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Prophetic dreams feature messages from God that predict future events. Those dreams may involve seeing and hearing something as it actually happens later, or perceiving symbols that represent what will happen in the future. During prophetic dreams, God sends foresight to people while they’re sleeping.
God does still give prophetic dreams to people. Both when you’re awake and when you’re asleep, God constantly communicates with you, using whatever methods are best to reach you. You can be especially receptive to hearing from God while you’re sleeping. That’s because sleep relaxes your mind, so you’re less likely to allow stress or fear to prevent you from tuning into what God is saying. While you’re dreaming, your mind is more open to receiving new information and inspiration than you are while you’re awake. - Whitley Hopler
A dream is a dream is a dream - Can we trust prophetic dreams? Look at it this way - We can’t place our trust in dreams themselves, but we can reliably trust God to give us the wisdom we need to understand prophetic dreams - seek discernment from God by praying about any dream you have. In other words seek God's wisdom about the dream before you act.
What dreams may come?
Wisdom for positive change: God may send you a message that to help you better understand your own attitudes and behaviors and how they’re affecting your life, so you can see what’s healthy and what needs to change. Or God may send a message that highlights your interests and talents, to help you figure out how best to pursue what God wants you to pursue.
Healing: God may remind you of the hope that he offers you to heal from whatever past pain you’ve suffered. God may give you a vision of how your life can become better in the future if you place your trust in God and follow where he leads you.
Creative ideas: God may send you creative ideas that are designed to inspire you, motivate you to pursue new adventures and projects, and help you solve problems to improve the future.
Warning: If you or someone you know is facing a dangerous situation but is unaware of it, God may send you a warning message about it through your dreams and show you what steps you can take for future preparation and protection.
Encouragement: When God communicates encouraging messages to you in dreams, those messages will either build your confidence in who you are or help you discover and fulfill the potential for what you can do in the future. God may urge you to take the risks necessary to pursue something that he wants you to do, assuring you that you’ll have his help available to you every step of the way.*
There are all sorts of different kinds of prophetic dreams. The variations of this dream include clear depictions of possible events and those which may be seen to provide you with guidance. Your dream might include a message for your life or you may see yourself making a choice that relates to a choice you need to make in reality.
1. Dreams of a warning
One of the most common kinds of prophetic dreams is warning dreams. These are dreams that could be warnings about possible setbacks, obstacles, problems or even disasters and so are worth paying attention to. For instance, if you’ve just started up a new business venture and you dream of a stop sign, a red flag, or perhaps something blocking your path, these have obvious connotations for the success of your business. However, in these cases, the dream is not a message that you should give up. Instead, they be maybe hinting at things you must avoid to have a smooth road ahead.
Occasionally warning dreams have such significance they are recorded in history. Calpurnia, the wife of Julius Caesar, dreamed that something terrible was going to befall her husband, and begged him to stay home. He ignored her warnings and later ended up being stabbed to death by members of the Senate.
President Abraham Lincoln also had a prophetic warning dream. Three days before he was assassinated, Lincoln described his dream to his wife and a group of friends. How do we know this is story is true? Fortunately for dream historians, Ward Hill Lamon, an attending companion, recorded the conversation.
2. Dreams about making a decision
You may find yourself faced with a choice in your dream and then watch yourself make a decision. Because your conscious self turns off during your various sleep stages, it’s your subconscious instead of your rational conscious mind that made the decision in your dream. Decision making in a dream is a sign or strength and determination, says Aunty Flo. This is especially so in a dream that refers to an attempt to regain control of some aspects in your life, especially in your career.
3. Dreams about giving or receiving help
One of the messages people often receive in prophetic dreams is to assist a close friend, relative or acquaintance in dire need of help. Dreams of helping someone are said to show your willingness to compromise your beliefs toward a greater achievement. Going deeper, if you’re helping someone you don’t like or even an adversary, this is said to indicate you should try to reach an understanding or compromise to be able to move forward with your life. If the dream is the other way round and it’s you that’s asking for help, this represents feelings of being overwhelmed, lost, or inadequate.
So can dreams predict real world events? It all depends on who you ask. According to dream analysts, prophetic dreams provide you with insights into what will possibly happen in the near future. However, it’s very hard to determine if your dream can be called prophetic or not because we humans have no idea about what will happen in the future until the moment it happens.
Psychology Today reports that people described prophetic dreams about the 9/11 attack on New York. Dr. Murray Stein, a renowned author and Jungian analyst, says people also reported that dreams predicted the financial crisis of 2008, which he called, “a black swan event.”
As Investopedia explains:
“A black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences. Black swan events are characterised by their extreme rarity, their severe impact, and the practice of explaining widespread failure to predict them as simple folly in hindsight.”
The coronavirus pandemic may be seen as such a black swan event, and perhaps we’ll come to hear about people who’ve had prophetic dreams that predicted its devastating effects to the world. However, mainstream scientists don’t give these voices credibility.
Part of the reason for this is that science has revealed our subconscious is a lot faster and more powerful than our conscious minds. This means our subconscious has the ability to put together bits and pieces of information regarding what is likely to happen based on the events and incidents that have already taken place in reality. **
* https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/spiritual-life/does-god-still-give-prophetic-dreams.html
** https://www.dreams.co.uk/sleep-matters-club/what-do-prophetic-dreams-mean
