Prophetic Dreams

Let's take a look at the category of prophetic dreams. The prophetic dream is experienced solely by the Christian. In such a dream, the message that comes up from your spirit, motivated by the Spirit of God, is to give you direction and guidance and insight to your spiritual walk.

The prophetic dream is no different from visions, prophecy, a word of wisdom or a word of knowledge. If you have up until now flowed in any of those gifts you should be able to flow in dream interpretation, because a dream is simply a night vision. If you have received dreams and visions before and know how to interpret them, you will be able to interpret your own dreams.

Categories of Prophetic Dreams

There are three categories of prophetic dream that the believer can have. The first two are internal and are experienced by every believer, regardless of their spiritual gifts. The third type of prophetic dream (the external prophetic dream) is largely the domain of the prophet.

I am going to lay a foundation here and will get into direct dream interpretation in a later chapter. So by the end of this series you will have a very good idea of how to take your dreams, interpret them; and then also take the dreams of others and interpret them and give them direction from the Lord.

Internal Dreams

The first kind of prophetic dream that you can have is an internal dream. An internal dream pertains to you and to you alone. It involves your current spiritual condition with the Lord, where you are in ministry, and what condition your relationship is at with the Lord.

This dream functions very much like the word of knowledge in that it relates to past and present events. It will give you an insight to your spiritual and soulish condition concerning things from your past, as well indicating the state of your current spiritual maturity or conflict.

An internal dream is about you and you alone. I am stressing this point here for a good reason. There is so much misconception in Christian circles, that because you have a prophetic dream, it must relate to somebody else.

You say, "If I dream about my auntie, it must mean that the dream relates to her, and the interpretation is for her."

This is not so. An internal dream is for you, and all the symbols that are related in the internal dream pertain to you and you alone. Every character in your dream represents a part of yourself; a part of your emotions, a part of your mind, a part of your will, a part of your spirit, or a part of your flesh. We will go on later and I will show you how to take each character and identify what exactly they symbolize within yourself. The internal dream is about you and the message is for you from the Holy Spirit.

Identifying It

So how do you identify an internal dream? It is very simple. In an internal dream you are the main character. You are the star of the dream. You are involved in it and participating in it. You are active in whatever is happening in the dream. You are actively involved with the characters in the dream. This is an indication that your dream is internal.

Perhaps you have been having dreams lately where you are dreaming about being pregnant. This would perhaps apply more to a woman. Perhaps you have been dreaming that you have been pregnant or have given birth, will be giving birth, or are looking to get pregnant. This could very well be the Lord saying that you have birthed something in your spiritual life. There is something new that He has given to you, perhaps that you have to birth through travail and pain.

Perhaps you dream that the baby that you are birthing dies, in which case the Lord is saying, "Hey, this gift that I have given you is dying within you. You need to do something about it."

Perhaps you dream that your father comes to visit and tries to develop a relationship with you. In some cases your father could speak of the Lord, and the Lord could be saying, "Hey, let me in. I want to come and spend more time with you."

If you are an active participant in your dream, it means it is an internal dream and all the characters reflect a part of your own spirit or soul. As you identify which dreams are clearly internal, you will receive an insight into what is going on within you that you have never seen before.

Often you face pressures and experience emotions in life that you cannot understand. Perhaps you have been feeling very melancholic lately or a deep weeping has come over you that you cannot understand. Your dreams could reveal to you the source of that rising emotion.

Very often as you face life, templates from the past are exposed and you find yourself facing emotions you cannot get a hold of. Be very aware of your dreams through a time like this, because they will very likely reflect what is happening within. At this time you could dream of characters of the past, which would reveal where the template was first formed.

Perhaps you will dream of your child being killed. I have two daughters and my firstborn (Deborah-Anne) has strong faith. When I dream of her, I know that the Lord is speaking of my faith. My second daughter (Jessica) is very soft and very affectionate. When I dream of her, I know the Lord is giving me a message with regards to my love.

In one instance I dreamed that Jessica died. Now if you had to interpret this externally, you would give into fear and give the enemy license in your life, but I was an active participant in this dream. I dreamed that she was swimming and that she was gagged. And because she was gagged, she could not get air and drowned. In my dream I went to her and resuscitated her using CPR.

In the same dream, I dreamed that Deborah stood at the edge of the pool without putting on her floating device and just stepped into the water! My first reaction was to panic, but as I watched, she walked on the water! So what was the message from my spirit in this clear internal dream?

If Jessica is my love and she was being gagged, it indicated to me that I had gagged my love! That I had stifled it and because I had stifled it within myself, it died. But yet it was resuscitated and so the Lord showed me that I would overcome this time of testing.

In the same instance Deborah, who was a symbol of my faith walked on water! This was a clear indication to me that I must step into the unknown and be bold, because by stepping out, I would walk on water and my faith would grow strong.

Perhaps you have been dreaming often of close family relatives or children continuously. As you identify them in your dreams, your night visions will open up to you in a way you have never seen them before. They will not only give you direction, but they will also give you hope for the future.

Internal Prophetic Dream

The second kind of prophetic dream is called an internal prophetic dream. While the internal dream indicates within you the current state of your spiritual condition, it operates very much like the word of knowledge in that it pertains to events present and past. However, the internal prophetic dream always pertains to the events in the future.

Can you see the difference? They are both about you in that the internal prophetic is still about you, but it pertains to events in the future. You will still be the star character in the internal prophetic dream, but the events in the dream are a warning or a direction of what is going to happen in the future, while the internal dream is an indication of your current spiritual condition.

The Baker and the Cupbearer

A very good example in the Word of an internal prophetic dream would be of the baker and the cupbearer in prison when they met up with Joseph.

You can remember the story, where the cupbearer came to Joseph and said, "I dreamt there were three bunches of grapes, and I squeezed the grapes out and gave the juice to the king and he drank of it."

Then the baker said, "I too had a dream in which I was dreaming that I had baskets of bread on my head. But behold the birds came and ate of the bread that was in the baskets."

Joseph said to the cupbearer, "What your dream is about is you. In three days the king is going to pass judgment, and you will be taken back into service."

The baker got all excited and thought he would get a positive interpretation too. But alas, it was not so great for him was it?

Joseph turned to him and said, "I'm sorry to break it to you, pal, but in three days the king is going to have you hanged, and the birds are going to eat the flesh off your bones."

It was not a very wonderful interpretation, but a very good example of an internal prophetic dream. It pertained to the cupbearer and baker, but yet it also related to their future.

King Nebuchadnezzar's Dream

Another very good example would be when King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream and none of the wise men could interpret it. Of course, Daniel was called to interpret the dream.

The king said to Daniel, "Behold I saw a beautiful tree with branches that spread out, so that all the birds of the air came and nested in it, and all the animals came beneath. But then the tree was felled and a chain was put about it, and a voice from the heavens said that it shall eat grass and be as the oxen for a period of seven years."

King Nebuchadnezzar was confused until Daniel had to break the news to him and said, "You, O King are that tree. Your kingdom has increased, but you have become lofty and proud, and the Lord is going to cut you down. And He will make you to eat grass and be as a beast of the field for seven years."

Then Daniel went on further and said, "Repent to the Lord that this might not come to pass."

This is another very good example of an internal prophetic dream.

Identifying It

So how then would you identify an internal dream versus an internal prophetic dream? Firstly, like the internal dream, you are the star in 'the show'. It is also likely that you will dream of characters you are familiar with in an internal prophetic dream, but this is not always the case.

What makes the internal prophetic dream stand apart from a straight internal dream, is that in the prophetic you will dream of symbols that you are not usually familiar with. The internal prophetic dream comes from the Spirit of God to give you a message, and so you will dream of symbols from the Word of God.

Now you may not be familiar with these symbols, so you would need to have a good knowledge of the Word. Having a good Bible program with a search capability on your computer will also help you look up symbols from your dream.

The External Prophetic Dream can be found in The Way of Dreams and Visions book

This was taken from Chapter 2 The Way of Dreams and Visions.