Our brains covet sleep as the time that our sub-conscious processes the events in our lives. Dream studies reveal that most of the events that occur in our lives are laid down permanently in long-term memory during our sleeping hours.
Regretably, as we grow older, our brains become less and less proficient at locking in memories as we sleep. Obviously much processing occurs in our subconscious as we sleep. We may discover that our subconscious brings up repressed memories that need revealing and healing. Perhaps issues in our lives are need attention and resolution. Perhaps God has a message to share with us—a lesson, encouragement, comfort, warning or direction—just to name a few.
The Bible is filled with dreams chock full of meaning. If these dreams were important in Bible times, then we can suspect that they are important in our lives as well. Some dreams carry messages Gabriel explaining to Joseph about why Mary was pregnant— Matthew Catherine, I hope you are getting the idea that God often speaks in dreams. The same reasons God used dreams in the Old Testament are the same reasons that He gives dreams to us as well.
It is possible that the awful nightmare you experienced may have tucked inside of it a lesson or word of victorious living.
You knew to go straight to Jesus. I hope you learned that no matter how treacherous and tormenting is the satanic attack, relief is just a prayer away. Thanks for the good question. I hope you find some helpful things to consider as you digest my answer. Roger Barrier, founder of Preach It, Teach It, is a well-known author and sought-after conference speaker.
Roger has taught thousands of pastors, missionaries, and Christian leaders in 32 countries worldwide. He partnered with Intimate Life Ministries and also regularly teaches national leaders for CRU and various other mission organizations.
The analysis also found that people sleeping on their backs are more likely to experience the phenomenon. Alcohol consumption and irregular sleeping patterns also make an incubus visit more probable, Blom said. Though the frightening experience gets frequently dismissed as "just a bad dream," Blom noted that the incubus phenomenon can lead to additional problems, including anxiety, difficulty sleeping due to fear and even delusional disorder, a mental illness akin to schizophrenia.
In the paper, the researchers speculated about a possible link between the incubus phenomenon and sudden unexpected death syndrome, a situation in which a healthy person inexplicably dies in his or her sleep. Whether that ever happens is unknown, even though for a person experiencing it, it is not hard to imagine this [happening]. The analysis also found that the form of the incubus figure and how people react to it can vary based on the person's cultural background. Generational sin is a concept not taught in numerous churches, which is why so many people are suffering under demonic oppression.
According to Numbers , sin may attach itself to four generations of a family line. We are not condemned for our forefathers' wickedness, but we do suffer for it. Now in Christ, we have the authority to close every door to evil that was flung open in ignorance and sin Jesus came to fulfill the Old Testament law, not abolish it Matthew , so Satan's legal application of Old Testament scriptures becomes one of his favorite ploys.
Tool four: we must acknowledge and embrace the importance of what is called "deliverance ministry. It will explain the strategies and pathways of darkness; the devil's doors of torment; and a tutorial on how to heal our lives and overcome all forces of evil. If you are a Christian interested in the coming revival, I highly recommend this book. Do you have a question or comment for Pastor Adrienne? Very Freudian, I'm sure, but it was interesting, since the horror wasn't felt as fear, but as belonging to the dread strangeness of the situation.
A Hi and thanks for these excellent questions. Yes, the monstrous element does not always reappear in the dream as a supernatural agent. There can be merely a sense of foreboding and dread or there can be as you say scenes of terrifying rooms or doorways or caves, etc. For other people the appearance of a supernatural agent within a dream signals no such progress. In reference to your other question when the dream self morphs into a monster it is usually, in my opinion, a danger signal indicating submersion of the self into very negative territory but sometimes the morphing of the self into a monstrous being is a sign of progress if the self had previously been powerless of unwilling to experience anger or rage, etc.
I point out in my book however that interactions with the monstrous in dreams should never be taken lightly. Q I'm wondering what it might mean if one does not experience terrifying nightmares other than perhaps occasional nightmares of the anxiety variety, like waking up late, forgetting where to go for a mtg, etc. Is it significant that I, for example, enjoy my dream life and look forward to it because it is almost always interesting and gives me pleasure? A I have never met anyone that had never experienced at least one terrifying nightmare in their lives.
But there are many, many people who only very rarely experience bad dreams. So rest assured it is perfectly normal not to experience nightmares! If you enjoy your dream life please continue to do so. Revel in it! You ask about the significance of being able to enjoy your dreams. There are people who are classified as "fantasy prone" or who exhibit high scores on a personality trait called "absorption". These are people who also often report a rich and enjoyable dream life.
Again, I urge you to continue to enjoy your dreams but I also urge a little bit of caution. Dream images are more powerful than most people assume. It is important to be enriched by your dreams, not absorbed into them. Q What do you make of dreams containing relatively benign images of people in a painful past that leave one shaken on waking? A Dreams where you see people in ordinary imagery and contexts but who were part of a painful past are not uncommon in dreams.
I think most scientists who study dreams would say that some positive emotional work was occurring in such dreams — work that helps you to integrate the painful memories and then move beyond them.
From another point of view dreams sometimes point to people in your current life or past who need something from you.
Q A lot of people believe that there is great symbolism in dreams, with some maintaining that specific images are associated with specific fears, needs,ideation in general. What are your thoughts about this? A Symbolic images definitely occur in dreams if we are to take the testimony of many dreamer's as accurate but every dream is composed of several layers of semantic and perceptual content.
One layer is certainly symbolic, such as when a monster is symbolizing or metaphorically representing an overwhelming affect that you are experiencing. But when seen from another point of view, that of traditional peoples and ancestral populations, that same monster takes on a "supernatural" significance — Freud called it the "uncanny" — and it is that aspect of the image that yields the intense fear and horror that is associated with nightmares.
Q Dreams of being stuck in a basement where the stairs turn into a slippery slope that I can get up. Recurring nightmare since child hood. A Hi Maureen. Your recurring nightmare sounds a lot like those dreams where you run and run to escape some monster but get nowhere. Many dream scientists suggest that such dreams are related to the paralysis that accompanies REM sleep.
REM sleep is associated with inhibition of the anti-gravity muscles in the body so that you are essentially paralyzed while you undergo REM sleep. That sense of paralysis then invades your dream life occasionally.
Dream images picture the feeling of being unable to move as a frightening experience. Q What is the significance of recurring imagery in nightmares? Many of my nightmares include the same features. Also can you explain why some in a dream a person has an out of body experience e.
Thanks in advance for your insights. A Hi Beth. There are many theories out there that seek to explain recurring imagery in dreams and nightmares. Some scientists claim that the recurring imagery is a perseverative phenomena associated with down regulation of the prefrontal lobes during REM sleep. Let me explain a little. During REM or dream sleep blood flow to the areas of the brain called the prefrontal cortex is decreased relative to waking. Now the prefrontal cortex normally helps us to switch attention whenever we need to.
So when it is not working properly as in REM then it is more difficult to switch attention and so you get repetitive imagery. But that theory does not explain why the repetitive imagery occurs across dream periods or nights rather than just within the same dream.
So other scientists say that repetitive dream imagery represents attempts by the dream to overcome some emotionally charged issue. The jury is still out on this issue. No one really knows why some images recur in dreams and nightmares. With respect to out-of-body experiences, the standard explanation relates to the paralysis that normally occurs during REM. The mind interprets the paralysis as lack of restriction in this case in stark contrast to cases often interpreted out-of-body experiences as the dream self leaving the body to visit other places or even other supernatural realities.
None of these explanations seem satisfactory to me. Only further research will settle the issue. Q I need to ask about sleep walking. I used to live in a townhouse with the bedrooms upstairs.
I would sleep walk and wake up by falling on the stairs. I would open the door and call for my cat, even though he was already indoors. I would continue to do this nightly. The fall would wake me up and then I'd continue to sleep walk.
I live in a one story house now, and if I am sleep walking, I am not awakened by falling. What causes sleep walking? Why would I sleep walk and awake and go back to sleep while walking? A Hi Joanne. I am glad you now live in a one story house. People who regularly sleep walk need to take it seriously and make the sleep environment as safe as possible.
Sleep walking occurs for most people they are in slow wave sleep — a very deep form of sleep. Sleep walking occurs when your brain is still in slow wave sleep but the transition to that sleep state is incomplete.
For some people the sleepwalking is repetitive — they always go to the same place when they sleep walk. For others, the walking is random. For yet others, the walking is dangerous as they do not avoid objects or stairs or even roads and highways. For yet others, the walkers are uncannily able to avoid obstacles even though they are sound asleep. Some people respond well to medication so it may be worth speaking to your sleep medicine specialist about this.
Q When one has nightmares of a reoccurring theme, are these nightmares actually helping the person work through the issue or is it simply an expression of the associated emotions? A Hi Jana. If the dream images do not begin to recede after several months, then an experienced therapist or trusted confidant might help. To the extent that the recurring imagery diminishes over time while the dreamer feels better over time then we can say that the recurring dreams are helping the individual integrate the emotionally threatening material.
Q I only experience nightmares when I'm sick. Otherwise I rarely remember dreaming at all. This has been true since I was a child. Often it's the same four nightmares, each one a disturbing circumstance that awaken me slowly, and leave me with a sensation I need to shake off. Are nightmares when sick common? And what purpose do they serve, if any?
A Hi William. Yes, nightmares are common when you are sick, particularly when there is fever. If you buy the theory that dreams in general help you to integrate painful emotional experiences then it would make sense that they are called in to help when that painful experience is an illness.
Q Are you serious? Is there actually malevolent spirit possession? I assumed it was the substance of scary fictional stories: Rosemary's Baby et al.
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