Turning Bad Dreams Into Good Dreams
Next Part Help in Re-Scripting Dreams
Peaceful Sleeps, Healing and Deliverance From Bad Dreams
What triggered me writing about bad dreams was an email from my ministry partner, Helen:
Grantley, I had a discussion yesterday with Rick, a church elder. The subject of unwelcome dreams came up – dreaming of doing something sinful that you would certainly say no to in real life.
Rick said he made this suggestion to a group of men:
If you have an unwanted dream, or a nightmare, re-live the dream in your mind – but change the outcome. For instance if you dream you are being chased by a vicious monster, when you are awake, visualize yourself turning the tables on the monster and overpowering him. This message will go down into your subconscious.
If in your dreams you are seduced by a beautiful woman; when you are awake and go over the dream in your mind, visualize yourself as not only resisting her advances; but presenting her with the gospel. This message will go down into your subconscious.
Grantley, do you have any thoughts about this particular strategy?
Rick’s idea is not new. Many psychologists recommend it because they have found it very effective. I presume the idea has been around for much longer than modern science. More than just a good idea, however, I think it is a God idea. What affirms this to me is the experience of a close friend, Christine, who is frequently harassed by upsetting dreams. No human had mentioned to her the above strategy for responding to unwanted dreams. I respect her ability to hear from God and she is convinced that God personally taught her this approach.
Although I agree with Rick’s principle, however, I question the wisdom of daydreaming about spending long witnessing to a seductive person. The danger is that it keeps one thinking of having close interaction with her. Even spending long praying for her salvation has unexpected hazards. Superficially, intercession seems both commendable and safe, but I know of nothing more powerful in eliciting feelings of love towards someone than praying for her.
Nurturing feelings that are the opposite of attraction – a degree of disgust towards what you find desirable about her – might prove helpful. For example, if you felt physically attracted to her in the dream, visualize in a dreamlike way her appearing without skin. Your motivation in doing this would not be to dishonour the person but to counter lust, since lust is truly dishonouring to both her and to God, and to anyone you or she should be faithful to.
If you are married, another counter measure is to daydream about immediately turning your back on the person and in your fantasy – even if it is not practical to do it immediately in reality – locating your marriage partner and finding him/her exceedingly desirable.
I suggested that Helen e-mail Christine for her response to Rick’s idea. Christine replied:
When dreams freak me out I have learned to tell myself a story, based on elements of the dream, but turning it into something positive. Sometimes I look to God and actually go back to sleep and re-dream what I had just dreamt but this time with a comforting or uplifting outcome. Other times I remain awake but craft an appropriate daydream. I let myself feel the fear or pain and then I win over it. Sometimes I need Jesus’ help (he is an awesome storyteller, by the way) in creating the best storyline for my imagination to follow.
Sometimes in my counter-dream God rescues me. Sometimes I switch the whole dream around so that I am no longer chased but I’m helping someone else who is being chased. I become the hero instead of the victim. I learned this approach from God. It is part of taking back what the enemy tried to take or has stolen from me.
Helen replied:
Thank you for explaining this, Christine. What frustrates me most is when I wake up able only to recall one element of the dream. I am aware of my emotional reaction to the dream, but I have no idea of the theme of the dream. I can’t “process” the dream because I haven’t got enough information.
Here’s a recent example. A beautiful woman, wearing an evening gown was sitting down, facing away from me. That’s all I remember. But I was left with a feeling of deep sadness. The word “rejection” comes to mind. Even as I write this, tears are welling up. The woman does not remind me of anyone I know.
Helen could imagine the woman turning around and greeting Helen warmly, praising her, embracing her, proudly introducing her to other people, and so on.
However, re-scripting does not lower the immense value of dream interpretation. A Christian friend of Helen, gave her this interpretation:
That beautiful woman in the evening gown is you!
You are seeing the back of yourself (the past behind you) as you once were in your younger years – those days gone by. There is definitely a sorrow (and a sense of grieving or grief at times) associated with moving into our Golden Years, making many necessary changes, adjustments, health concerns and limitations, and so on, as we go from what used to be, to accepting what is today.
You certainly are still that very beautiful woman in the evening gown in spirit, even today. If the word “rejection” comes to mind, then perhaps you are rejecting some facet of aging when awake. Remember that with each passing year, we gain more wisdom in life. We sure didn’t have much wisdom when we were wearing evening gowns in our youth!
With this interpretation, re-scripting is still worthwhile because Helen needs to embrace both the past and the present. But what if we can recall nothing of the dream, but only the emotion? Certainly we should pray about it and ask for revelation but Christine explained to Helen how we can still apply re-scripting:
You can use the feeling as the basis for reversing any negative effect a dream may have. Fear is my big one. I wake up with it screaming at me. So I tell myself a story involving a scary situation. I’m trapped with other hostages. How do I fight? Do I use a gun and kill the enemy? I run different schemes through my mind.
Then I pray. Doing so makes me superior to the enemy. Through prayer I have hidden power. Jesus and I conspire. He whispers to me, “Not the gun. Use your faith.” Miraculously, there is a plane. Could I fly it and get the hostages out? No. Yes. No. The drama goes wild. I find myself on the edge, excited to know how this will unfold.
Then I connect with the Holy Spirit. Ah Ha! The Holy Spirit is the Master Source of knowledge. He and I team up. While the enemy isn’t looking, we slip out. He gives me calm assurance and helps me fly the plane.
My real life challenges are not as daunting as this situation that Jesus and I just won over. Hey, every situation or feeling is smaller than God and as long as it is smaller than God, I win.
Sometimes I release the feelings that haunt me. As a child I was frequently beaten without reason. The accumulated emotional damage was so great that I am still healing from it. Once, I re-lived the feelings of being beaten but in my fantasy I was beaten for something that I chose to be whipped for, such as not denying God or not revealing my best friend’s secret. I cried as I re-lived the pain, but this time I had chosen it. Instead of being overwhelmed by bewildered shame, there was purpose in the pain. In fact, it was heroic. This empowered me to own the feelings and thus empowered I could hand them to God. Maybe this is just a mind game, but it has been a huge help to me.
I suggest that as soon as you become conscious of your dream, invite God into it. Ask him what it means, ask him to guide its outcome or guide the re-dreaming. Timing this as early as you can might possibly help train yourself to eventually invite God into your dream while you are still dreaming. This might allow you to experience divine intervention in your dream before it turns nasty. (I recall hearing of one scientific study of dreams in which it was demonstrated that unpleasant dreams usually begin mild and become increasingly disturbing.)
I cannot say with certainty, but I suspect that the closer we are to being in a dream state when having the counter-dream, the more effectively it might speak to our subconscious, the deepest, least accessible part of us. Christine mentioned that she actually sometimes goes back to sleep soon after her dream, asking God to help her re-dream it positively, and he does. Even if it is the next night or even later, if you think it likely that a dream will recur, I suggest you rehearse a good outcome to the dream just before you drift off to sleep. Try to imagine it vividly and especially focus on the feelings of triumph and empowerment that the good ending generates. That should increase the likelihood that the good ending will be incorporated into the dream when you sleep.
If you have a different dream, however, in which God gives you a revelation, it is important to force yourself awake and record the dream. Most people find that if they do not do this, the revelation is lost, despite them at the time feeling convinced that the dream is so memorable that they could never forget it.
My infamous common sense – otherwise known as lazy presumptions not based on biblical revelation – tells me that if a dream is from God he would not let us forget it. But I’m wrong again. It is a divine principle taught in so many Scriptures that the person to whom much is given, much is required. This also applies to the person to whom revelation is given. God expects us to treasure and nurture every speck of revelation that he gives us and the more faithfully we do this, the more he will entrust further revelation to us.
Proverbs 6:9-11 How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest – and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.
This divine principle applies not to just to material poverty but to spiritual poverty, and it applies literally to sleep if we are lazy about recording (by voice or writing) the contents of a dream from God. It has been suggested that recording dreams in the present tense aids recall. Remaining still after waking is also thought to help recall.
Perhaps as soon as possible recall the details of the dream while not moving and try to impress it upon your mind, then immediately roll over to grab your means of recording the dream. Use of a radio alarm is not recommended as the distraction of the voice or song would tend to push away the memory of the dream.
Next Part Help in Re-Scripting Dreams