TYPES OF DREAMS:

Taken from "The Prophetic Ministry" by Shane Mason. 2010. Pages 35-44.  Go to www.eaglefireministries.com to view the free PDF or buy this informative syllabus.

 

I.                 The Three Dream Sources

 

1.                The Enemy: Warfare Dreams, Nightmares, Night terrors; dreams that are usually black and white or shades of gray.

 

A.               Warfare Dreams, These type dreams would probably be categorized by secular society as your basic “bad dream”. They are dreams that differ from nightmares, for they usually do not strike fear into your heart, they do however leave you with the sense of inner struggle and feelings of hopelessness, rejection and despair. They will usually show us clearly where we are in war with the kingdom of darkness, and can indeed become beneficial if we use them as an opportunity for prayer upon awakening.

 

B.               Nightmares, these are dreams of a traumatic nature, they are very upsetting and troublesome. Nightmares can be based upon fear tactics of the enemy, however they usually serve as an alarm in your soul that is shouting out loud that something is wrong, that a demonic presence is indeed at work, hence a nightmare can serve to expose the operation of demonic activity. When one has a recurring nightmares, it would be wise not to pray for the nightmare to stop, but pray for revelation as to why the nightmare is occurring. Once the source of the nightmare is found and dealt with, the nightmares will then cease.

 

C.               Night Terrors, According to Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia a night terror is defined as the following,

A night terror, also known as a sleep terror or pavor nocturnus, is a parasomnia disorder characterized by extreme terror and a temporary inability to regain full consciousness. The subject wakes abruptly from slow-wave sleep, with waking usually accompanied by gasping, moaning, or screaming. It is often impossible to awaken the person fully, and after the episode the subject normally settles back to sleep without waking. A night terror can rarely be recalled by the subject. They typically occur during non-rapid eye movement sleep.

          A typical night terror episode usually occurs in the first hour of sleep. The subject sits up in bed and screams, appearing awake but is confused, disoriented, and unresponsive to stimuli. Although the person seems to be awake, they do not seem to be aware of any surrounding presence and usually do not talk. The person may thrash around in bed and does not respond to comforting by others. A person's heart rate can escalate during the terror, along with sweating and harsh breathing.

Most episodes last only a few minutes, but they may last up to 3 hours before the person relaxes and returns to normal sleep.

In some cases the night terror could be recalled by the person, depending on age and the nature of the episode.

Children from age two to six are most prone to night terrors, and they affect about fifteen percent of all children, although people of any age may experience them. Episodes may recur for a couple of weeks then suddenly disappear. The symptoms also tend to be different, like the child being able to recall the experience, and while nearly arisen, hallucinate.

I personally suffered from these attacks as a child from 5 years of age right unto pre-puberty. Looking back I can honestly say that I do not believe that these dream types where psychological, they were demonic. I never remembered the dream, I as Wikipedia has documented would awake in a semi-conscious state of total fear and torment. My mother taught me to combat these recurring episodes with Psalms 91:1-5, truly perfect love cast out all fear. It is of my opinion that we who have children that have such experiences should take note that your child is probably very gifted and very sensitive to the spiritual realm. These children should have extra prayer covering and extra biblical teachings on a daily basis.

 

D.              Sexual Dreams, These dreams at times could reveal something Soulish, they may however be stemmed by demonic forces that are trying to torment a believer. These spirits are known as Incubus (the male version) and Succubus (the female version) of the same demon. According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, the Incubus and Succubus is nothing new to the 21st Century.

An incubus (from the Latin, incubo, or nightmare; plural incubi) is a demon in male form supposed to lie upon sleepers, especially women, in order to have sexual intercourse with them, according to a number of mythological and legendary traditions. Its female counterpart is the succubus. An incubus may pursue sexual relations with a woman in order to father a child, as in the legend of Merlin. Religious tradition holds that repeated intercourse with an incubus or succubus may result in the deterioration of health, or even death.

One of the earliest mentions of an incubus comes from Mesopotamia on the Sumerian kings' list, ca. 2400, where the hero Gilgamesh's father is listed as Lilu (Lila).[6] It is said that Lilu disturbs and seduces women in their sleep, while Lilitu, a female demon, appears to men in their erotic dreams.  Two other corresponding demons appear as well: Ardat lili, who visits men by night and begets ghostly children from them, and Irdu lili, who is known as a male counterpart to Ardat lili and visits women by night and begets from them. These demons were originally storm demons, but they eventually became regarded as night demons due to mistaken etymology.

To many people such experiences may seem nothing more than a figment of one’s imagination, however Church History said otherwise, Wikipedia goes on to say this,

Debate about the demons began early in the Christian tradition. St. Augustine touched on the topic in "De Civitate Dei" (The City of God), admitting that there were too many attacks by incubi to deny them.

 

2.                The Human Soul: Dreams revealing self, chemical dreams, dreams that reveal past and current issues of life. These dreams serve as a type of mirror that reflects the issues of the soul. We will deal with these dream types in detail in section III.

 

3.                The Spirit of God: Dreams that are Light in nature, God is Light, so these dreams will be full of light, color and life. We will look at Holy Spirit dreams in great detail in section III.

 

II.            Internal Dreams Versus External Dreams and Basic Dream Symbols

 

1.                Internal Dreams: These dreams deal basically about you. Leading dream experts suggest that 95% of your dreams are about you!

 

2.                External Dreams: These dreams deal with those around you. We must understand that this type of dream deals with those in your sphere of influence. Determining your sphere of influence is vital in understanding the dreams you dream about other people. It is the same with intercessory prayer and spiritual warfare. The Lord will not call you to war in a sphere or territory where you have no influence. You are called to war and pray over the level of authority that has been given to you by God. Of course this will increase as you are faithful in the little that the Lord has given to you. The same is with your dreams. If you dream about a world leader, and you have no influence with that world leader, this type of dream would require prayer, to find the proper meaning behind the dream itself and to what it references.

 

3.                Dream Language and Symbolism: The universal language is that of pictures. An infant learns how to identify what he/she wants or needs by identifying the image of the product. The same synopsis applies with all nations and tongues. God speaks to us through parables, riddles, dark speeches so that we will have to hear with our eyes. Remember in Genesis chapter 3:8, Adam heard the voice of God walking in the Garden. This profound revelation declares to us that the Lord is seen with our ears and heard with our eyes. He transcends our natural reasoning and brings us back to a state of simplicity. We must understand however that the purest simplicity of the art of hearing and seeing is through total dependence on the Holy Spirit. When interpreting scripture, one must have the guidance of the Holy Spirit to bring understanding to scripture. The same with dreams symbolism, though we may learn a basic way of interpretation, without the guidance of Holy Spirit we will miss the dream and be way off target.

The Holy Spirit must be at all times and all cost the instructor and teacher of dream language. We will look at the symbols of dreams and possible meanings in Advanced Dream Language.

 

III.        Dream Types: (Taken in part from Dream Language, James Goll; Destiny Image 2006 pages 104-114)

 

1.                Holy Spirit Dreams

 

A.              Dreams of Destiny: These dreams reveal the progressive calling of your life. My first destiny dream was when I was about four years of age, I dreamed I was in a cardboard box, it was very dark and behind me were many eyes watching me out of the darkness. I then with my bare hands ripped my way out of the cardboard box, and was free. The meaning of the dream is this; the day would come that I would break out of the box of religion and begin a reformation while all eyes (people) are watching.

The second dream I had of this nature was 16 years or so later, I dreamed I awoke in a huge eagles nest, so far off of the ground that all you could see was clouds if you looked down. This dream marked me being born into the prophetic ministry.

 

B.              Dreams of Edification: These are feel good dreams, dreams that build you up, and remind you of your destiny. I have had dreams of preaching, prophesying and praying for people, these dreams came at a time when I was not doing those things, and served as a vehicle to remind me of Gods promises for my life.

 

C.              Dreams of Exhortation: These are dreams that impart inspiration and courage to rise up and take action. They produce faith to achieve a goal that is at hand.

 

D.              Dreams of Comfort: These dreams are given to bring healing to our emotions and our memories. (I once had a dream about my step-father. Who now is dead, that he indeed made it to heaven, this dream brought great comfort to myself and others who were close to him).

 

E.               Dreams of Correction: These are dreams that reveal matters of our heart; they are dreams that call us to repentance. These dreams indeed unsettle us many times because our flesh and spirit is at war with each other, and many times we become angry with the attributes of the sinful; nature.

 

F.               Dreams of Direction: These are dreams that serve as a vehicle to show us the direction we need to take at certain transitions in our lives. Many times they will show us changes we need to make, and at other times it will show God’s supernatural intervention to get us on the right track.

 

G.              Dreams of Instruction: Instructive dreams differ from direction dreams because directive dreams show you direction; instructive dreams teach us what we must do. Many times these dreams will consist of a message that we will hear, and we must learn at that point to obey the voice we hear, when it is in accordance to God’s Word and Will.

 

H.              Dreams of Cleansing: These are dreams that deal with inner and outer cleansing from the effects of sin and the world around us. These dreams usually consist of bathroom dreams, Taking a shower or a bath, or using the toilet. These dreams are very good, and show us that we are getting cleansed either from something inside of us, or something that is on the outside of us.

 

I.                  Dreams Revealing the Heart: These dreams reveal our heart as it looks towards God.

 

J.                Dreams of Spiritual Warfare: These dreams are often dreams that call us to prayer. They may even call us to fasting when we see that we are not able to pull down an enemy stronghold where we may be at presently. I have dreamed of casting out demons, in some dreams I was unable to cast the demon out of a person, this dream would say “This kind come not out, but by prayer and fasting”.

 

K.             Dreams of Creativity: These dreams can be full of ideas such as new inventions, ideas to make prosperity, etc. They may even be equipping dreams where the Lord will equip you to do something new and creative.

 

L.               Dreams of Impartation: These types of dreams can come from the source of angelic activity, or even from men of God, those who may even be asleep in the Lord. In a dream that I received, Smith Wigglesworth came to me and declared that I should lay my hands on God’s people. I feel this was a dream of impartation for me, because it accompanied power to do what I was directed to do.

 

2.                Dreams from the Natural Man

 

A.              Body Dreams: There dreams basically reveal something that s actually going on in your body.

 

B.              Chemical Dreams: Hormones and medications can be the source of such dreams; in my experience such dreams will usually be scrambled and will not project any clear word.

 

C.      Soulish Dreams: Soulish dreams will usually show forth our needs desires and wants, many times these dreams are very helpful for they reveal to us an area that need sanctifying. In my book The Ever Advancing Kingdom (revised edition) chapter three, pages 37-38, The Psychology of Three Entities I write the following…

I believe it is essential to every believer that we examine that area of the believer that we call the soul. The soul of man is made up of three main centers of activity. The first we call the will of man, and the second we will call the intellect of man. The last we will call the emotions of man. I list these for the sake of your own study and for the course of this book. Detailed information will not be given regarding this area of theology

 

Christian ministers who teach that our spirit man is the only relevant aspect of Christianity are in error. Although the spiritual state of a man is undeniably the most important, it is not the end of the line. Some people speak of ministers who deal with the psychological aspects of a believer as being heretical. Yet these same believers usually believe in physical healing. My question then is, Where is the fallacy? We must draw the conclusion in Scripture that the same God who saved us saved us not only spiritually but also physically and emotionally. As we read in Scripture: “The very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”  (1Thess5:23).

 

God made man a triune being. Therefore to function properly on planet earth and to fulfill destiny, we as believers must understand the Lord’s plan for redeeming all three parts, and sanctifying them unto the service of the Lord. Someone made the comment that a Christian psychologist is an oxymoron. But I for one do believe that God is the creator of the human mind and that it is foolish and delusional to assume that the moment one is born again all past emotional trauma is solved. Romans 12:2 informs us plainly: “Be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of the mind that ye may prove what is that good and perfect and acceptable will of God.”

 

The word “transformed” in this passage is the Greek word metamorphoo. This is where we derive the English word “metamorphosis,” which describes the transformation of the caterpillar into the butterfly! How powerful is that? That’s going from an earthly perspective to a heavenly perspective. And as Proverbs 23:7 states, “As a man thinketh so is he.” That is a powerful verse of Scripture.

 

As we can see from my book, the soul of man is a very powerful force, and should be taken into consideration at all times when it comes to everyday life, and also your dreams!