Can We Have Control Over Our Dreams?

Q&A SESSION WITH PASTOR CHRIS OYAKHILOME.

QUESTION: The significance of dreams. Why is it our dreams come to pass at times and in some occasions, we feel the impact of dreams, depending on the content, in our bodies. Can we have control over our dreams?

ANSWER: I’ve written out for you a proper definition of a dream, because I realize that most of the world doesn’t really understand what a dream is. They experience it, but it’s a phenomenon that’s unknown or misunderstood (or misinterpreted) by most people. But, you see, the word of God gives us the accurate information on any of these things, especially when it comes to dealing with things outside the realm of science, you need the word of God! Now, “a dream is an activity of the human spirit which occurs in the sleep modes of the human body senses and mind.” Now, this activity of the human spirit is characterized in two classes:

The spirit’s imagination of the inner mind’s activities of the inward man. Now, I’ll explain further to you because the bible tells us there is an inward man and there is an outward man. So, the first one is the spirit’s imaginations. The inward man has imaginations. And then, secondly, the actual encounters or experiences of the human spirit.

Now, let me give you the explanation. When you sleep, your spirit…man is a spirit, he has a soul and he lives in the body. There is an inward man and an outward man. The outward man is the body and his senses. Now, the inward man is the human spirit with his soul and the soul is the seat of the mind, the emotions and the will. Now, the human spirit does have his own imaginations just like you have your imaginations of your mind—the human spirit has imaginations.

Now, when you go to sleep (when you are in the sleep mode), your senses are somewhat suspended. You don’t know what’s happening around you. You don’t know what’s happening to you, but the human spirit doesn’t sleep. See, the human spirit is awake; the human spirit functions, and at that time the human spirit has imaginations. And, those imaginations can be affected by the kind of things that your spirit has been receiving in the day time, not necessarily on that particular day but over a period of time. Now, those things affect the imaginations of your spirit. And when your spirit has those imaginations, those are dreams; they are the dreams you have, they are the pictures in the mind of your spirit—what we call the inner mind of your spirit, because the mind, remember, the mind is in the soul and the soul is a possession of the spirit, according to the bible. So, you see that you are sleeping and your spirit has imaginations. And so you wake up and there’s been this activity, but it was all a spiritual imagination. That means the imagination of your spirit. Now, there are other dreams, another class of dreams, and these particular dreams (this other class of dreams) is an experience that is much more real to you than an ordinary dream.

Now, the ordinary dream is that dream that is, more or less, an imagination of your spirit in sleep, as I have said. Now, the second part of the dream that is more real to, when you wake up, it’s like you know that you know (that you know) that you did have this experience. In fact, sometimes, you wake up with the experience continuing with you. There are people who can give you stories of their experiences like this. That experience is carried from the dream into the natural world. This is that dream that belongs in the second class of dreams; and that second class of dreams is the actual experience, the actual encounter of the human spirit. There is where [the place] God functions. For example, if God talks to your spirit while you are sleeping, you would know because it’s an actual encounter with God by your spirit; it’s not an imagination. God actually talked to you; He actually talked to you. He actually talked to that man or woman. And so, that experience goes with you—you wake up, you know it because it was an experience of your spirit. And so, these two classes of dreams are what we experience every day. And the second class, which is the real encounter of the human spirit, is not something that happens all the time. See? It doesn’t happen all the time but when it happens, it’s more real.

Now, does the devil get involved in this? The devil doesn’t get into your dream except you invite him. There’s where divination comes in; it is when human beings try to interact with spiritual forces, especially evil spirits, and the bible tells us not to do them—we must not do such things. And when you open yourself and invite Satan (invite an evil spirit into your life) and you want to know the future, you want to know about today, you want to know about tomorrow, you want to know about other things, or even consulting with dead people by familiar spirits (through familiar spirits), these are things that God doesn’t want Christians to do. But, you see, there are those who encounter them in their dreams because they created the opportunity for those spirits to come to them.

“Do we have control over our dreams?” Yes and no! The first phase of dreams, which is the imaginations of the spirit, where you see different kinds of things that are based on your imagination, you have a control over them, not necessarily in what you’re going to imagine but in the character of the imaginations. Now, let me read to you two portions of the bible here. The first one will be from Jeremiah chapter 29, from verse 8, “For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Let not your prophets and your diviners, that be in the midst of you, deceive you, neither hearken to your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed.” [Jeremiah 29:8] So, God is holding them responsible for their dreams. He says, “You caused those dreams to be dreamed. They are your dreams; you made them happen.” So, they had a responsibility in their dreams; they made those dreams come. And these are not encounters with God; they are encounters with their own minds. See? And so, because of what they have put into their minds, when they go to sleep, their spirits have imaginations. They can be imaginations characterized by fear and those are the kind of dreams that bring nightmares, imaginations based on expectations and so on.

Now, here’s another thing that’s very, very important for us to know. The Spirit of God does show, just like in your natural life, you have imaginations of things you want, and you can imagine tomorrow, you can imagine next year, you can imagine the past. Imaginations – we say that the imaginative power of man is his creative ability. So, in your natural life you can imagine by use of your mind…you can imagine—the same thing with your spirit. Your spirit has the capacity, because it’s made in the image of God, it has the capacity to imagine the future and present to you certain pictures that are based on those imaginations – certain pictures that you can accept or reject. If you can accept them, they can come to pass. And there’s where we find that dreams come to pass if we accept them. And you can reject them and not let them come to pass if you don’t want them. So, you actually do have control over them. If they are good dreams and you want them to come to pass, accept them by talking about them—you endorse them. If you don’t want them to come to pass, you better not talk about them because if you do, you endorse them. See, our speech always helps us to establish our imagination; what we say about our imagination empowers the imagination and creates realities.

There’s another scripture here I’d like to read to you: from verse 7, Isaiah chapter 29, “And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel [Ariel, here, is a name given to Jerusalem], even all that fight against her and her munition, and that distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision. It shall even be as when an hungry man dreameth, and, behold, he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is empty: or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh; but he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul doth hath appetite: so shall the multitude of all the nations be, that fight against mount Zion.” [Isaiah 29:7-8] Isn’t that wonderful? He talks about eating or drinking in your dream. He didn’t say anything was wrong with it! He said you can eat in your dream and wake up and you’re empty, which means, you didn’t really eat anything. And, it says, that’s what it’s going to be for those who want to destroy mount Zion. He is saying they can create imaginations in their mind but this thing is not going to work; it’s not going to happen. See that? So, these are dreams that come out of your activity (your own activity). Let me read another thing to you here: Ecclesiastes chapter 5, reading to you from verse 3, “For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool’s voice is known by multitude of words.” [Ecclesiastes 5:3] In other words, our activities have something to do with the kind of dreams we have. And, like we read in Jeremiah 29:8, He says, “Ye cause these dreams to be dreamed.” So, you do have control over your dreams – the character of your dreams that is. So, I’ve told you: first, the origin of the dreams and then, why it is that some dreams can come to pass.

Now, if a dream is an encounter with the Spirit of God and He tells you what’s going to happen, that’s a different thing because He addressed your spirit. But when it’s based on imaginations of your spirit while you’re in the sleep mode, it may or may not come to pass. It depends on what you do with it because some dreams are symbolic, like the kind of dreams that Joseph interpreted. He had some dreams himself and then he interpreted some and they were all symbolic dreams. The main characters were not often in the dreams. For example, when he talked about when the sun and the moon bowed to him and the eleven stars, he was talking about his family; he was talking about his brothers and his father and his mother and none of those characters was represented there. So he was the only one in there, so it was symbolic. Or the dream of pharaoh when he talked about the seven fat cows and the seven thin cows, you know! Or the dream that Nebuchadnezzar had. Or the dream of the butler; all of these dreams, a lot of times when they are symbolic, the interpretation matters and what we do with the interpretation. And, I read something to you in Isaiah 29:8 where it was talking about eating or drinking in your dream. He didn’t say the devil did something about it; He just told you that it was empty, which means, that man ate in his dream but he woke up and he wasn’t full. So, that one has eaten in his dream doesn’t mean that something terrible has happened to him. In fact, you ought to be smart enough to give it a positive interpretation for your own life.

Now, I’m aware that a lot of people live in fear because of the kind of dreams that they had, probably because that fellow dreamt that he ate something given to him by a stranger, or something like that, and he’s afraid that it might be of the devil. We should never be afraid of such things. If you found yourself eating in the dream, you don’t need to consult someone to ask for the meaning; you should know that’s a nice thing, instead of thinking the devil is behind it. Now, no devil can get into your dreams except by your invitation and your imagination. They can only play with the level of your spirit’s imagination based on the activity of your mind prior to that time—the kind of information you’ve been accepting. So, that would form the bedrock of the kind of dreams that you would have in those spirit’s imaginations. But, as for the encounters of your spirit, Satan will not encounter your spirit nor your spirit encounter Satan or his demons except by your invitation, which is divination. And if you’re not into divination or witchcraft, you don’t have to worry about that at all. Only God has entry into your spirit and will make such a communication with your spirit. GET MORE Q&A HERE

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