Where do dreams come from? Do dreams come from God or are they from our own subconscious? One day I decided to put dreams to the test. This is what happened…
You may have heard people say that dreams come from God. The bible says that they did – but is this still true today?
Do dreams come from your subconscious, or do they actually contain useful messages from God?
One day I decided to check out whether my dreams were from God. Read on to see what happened…
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, you might find it helpful to see my free ultimate guide to Interpreting dreams from God.
Where do dreams come from?
I have always dreamed. As a child I would often wake up in the night after a vivid dream and run into my parents’ room for comfort.
I have frequently woken up in some funny places, such as the bathroom, or grovelling the corner of the bedroom! My husband has got used to this and just tells me to go back to bed!
I have woken up in some funny places!
I have even blundered into someone else’s room in the middle of the night, when I was sleepwalking as a student. That caused great hilarity among my house mates the next day, as you can imagine!
- But are my dreams just funny stories that we can amuse ourselves with?
- Are they the result of my mind processing the events of the day?
- Are they a side effect from eating too much cheese?
This was my question: Are they primarily a tool for psychologists coming from our own subconscious, or do dreams come from God and contain useful communications from heaven?
Are my dreams from God?
For many years it never occurred to me that dreams could be anything more than either random craziness or my mind processing things.
So back in 2006, when I heard the late John Paul Jackson mention ‘dream interpretation’ at a Christian conference, I was amazed by what he shared. I was intrigued enough to purchase his teaching series on dreams.
When I heard the late John Paul Jackson mention ‘dream interpretation’ at a Christian conference I was intrigued.
He taught that dreams come from God, and had much bible-based wisdom on the subject. It made a lot of sense to me. You can still purchase his teaching sets from the Streams online shop.
I had always struggled to connect with God and hear His voice, so anything that could help me was going to catch my attention. I wrote more about that journey in my dream story.
What if God has been speaking through dreams all my life and I never knew it?
My dream story: A testimony of how God speaks through dreams
My testimony of discovering that God speaks through dreams, and how dreams transformed my relationship with God.
Checking out if dreams come form God
Listening to John Paul’s stories and examples persuaded me that biblical dream interpretation was a subject worth checking out. But I needed to know whether it was worth investing time and effort into learning about dreams. I needed to know whether God was speaking to me personally through my dreams.
I needed to know if MY dreams were from God!
It was at that point that I decided to put dreams to the test! The following is an account of what happened.
Test 1: ‘God please give me a dream tonight’
One evening I watched an interview on YouTube where a dream was shared, and John Paul Jackson gave an interpretation.
That night I asked God to give me a similar type of dream to the one I saw on TV – and went to bed full of expectation. In the morning I woke with excitement, only to find that I couldn’t remember having any dreams!
I was a little disappointed. “Oh well,” I thought to myself, “maybe there’s nothing in this after all”. But then, as I was having my breakfast, my husband come in and told me that he had just had a dream.
I didn’t have a dream, but my husband did!
Just for the record, I had never previously had my husband tell me about a dream. But he proceeded to recount a dream extremely similar to the one I had watched the previous evening, and I realised that I understood what it meant!
Conclusion: Dreams can come from God
The extraordinary timing of my husband having this dream was undeniable. So this occurrence was eye opening – because of two factors:
- My husband did not know about the program I watched on TV, nor about my prayer, so his dream was not subconsciously influenced by those factors.
- If I had dreamed that dream myself, I could have argued that it was my mind processing what I watched the night before, but it wasn’t my dream.
In one go, any reasoning that one of us could have been influenced by our own subconscious was ruled out. Either this was an extraordinary coincidence – or my husband’s dream was a heavenly response to my ‘test’.
Therefore, at a personal level this was compelling evidence for me that dreams can come from an outside source, and it truly felt as though I had just had an interaction with God over the matter.
At a personal level this was compelling evidence that dreams can come from God.
Test 2: ‘Does my dream mean anything?’
By now my attention was well and truly captured, so I decided to take my dreams seriously. I prayed, and said, “God, if I have a dream tonight, I will assume that it is from you and follow the interpretation steps l have learnt, to see if it means anything.”
The next morning, I did have a dream, but straight away I dismissed it, thinking it was just reflecting my feelings of inadequacy, (a common experience!). But then I remembered that I had said I would take it seriously, so I wrote the dream down:
The Dream
“I was working in the pharmacy where I normally work. My friend came with a prescription for medication to be dispensed at three times a day, but this drug would usually be twice a day.
I looked in my yellow folder for information about this, but the file was empty. I decided that I trusted the prescriber, called Dr Reigner, and dispensed it three times a day as prescribed. Afterwards I found a big red folder – which was what I actually needed.”
Applying what I had learnt about dream symbols, I discovered the following:
- WORDPLAY: The prescriber was not a real doctor that I knew, and when his name was written down I could see that it was a wordplay for ‘Reign-er’. The God who reigns! I trusted this doctor in the dream even though I did not understand his prescription myself.
- NUMBERS: Secondly I looked at the numbers. In the bible three is the number of God, and I had heard someone say that two can be the number of man.
- COLOURS: I looked up the meaning of colours on John Paul’s colour chart that I had bought. Red indicated wisdom from God, whereas yellow indicated the mind, or our understanding.
Conclusion: My dream came from God
Therefore, I realised, this dream was not about my literal work at all. Three things in the dream were all saying the same thing: “Trust God and not your own understanding!” There couldn’t be a more relevant answer to my question about whether dreams are more than just our subconscious minds. The answer was an undeniable, “Yes!”.
This whole dream could be summed up with my favourite bible verse:
- Proverbs 3:5, NASB Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.
Not only did this dream contain a message from heaven, but it was also a direct answer to my quest! My own understanding had been naturally sceptical about dreams, but God was telling me to trust Him on the matter of dreams.
I was surprised to find that this dream had come from God!
Conclusion: Dreams come from God
We have seen how God, in His kindness, gave me two powerful confirmations that dreams are not just from my own subconscious, but that dreams do come from God.
My testimony has shown that God is willing to engage with us through dreams if we are open to it.
These dreams turned out to be the first of many similar experiences – and set me on a path that I have followed for more than 15 years.
Since then, I have literally documented thousands of dreams and checked them out in a similar way to the one I just described. I have cross-checked them with real situations in my life, and revisited them with hindsight to see whether the interpretation checked out.
I no longer need any convincing that dreams come from God, and that he speaks through them.
Are your dreams from God?
For me, there is no longer any doubt. But what about you?
Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to trust your heart and put aside the things we have been taught about dreams in Western culture.
I am confident that if you are willing to investigate your dreams for yourself to see if they come from God, a treasure trove of discovery awaits you…. it is just waiting to be opened!
So finally… are you willing to put God to the test in the area of dreams? The invitation is there – it’s up to you now.
If you do decide to see for yourself whether dreams come from God, please do like or share this post, and I’d love to hear how it goes!
Content Disclaimer
The information contained above is provided for information purposes only. The contents of this article are not intended to amount to advice and you should not rely on any of the contents of this article. Professional advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from taking any action as a result of the contents of this article. Jennifer Needham disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this article.
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Jenny, can you speak to nightmares? Do you believe those are also from God?
Hi Becky, it very much depends on the context. I don’t think I’ve ever had a dream that wasn’t from God, even the ones that woke me up in a sweat! But I have walked with Jesus since a young age. Some dreams can seem like nightmares but can be God getting our attention. Other dreams could be revealing enemy activity. Use the normal steps, in particular take notice of the background colour and atmosphere. Black and white / monochrome / dark oppressive dreams could be from the enemy, or at least revealing enemy schemes.
This is awesome Jenny that makes compelling reading! Thanks for sharing. 😊👍