I used to dream all the time. Why has my dream life suddenly ceased?
• Should I pray for the gift of dream interpretation?
• What does it mean if I see people in my dreams who have already passed away?
• When do I share a dream I've received and when do I keep it to myself?
• Where does déjà vu fit into the world of dreams?
• Why should I pay attention to my children's dreams?

There are dozens of mentions of dreams in the Bible. From Abraham to Joseph, from Daniel all the way to Pontius Pilot's wife, God has communicated with His people through dreams throughout recorded history.

Why would God choose to speak to us while we sleep? Perhaps it's because we are too distracted during the day to sit still long enough for Him to share the deep secrets of His heart.

Jennifer LeClaire is convinced God speaks to us in ways that are very personal. At times he may use pictures, memories, impressions, or even a still small voice.

Let Decoding Your Dreams help you embrace your Spirit-inspired dreams!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780785223535
Publisher:	Nelson, Thomas, Inc.
Publication date:	12/04/2018
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	262,819
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Jennifer LeClaire is an internationally recognized author, apostolic-prophetic voice to her generation, and conference speaker. She is founder of Awakening House of Prayer, Awakening Blaze prayer movement, Ignite prophetic network. She has written many bestselling books, including Mornings With the Holy Spirit and The Making of a Prophet.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

God Speaks Through Dreams

My First Prophetic Dream

The first time I realized God was speaking to me in a dream, I woke up perplexed — but now it makes perfect sense. In the dream I was about five months pregnant. But I wasn't married and had no reason to be pregnant. I was trying to deny it, but my midsection was clearly swelling and it wasn't because of too many tasty empanadas from the corner Cuban café. In my dream, I asked a trusted friend what she thought. To my dismay, she said, "You're definitely pregnant!"

To say I was none too happy would be a monumental understatement. A flood of thoughts rushed at me in my dream state. How will I get all my work done with a newborn baby to care for? I'm too busy for this! My life is challenging enough as it is. This is certainly no time to complicate things with a baby! Still, I knew there was no way of escaping this. I had the heavy sense that I really didn't have a choice in the matter. This baby was coming in about four months, whether I liked it or not.

Then I woke up perplexed. I'm not spiritually dense, so I understood the overarching meaning of the dream. God was birthing a new thing in my life. We were a little more than halfway through the incubation process, and I needed to align my will with His in a hurry. My fellow prophets chimed in as to what this "baby" could be. Some said it was a new ministry. Others said it would ultimately be a good thing, though times were likely to get rough during the next few months. They were all right.

It's interesting how God gives His prophets different perspectives and at times they seem almost to contradict one another, but in the end you see how they all fit together. The messianic prophecies are a good example. But I digress. Or do I? It's been almost a year since I had that dream, and since then I've had others about the baby as both an infant and a toddler. The Lord recently brought these things to my remembrance while I was reading about Mary, the human mother of Jesus, and a messianic prophecy she received that changed her life. And there's a lesson in it for us all as we approach new beginnings.

You'll remember when the angel Gabriel, often seen delivering messages to God's people, found Mary in Nazareth. Gabriel told Mary she was highly favored of the Lord and blessed among women. Then Gabriel delivered his prophetic message: "You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus" (Luke 1:31 NIV). Mary was perplexed and asked the angel how it was possible as she was a virgin.

Imagine the flood of thoughts rushing through Mary's mind. She wasn't married, so turning up pregnant would be more than a little inconvenient. Unlike my superficial complaints about finding time to get my work done with a newborn's diapers to change, Mary's prophetic revelation could have cost her everything. Not only was she in danger of losing Joseph, the love of her life, she could also end up on trial for fornication, which was reason enough to be stoned under Mosaic law. Mary probably imagined many things about her fate.

Then Gabriel answered Mary: "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35 KJV). Gabriel gave her two other insights. He told Mary that her cousin Elisabeth, who had been barren, was pregnant in her old age. He also told her all things were possible with God. At this news, Mary probably remembered Abraham and Sarah's miracle baby and began to put her faith in God.

"Mary responded, 'I am the Lord's servant. May everything you have said about me come true'" (Luke 1:38 NLT). Mary displayed willingness and obedience to allow the Lord to use her however He chose. I don't believe He would have used her if she had not been willing and obedient. God will not violate our own will. That's why, after I awakened from my pregnancy dream, my concern wasn't so much about receiving a revelation on exactly what I was birthing but about lining up my will with God's will in the matter.

Let's get real. Birthing anything, from a baby to a ministry to a business, is hard work. It changes your life. It forces you to become more disciplined. It challenges you to go deeper in your relationship with God to find the grace you need to survive the spiritual stretching you will no doubt experience. Indeed, birthing new things demands many adjustments. That's why so many people have aborted the call of God on their lives. It's not that they couldn't yield to the Spirit of God and work with Him to birth something new. It's that they were not willing.

I believe God is birthing new things — and He needs people who are like Mary, willing and obedient to allow the Lord to do what He pleases for His glory. Notice I say for His glory. Mary gave birth to Jesus not for herself, but so that the sin of the world could be taken away. Whatever the Lord chooses to birth through you — a song, a book, or an entire ministry — remember that it's not about you. It's about the people who need what you are carrying. You aren't carrying the Savior of the world, but you may very well be carrying something that will save people a lot of pain, bring people greater understanding of God's Word, or give people the hope of fulfilling their purpose and destiny in Christ. Isn't it worth it?

* * *

Is God really speaking to you in your dreams? Could the Lord Almighty be warning you of things to come while you lie in bed at night? Is it possible the Creator of the universe is giving you innovative ideas while you sleep? Simply stated, yes. God has spoken to people through dreams since the book of Genesis, and He is still sending messages through dreams today.

Just consider some famous dreams throughout history that have advanced society. God created the atom — the basic building blocks of anything and everything — but Niels Bohr, the father of quantum mechanics, discovered these tiny particles during a dream. Bohr said the revelation that laid the groundwork for the atomic model was birthed through a dream of sitting on the sun with planets "hissing around on tiny cords." Bohr's dream-state discovery paved the way for our understanding of chemistry and physics, which led to scientific and technological breakthroughs, such as lasers, night vision goggles, and digital cameras.

Likewise, Albert Einstein pointed to a dream he had as a teenager that he meditated on his whole life. "He dreamt that he was riding a sled down a steep, snowy slope and, as he approached the speed of light in his dream, the colors all blended into one," explained John W. Price in an interview on the radio show Engines of Our Ingenuity. "He spent much of his career, inspired by that dream, thinking about what happens at the speed of light." Einstein's theory of relativity helps physicists understand optics and radio waves and sets the stage for ideas like time travel. Can you imagine?

Paul McCartney said he heard the melody for the famous Beatles song "Yesterday" in a dream. Elias Howe invented sewing machines after a dream that gave him insight into the mechanical penetration of a needle. Edgar Allan Poe's nightmares inspired some of his famous poetry, and he also penned essays about dreams because he was so fascinated with the dream world. More recently, Google founder Larry Page had a dream about "downloading the entire web onto computers" that has revolutionized the internet.

Were all these dreams from God? Probably not, but they nevertheless show you the power of dreams, and some of those dreams likely were divinely suggested. By the same token, history records significant warning dreams that may have come from God Himself. President Abraham Lincoln dreamed of his own assassination. Many people had dreams about a disaster on the Titanic, and some of them refused to get on board as a result. The same goes for people foreshadowing certain catastrophic events, such as 9/11, school shootings, and plane crashes.

The Bible mentions dreams and visions more than two hundred times. In the Old Testament we read about Joseph, Daniel, Jacob, Nebuchadnezzar, Solomon, and Job dreaming significant dreams. In the New Testament, the Bible records the dreams of Mary's husband Joseph, the wise men, Pilate's wife, Paul, Peter, and John. We're witnessing a radical increase of God speaking through dreams today, which is in agreement with Acts 2:17 KJV: "And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams."

God Created Us to Dream

God created us to dream. Dreaming is part of the human experience. The Bible says plenty about dreams. Understanding the Scripture truths about the dream world will serve as a foundation for everything else you learn in this book.

When Peter prophesied in Acts 2:17, he was re-prophesying what Joel originally chronicled eight hundred years earlier. Remember, these words are not Peter's words or Joel's words. This was the word of the Lord. Again, Joel chronicled it this way: "And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions."

Whether you are young or old, male or female, God created you to dream. The early Jewish culture understood this. According to The Jewish Encyclopedia, "The fact that the most famous teachers frequently discuss dreams and enunciate doctrines regarding them, shows the strong hold dreams had upon the minds even of the intellectual leaders of Judaism. Belief in dreams was the rule; doubt concerning them, the exception."

Before you finish reading this first chapter, I pray the Word of God will build your faith in the reality that God speaks to you in dreams. Depending on what you've been taught — or haven't been taught — during your walk with Christ, it may be hard for you to believe that the Creator of the universe communicates with you while you sleep. Consider the Scriptures, meditate on them, and believe that the God of dreams can redeem your time of slumber and speak to you while you are resting your body.

The Reason God Speaks to Us in Dreams

We see clearly throughout Scripture that God does speak to His people through dreams and visions. The question is why? Why does the Creator of the universe choose to speak to us when we are in an unconscious state?

It's interesting, first of all, to explore how God moved on His people in unconscious states in Scripture. Genesis 2:21 kjv tells us, "And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof." Again, in Genesis, we read that the Lord put Abram into a deep sleep to speak to him about a covenant (15:12). Daniel fell into a deep sleep while the angel was speaking to him about the interpretation of visions from the Lord (Dan. 8:18, 10:9).

Clearly, God chooses to communicate some things to us while we are asleep. We know God gives us dreams with many purposes, such as building our faith, revealing our destiny, warning us of danger, and so on. We'll discuss different types, purposes, and categories of dreams in later chapters. But, again, why does God choose this mode of communication at certain times? He can and does speak to us in many ways. Why dreams?

I don't propose to have all the answers to this question, and I've studied to no avail hoping to find a definitive answer. I haven't yet found anyone who can answer this question with absolute scriptural backing. I can only offer wisdom from experience.

One theory is that we are too dull of hearing to catch His message while we're awake. That could be true in some cases. When our emotions are running wild, He may choose to speak to us while our souls are less distracted (during sleep) and can interpret what He is saying once we are awake and seeking.

Here's another theory: What He is showing us is too spectacular to believe with our natural minds, so God supersedes our spiritual hearing during daytime hours to deliver a visual or sensory message while we're asleep — a message we have a hard time explaining away. While we are awake, we may hear a voice and question if it is God's. Spectacular dreams or dreams with rich symbols and parables that send us on a spiritual treasure hunt for answers can turn up revelations that convince us only God could be speaking. These dreams can confirm messages He's spoken in a still, small voice during our waking hours.

A third reason I believe God speaks to us in dreams is to redeem the time. Why go eight hours a day without communicating with the ones He loves? Similarly, if we are in a season of hurried business and are neglecting to spend as much time with Him as we should, God in His great love for us may choose to speak to us while we are asleep since we are too distracted to sit still long enough for Him to share the deep secrets of His heart.

What the Bible Says About Sleep

God never sleeps or slumbers (Ps. 121:4), and He offers many words of warning in Scripture about the lazy ones who love sleep. But clearly our bodies demand sleep. We know at times God puts His people into a deep sleep — or put the enemy into a deep sleep to help His people (Gen. 2:21, 15:12; Ps. 76:5–6). According to the National Sleep Foundation (NSF), the average adult needs between seven and nine hours of sleep every night. The NSF reports:

Sleep is an active period in which a lot of important processing, restoration, and strengthening occurs. Exactly how this happens and why our bodies are programmed for such a long period of slumber is still somewhat of a mystery. But scientists do understand some of sleep's critical functions, and the reasons we need it for optimal health and wellbeing.

One of the vital roles of sleep is to help us solidify and consolidate memories. As we go about our day, our brains take in an incredible amount of information. Rather than being directly logged and recorded, however, these facts and experiences first need to be processed and stored; and many of these steps happen while we sleep. ... Our bodies all require long periods of sleep in order to restore and rejuvenate, to grow muscle, repair tissue, and synthesize hormones.

Of course the scientists left out how God speaks to us in our sleep, but the Bible has plenty to say about sleeping. God intends our sleep to be peaceful (Ps. 4:8, 127:2; Prov. 3:24). I believe part of the reason is so that we can receive more freely from Him in our dreams. Think about it for a minute. God can certainly give a dream to a worried soul, but how much easier is it for us to receive, interpret, and apply what He's showing us when we are at peace? It's the same in our waking hours. It can be more difficult to hear God's still, small voice when our souls are in turmoil.

By contrast, the enemy wants us sleepless. It's one way of tormenting us because our bodies need sleep to function and, again, God wants to send us messages in our dreams that we can decipher when we are awake. Paul told the church at Corinth he had been "through many sleepless nights" in the context of trials and tribulations (2 Cor. 6:5; 11:27 NASB).

Proverbs 3:24 assures us that when we set our heart to keep God's commandments, we will not be afraid in our sleep. It's possible, then, for fear to attack us in our sleep — even through demonic dreams. Psalm 91 assures us those who trust in the Lord will not be afraid of the terror that flies by night. That indicates it is possible for the enemy to terrorize us in our dreams.

God Speaks to Unbelievers in Dreams

Many unbelievers are having divinely inspired dreams, and many desperately seek the meaning of these mysterious messages. Psychologists, New Age mystics, psychics, and those with pagan beliefs have worked to provide resources based on soulish issues or demonic inspirations. We need more believers who understand the principles of decoding dreams so we can interpret the dreams of lost souls who want a supernatural encounter but don't yet realize what they want is a supernatural God named Jesus.

In the Bible we read about God speaking to unbelievers through dreams many times. Let's look at a few of the accounts, starting with Abimelech's warning. Genesis 20 gives the account of Abram lying to King Abimelech about his wife Sarai. Abram thought the king would kill him and take his wife, so he told Abimelech Sarai was his sister. Look what happens next in Genesis 20:3–7 NASB:

But God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night, and said to him, "Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is married." Now Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, "Lord, will You slay a nation, even though blameless? Did he not himself say to me, 'She is my sister'? And she herself said, 'He is my brother.' In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this." Then God said to him in the dream, "Yes, I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this, and I also kept you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her. Now therefore, restore the man's wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours."

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Decoding Your Dreams"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Jennifer LeClaire.
Excerpted by permission of Thomas Nelson.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Foreword ix

Introduction xiii

Chapter 1 God Speaks Through Dreams 1

Chapter 2 The Biblical World of Dreams 17

Chapter 3 The Source of Dreams 31

Chapter 4 Dream Classifications 41

Chapter 5 Scriptural Dream Codes 57

Chapter 6 Cultural Dream Codes 75

Chapter 7 Subjective Dream Codes 93

Chapter 8 Interpreting Dreams with God's Wisdom 107

Chapter 9 Examples of Dreams and Interpretations 123

Chapter 10 Application of Dream Revelations 137

Chapter 11 Strategically Stewarding Your Dream Life 151

Conclusion: 20 Answers to Questions Every Dreamer Wants to Know 163

Epilogue: A Prayer over Your Dream Lire 181

Acknowledgments 185

Notes 187

About the Author 189