On recording and interpreting dreams – when it’s a struggle!

What do you do when it’s a struggle to record and understand your dreams? This is what I did…

What do you do when it’s hard to get motivated with your dreams?

This post is a bit different from my usual articles. It’s about my own struggles with recording and reviewing my dreams. It’s also a testimony of how God used some Facebook posts and an old dream to get me back on track.

I hope my story will encourage you to keep going with dreams as part of your own relationship with God.

I approach dream interpretation from a biblical perspective. My belief is that our dreams can come from God, and understanding them is best understood within the context of an ongoing relationship with Him.

If you have just come across this post and are new to dream interpretation, it is worth mentioning that dreams are symbolic in nature. You might find it helpful to read the following articles: Understand your dreams: A bible-based introduction to dream language and Beginner’s guide to biblical dream interpretation .

A confession

I’ve been blogging about bible-inspired dream interpretation every week for a number of months now. So it may appear that I’ve got this together. I sound so confident!  I’ve been learning dream interpretation for around 15 years in all, so surely I’ve got all sorted by now!

But the truth is – I haven’t.

In fact, the last couple of months have been some of the hardest I’ve had for a while. Don’t get me wrong – I’m passionate about hearing God’s voice, and I totally love dreams.  It’s just that the journey is easier at some times than at others, and right now it’s hard.

Recording dreams – or not?

Recently I’ve been writing about recording dreams – and I absolutely agree with my advice. Yet – I just can’t seem to get up to write my dreams down at the moment! It’s a struggle.

I’ve also been writing about the importance of reviewing dreams regularly – and again, I am passionate about doing it. Yet, I’ve been carefully avoiding my dream journal.

Why?

Because I’ve been feeling confused, and a bit cross with God.

Everything was going fairly well until January, or so I thought. I was confident that I knew what I was meant to be doing. I thought I knew what my dreams were about.

Then I lost the plot.

I realised I had misunderstood something. In fact my dreams even indicated that I had done so. Then all my dream interpretations from the end of last year unravelled.

Avoidance tactics

You might think I would do the mature thing and take time out with God. You might think I would go back over my dream journals to find out where l went wrong.

No.

Avoidance tactics kicked in. I didn’t want to pray. I didn’t want to have any more dreams to add to the confusion. And, funnily enough, I haven’t been remembering my dreams anyway. It’s funny how we can shut those things down through our attitude.

It all culminated in a big rant with God last week – and a time of pouring my heart out:

“I still feel as though I can’t hear Your voice, even after all this time. Has any of this journey even been worth it? I still have some of the same questions I had years ago. I long to really connect with You, yet You seem so elusive and it’s hard to understand what You mean….”  – and so on!

Everything felt the same as when I originally started this journey (you can read about that in my story). I felt like I was in the dark, with all the same frustrations of not being able to hear God clearly.

God breaks in

Then… God.

It started with an innocent looking Facebook post: Two pictures compared; a picture of a snowy scene, and then another of the same place in spring. What a difference!

We really did have snow last month in the UK, but now already signs of spring are in the air. So it seemed as though God was encouraging me to believe that things would change.

Ok. I got the message. But still… I still felt confused and cross.

Here is a link to the original post:

A reluctant return

Then… finally, inspired by these photos, I decided to start again with reviewing my dreams from a few months ago. I went back to the phase when the confusion kicked in: I went back to my dreams from the beginning of December.

Things started to open up. I started to see a pattern emerging in my dreams: hints that I had some unanswered questions that I would need to face; hints that there were issues I was trying to ignore; things that only arise when I feel frustrated and confused.

I started to see that God was allowing these questions to surface again, because He wanted me to confront them with Him.

Then I came across this dream from December:

A new season

As I read that dream the confusion seemed to fall away. I understood that God was allowing my age-old questions to resurface.

In that dream, snow represented difficult times, or a time of struggling to make progress (as often happens in the snow). So by comparing the two seasons, the dream was depicting the fact that I would feel as though I was back in the same state as when I started.

But I’m not.

The new revelation was this: that this feeling actually indicates that spiritual spring is in the air! When I started with dreams I was going into a long process, but now I’m coming out of that phase and entering into a new season!

That dream from December so accurately reflected what I was currently feeling, that once I understood the message, it gave me hope: hope that things are now going to change for the better. As I contemplated the dream, all my despair evaporated, and I felt faith begin to rise.

That’s a God thing.

One dream can change everything

How quickly one dream from heaven can change things around. Suddenly I knew without a doubt that I could face my dream journal again, and that times are changing.

I know that I still have questions to face; but I also know that it is time to face them now – and that I can face them – with God’s help.

After all this, I saw another picture by the same photographer on Facebook – on the same day that I realised what the above dream meant. He had posted two photos of snow, showing two opposite ends of the winter season: an exact representation of my dream:

How does God do it?

I don’t know. But He does.

He plants dreams ready to bear fruit at just the right time. He engineers circumstances and things that we see to explode into our life at just the right time for us to understand and be filled with faith.

So today, if you feel that I’ve got it all together with dreams but you haven’t, then be assured that I haven’t either.

But also know – that as this story testifies – God uses my dreams time and time again to lead me and bring me into a place of peace with Him (even though it gets a bit rocky along the way).

And He can do the same for you.

Keep going!

So I encourage you to press on and learn this language of dreams. For it is the language of heaven – personally tailored to you. And your Heavenly Father will lovingly nurture you along your own personal journey.

• Keep writing your dreams down
• Keep reviewing your dreams with God
• If you fall, get back up and try again
• Keep learning and growing!

And don’t give up; for God will never, never, never, give up on you!

If this article has encouraged you with your dream journey, please leave a comment below! I’d love to hear from you.

Dream interpretations

The purpose of this blog is to provide biblical foundations for interpreting dreams and encourage others to make their own dream journey. I am primarily a writer and bible teacher – who loves dreams, and I hope you will be inspired to learn to interpret your own dreams.

It is not currently my aim to routinely engage in dream interpretations or provide training, except through writing blog posts. You can read my most up to date position on interpreting dreams here: Requests for dream interpretations.

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