10 Mistakes in Dream Interpretation

Here are some very common mistakes people make when interpreting dreams. This is a summary version of a much longer lens posted on Squidoo.

1. Not all dreams are valid dreams, healthy for your consideration. Some are just the mind. Others are from dark sources, and are intended to harm you or bring you fear.

2. Interpretation of dreams, visions, and prophecies belongs to God. We must pray for an understanding. Even a non-Christian can pray (which just means petition, or ask) to God for wisdom and interpretation to understand a dream. Just be sure to specify you are asking "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."

3. Dream dictionaries have very limited meanings. These should be abandoned in favor of relying only on God in prayer. This will become part of your relationship with God, currently displaced by books. Remember, Jesus will turn away some who believed they knew Him, but did not. They had signs and prophecy (and probably dreams, too!) But, Jesus will say, "I never knew you." Better get to know Jesus, and ditch the dream dictionary interpretation method. Only a Christian dream interpretation book, compiled from the Bible, and from prayer or fulfilled dreams, is valid for Christians.

4. Jungian interpretation: Jung was just a pagan, spiritually. He called the Kabbalah "gold!", made horoscopes for his analysands, based much of his theory on the I Ching, and generally used eastern religion to create a false science in the west. Jung himself said all he ever really did was translate eastern thought (superstitions and demonic teachings) into terms acceptable to the west.

5. Failure to take notes in a timely and effective manner can result in forgotten and even inaccurate information. Learn to take good notes using keywords, and then expand those notes as soon as you can, preferably immediately.

6. Ignoring common formats or other techniques used by dream choreographers. The chosen format can indicate the type of message included.

7. Dreams in one night almost always are related to the same topic. Interpreting three dreams from one night as three separate messages, and not comprehensively, is a mistake.

8. Overlooking minor details. Often, a small detail may be the key to understanding a dream.

9. Assuming the face you saw in the dream means the you know who that person is. Faces can by symbolic just as much as anything. I think this error is easy to make because we think of a face as belonging to exactly one person, and no others. However, a face can represent another person with the same name, job, personality, or any other trait.

10. Assuming information that is not in the dream. A common example, easy to prove, is seeing a season, or hearing a month in a dream. Some interpreters automatically assume or fear the forewarning is for the same year.

Engineers, doctors, builders, military commanders, and other professionals study mistakes they made personally or saw made by others. This prevents making the same mistakes. You may even want to create a separate list of mistakes you have made, to help protect you from making the same mistakes in the future.

Full article: 10 Dream Interpretation Mistakes

A Dream about How to Pray

This is a real blessing:

I had been feeling for months ... "There is a better way to pray." This became a burden, and I prayed for the Lord to show me how.

I received this dream between Oct 8th and Nov 3rd, 2008 (somewhere in there... I usually can't remember the date in the middle of the night.)

A prayer is a prayer unless it is answered. When a prayer is answered, it is hope fulfilled. Hope fulfilled leads to endurance. Endurance leads to life eternal. And, this life eternal is the life I intended you to have.

Life eternal is the life I intended you to have.

An unanswered prayer is a tax on fortitude. And, fortitude, when it is broken, leads to brokenness. And, in brokenness, things can be received which are rarely hoped for when one is not broken. In brokenness, one relies only upon the Lord. In brokenness, one cries out from the heart, from the place of purity. When there is nothing, when there is no confrontation, then I hear you, then I answer you.

When there is the smallest bit of confrontation, of conflict, when what you are asking is pushing up against some other part of you, your prayer is damaged. It is not pure. And your prayer is limited. Pray to me, my sheep, in a broken voice, and I will hear you.

Pray to me. Pray to me, Pray to me to the point of abandonment, until your whole self is put aside, your whole self is pushed aside, thrust aside for the glory of the spirit. When your whole self is out of the way and the spirit has an open portal, an open doorway, the cry of the spirit is heard loud and beautiful and clear.

The cry of the spirit is heard, is heard, is heard, in brokenness. In brokenness things are possible which had not been desired, which had not been hoped for, which the heart did not dare to hope for. In the broken spirit, a cry for those things is made. Those things which you dare not hope for in fortitude, in personal strength.

Holy Lord, Holy Lord.