Seeing the Voice of God: What God Is Telling You through Dreams and Visions (5 page)

Once, I saw an extravagant house being built for her. But in a closet, tucked away, was a little suitcase. It was Sheila’s. She was packed and ready to go somewhere. After waking, I knew the house was the house of prayer we were building for her, and I also knew the tiny suitcase represented her being packed and ready to go to heaven. And while you technically cannot take anything with you when you die, the suitcase was from the midsixties (when Sheila was born), and I knew it represented her life.

Another night, I dreamed about the packed suitcase again. This time it was in the driveway. Another night, I saw an open grave with fresh dirt piled up on the side and the shovel stuck in the ground, as if it would soon be shoveling the dirt back in. Then I dreamed what I did not want to dream. My persistent begging with God to see into Sheila’s future finally led Him one night to give me a dream that needed no interpretation: I was sitting at her funeral. That one did me in. But I still asked God, “What are You going to do? Are You going to heal her? Are these dreams from the enemy?” Here I had had twice the number of dreams that Joseph had deemed as announcing that something was established by God, but I could not accept it. Why?

Because faith does not quit. I would do things the same way again. But then came the final dream that helped me let Sheila go. I saw her in a room with a bright light. She was totally well and was holding a little baby adoringly. She looked up at me and smiled. Peace was all over her face. And then I remembered she had lost a baby once, before the birth of her first child. Somehow,
it was easier for me to release her to Jesus if I knew she had somebody up there waiting for her. She was leaving her children here, but finally going to meet another one she had never been able to hold. This dream also helped me fully grasp the concept that she was going to live forever—something you know deep down, by faith, but God knew I needed to
see
it. Again, another argument for the incalculable value of prophetic dreams.

4. Incubation Dreams

If incubation dreams were punctuation marks, they would be ellipses . . .
dot
,
dot
,
dot
.

An incubation dream is one that you have to file away with a “to be continued . . .” status. Not because a part 2 sequel will be coming in another dream, as with recurring dreams, but because what you have seen simply has no immediate application for your life. Perhaps you recognize the people in the dream and the setting and symbols, but you cannot make heads or tails of what it all means. Joseph’s story of being a dream interpreter fascinates me. We see him go from being a boy who cannot interpret his own two dreams and save his own neck, to a man who interprets two highly symbolic dreams for a king and saves a whole nation. Suffering did that to him. Prison honed his prophetic eye. It “meeked” him.

Joseph’s first mistake was telling a bunch of jealous relatives his dream about them bowing down to him. I can wholeheartedly understand Joseph’s enthusiasm in wanting to solve the mystery of his dream, but he was young and should have let this dream incubate a little more instead of committing reputational suicide. Still, look what God did through the process. Joseph was thrown in a pit by his brothers. Sold into slavery in Potiphar’s house. Falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife. Thrown into prison. Met Pharaoh’s baker and cupbearer there and interpreted their dreams. Stood before the king to interpret his dreams. As a result, Jacob, his sons and all of Israel were saved
during the horrible famine, and through that family line came the Messiah.

But from the time Joseph left that pit as a slave until he stood before Pharaoh, thirteen years passed. Psalm 105:17–19 says, “He sent a man before them—Joseph—who was sold as a slave. They hurt his feet with fetters, he was laid in irons. Until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the L
ORD
tested him.” I love that. The word of the Lord tested him as he was waiting and as his dreams were incubating.

I have a lot of dreams I can apply to my life immediately, but I have just as many incubation dreams. Of those that stand out, one was about when my daughter Jessica and new son-in-law, Kyle, moved to Virginia after Kyle was transferred to Fort Lee, where he served as a marine sergeant. They literally got married, packed and left for three years, and it taxed my heart to let them go. The day they drove off in the moving van, we joked that they were going to return with three kids in the back of it, but inside I thought, “No, Lord! I couldn’t bear to become a grandmother so far away from the grandbaby!”

Our family is very close, and I could not bear the thought of not being there for my daughter and not doddling a new grandbaby on my knee. But then I had a dream. In it, I was at their home taking care of Jessi after she had had a son, and I saw myself packing up and leaving them to come back home. The emotions upon waking were gut-wrenching—especially the angst I felt in the dream at having to leave Jessica and the baby—but that dream incubated in me and marinated my mother’s heart so that when she called nine months later to tell me she was pregnant, I felt as if I had already lived it. I was fine.

And guess what? They
did
move back three years later with three kids in the back of that moving van. How good of God not to show me that all at once. And how good of God not
to show me that the first baby boy turned out to be
two
baby boys—twins. I would have been twice as heartsick at not being close by.

I also remember long before we were pastors that I had a few dreams I did not understand. In one, we were at lunch when about thirty of our church friends suddenly came and soberly placed a makeshift crown on my husband’s head. It was made of a Thanksgiving cornucopia and had harvest corn coming out of it. I told my pastor at the time about it, with no response. Years later, as that ministry was dissolving and shutting down, that is exactly what happened. About thirty people came to us and said they wanted to stay together and form a church. Plus, it all happened at Thanksgiving time.

But what continued to incubate in me was this one particular couple that was in the dream. They were not with us at the new church, and I could not figure out why the Lord had included them in the dream. Their presence would have been such an affirming mark on our hearts for the new ministry because we respected them so much, and they were actually the ones in the dream who had placed the crown on Chris’ head. Lo and behold, six years later, Barry and Fay Wallage showed up and have never left. And interestingly enough, they came home to us on a Thanksgiving weekend.

That incubation dream had both prepared us for being approached to pastor the church and sustained us until everyone in the dream was standing by our side to do it. Fay also became the prayer captain for this book you hold in your hands.

5. Apocalyptic Dreams

If apocalyptic dreams were a punctuation mark, they would be an asterisk * because they are only explained at the end of the story.

Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Zephaniah and Habakkuk all have proven track records of prophetic
accuracy when it comes to world events, but they also all have predictions yet to be fulfilled because they deal with the final days of judgment or the end of the world. I can just imagine these men all sitting around the dinner table in heaven and keeping score right now. When yet another dream or vision comes to pass, they high-five and then slide another bead across the prophetic abacus.

Moses’ 3,500-year-old “regathering of Israel” prophecy from Deuteronomy 30:3–5 is materializing before our very eyes, defining what it means to be alive in a prophetic time. Isaiah’s prophecy about Jesus setting up a millennial Kingdom in Jerusalem is about 2,800 years old, and I am sure Isaiah is on the edge of his seat, just counting down the days for its fulfillment (see Isaiah 2:4). I wonder if Jeremiah is lamenting and crying over his currently developing prophecies. Hang on, Jeremiah!

I have never personally had any apocalyptic dreams, which is sort of a joke in our family. With all the teaching Mom does on prophecy, and with the number of prophetic dreams I have on a regular basis for myself and others, I have never once dreamed of the rapture, tribulation or anything else eschatological. I feel my prophetic dreams are more practical than mystical, which works well for me since I do a tremendous amount of pastoral counseling every week. But sometimes my mouth waters as I sit and listen to my family tell their dreams of being caught up into the clouds with Christ, or of seeing the events described in Scripture about the heavenly signs that herald the end of the world, such as the moon or stars doing crazy, impossible things.

The Other Side

Remember my waterfall dream at the start of chapter 1? Can you guess which of the ten prophetic dream categories it falls
into? And what about Chris’ sensible interpretation that calmed my hysteria? Was it correct? Most important, how was my relationship with God after the dream different from before?

The truth is, it is possible for a prophetic dream to be several categories rolled into one, as that dream was. It was an audible, encouraging, warning, waking dream. I was encouraged that God was affirming the leap of faith we had just taken and that He was telling me a great autumn was coming, but I also soberly knew this was most likely a warning of a difficult summer. And that time was indeed difficult—financially and reputationally—due to the repercussions of our decision. We had made the big leap of faith in January and were still on the high from that when the dream came a month later. While a dream at that time about a coming great fall season was
good
news, when the hard summer actually hit, it was
great
news.

Now I see the pattern of how the Lord does this for me. He does not give me scary dreams about impending doom. He gives me positive dreams on the front end to see me through a coming trial. Not that I do not have alarming dreams, but they are pure warning dreams and calls to pray. If I do my job well, the calamity will rarely hit. If for some reason it still comes, I have hope because God has already shown me the other side.

And we did get to the other side. That artist management company we tried starting with musicians, actors, painters, dancers, photographers and other artisans never amounted to anything because it was not supposed to. The name of the company was “The Oikos,” and
oikos
is the Greek word in Scripture for “household.” We foresaw a household of various genre artists, but it was not supposed to be a business; it was supposed to be a church. So 2,872 days after Chris took the leap and left Reunion Records, we started Eastgate Creative Christian Fellowship in Nashville, Tennessee. It has been one of the greatest joys of our lives. Starting out with a solely creative arts vision, it now houses artists of every kind, as well as
those left-brainers gifted at what we call the “administrative arts.”

Those seven years that we waited were the worst and the best of our lives as we hung on to each other during the free fall. But we—all eight of us—had our eyes and ears opened in the spirit realm in those years. Mornings at the “Campsmith” breakfast table were usually full of dream sharing and interpretations, and to this day, some of the sweetest words I can hear from my adult children are, “Hey, Mom, can I tell you my dream?”

Seeing the voice of God in dreams has changed my life forever, and there is not a single night that I do not crawl into bed excited at the thought that God might speak. He does speak just about every night, and He would like to do the same for you. I do not know if you have a problem with the idea of God speaking directly. I hope not, since hearing from God is what this book is about. And since John 10:27 says that we will know His voice, then we need to expect to. With that said, when I began writing this book, I kept hearing these words resonate in my spirit and sensed strongly that He wanted them stated plainly to you: “Visions and dreams are not a gift of the Spirit. They are mere communication with Me, and communication with Me is the birthright of every believer.”

From the time a future prophetic dream comes until the time it comes to pass can sometimes involve years, and as the dreamer, you may experience many stages and emotions along the way—particularly when the dream includes a promise concerning your future. When dreaming “The Impossible Dream” becomes more than a song to you and more like a way of life, be encouraged that millions of dreamers before you have waited upon the Lord and seen their dreams come true as they did.

“Dreaming”

dreaming.

planning.

listening.

praying.

hoping.

testing.

fearing.

swaying.

wondering.

doubting.

running.

crying.

crying.

crying.

crying.

dying.

nothing . . .

awakening.

praising!

believing.

knowing.

trusting.

trying.

pressing.

growing.

claiming.

standing.

rejoicing.

being.

shouting.

laughing.

having.

seeing.

© Laura Harris Smith, October 1995

PRAYER

Let’s pray out loud together:

Father, prepare me for my future, beginning tonight as I sleep. I want to know about upcoming snares set for me, Your secrets and what I can do to minister to others with Your insights. Holy Spirit, I receive any dreams You have for me, including warning dreams, directional dreams, recurring dreams, incubation dreams and apocalyptic dreams. As of today, I vow to You that I will begin a new life of stewarding these types of dreams with more gravity. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

IMPARTATION

I release and impart to you the ability to dream “future dreams,” the grace to be patient in prayer as you ponder them in your heart, and the intercessor’s anointing. (Now open your hands, shut your eyes and receive it.)

F
or years I was an on-air guest personality at the Shop At Home TV Network, eventually getting hired there as a full-time TV host in 2006. Some of my most fun shows were the bedding shows. Production assistants would re-create an entire bedroom on the set, complete with a platform bed, matching furniture and all the expensive trimmings. It was my job to sell the mattress under me or the pillows beside me, so yes, that meant hopping up on the bed and doing the majority of the show from there. But unlike the shows where I sold matching bedskirts and curtains and could go on for an hour describing the various fabrics and options, selling a plain, white pillow and mattress can only be done by selling the concept of sleep itself.

Some of my buzz phrases were, “You spend a third of your life in bed. Don’t you think you owe it to yourself to invest in a good night’s sleep?” Or “Create a sanctuary and refuge you can retreat to at the end of every day.” Buzz phrases or buzz words were statements hosts could say that would make the phones ring. While you were speaking on-air, you were also
listening to the producer in your earpiece, who would tell you what phrases were working for you with today’s viewers. Unlike you, the producer knew when the phone lines were lighting up and could draw conclusions as to why.

Another buzz phrase of mine was, “How long do you toss and turn before finding your sweet spot at night, and what if you could find it sooner?” Clever, huh? I guess you could say I was preying on people’s fatigue, but if it was a 3:00 a.m. show, then it did not take a rocket scientist to figure out that my viewers were either insomniacs or afraid of the dark. What was the major selling point of the products in those bedding shows? Was it the fabric thread count? Was it the “NASA technology” in the spring foam that absorbed G-forces so well that they started making mattresses out of it? No, it was rest. The idea of a good night’s rest was what made the bedding shows work. The phones rang when I talked about sleep. Why?

Because people are not getting enough of it.

Scientists do not understand why we sleep, much less why we dream, but I have decided to devote two entire chapters in this dreams and visions book to the very practical and physical topic of sleep so that you can get more of it. I can just hear my husband and children now, cackling because they know I have always thought that sleep is such a whopping waste of time. Nonetheless, although I hate to sleep, I love to dream, and I know the two go together like a horse and carriage. If I cannot help you sleep, I cannot help you dream—and I do think I can help you dream if you say you are not having dreams.

I also believe I can help you remember your dreams if you normally cannot. I cannot sell you dreams the way I can sell you a mattress, but I am sure going to try, and sleep is the mattress of dreams. In this chapter, we will discuss the stages of sleep, dream sleep, the ramifications of sleep debt and my ABCs for ZZZs guide for a good night’s sleep. Then for fun, we will review
some free downloadable sleep and dream apps for your iPhone or Android that track your sleeping habits.

Simply put, I have jam-packed the next two chapters with every helpful hint that doctors and studies have confirmed will help you sleep and help you remember your dreams better. (You are welcome.)

Doctor’s Orders

Upon making the decision to write this book, I had to look no further than my own biblical research from the last twenty years of eating, sleeping (literally) and breathing this topic. I had taught “Hearing the Voice of God” classes more than a decade before and had even created an eight-part audio series for that. But it was when I began teaching “Seeing the Voice of God” classes in 2005 that people really started responding at a greater level. People who felt unworthy or too intimidated to say “I had a word from the Lord” or “I heard God speak” felt more comfortable saying “I had a dream last night,” and then edifying their listeners with what they saw about them in their dream.

But, although I had seen the self-proclaimed spiritually deaf begin to “see” God’s voice for themselves and others, and although I had created endless computer files and workbooks on the subject that I could have adapted easily for this book, I knew that to make a book like this complete, there was one thing missing from my research—a medical perspective. As I said before, sleep is the mattress of dreams. After years of studying dreams themselves, I knew it was time for me to pull the covers back and do some fact-finding on the science that embraces the supernatural.

I already know everything that the dreamer Joseph, the prophet Jeremiah and the apostle Peter had to say about dreams
in Scripture, but marrying that with a modern-day medical doctor’s knowledge on dream physiology would be, well, a dream come true (pun intended).

To get started, in the summer of 2012 I met with Dr. Jonathan G. W. Evans, M.D., a board-certified pulmonologist at the Middle Tennessee Pulmonary Associates at Skyline Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. He specializes in sleep medicine, pulmonary diseases (of the lungs, including sleep apnea), critical care and internal medicine. He knows sleep the way I know dreams, and the verbal collision of our two worlds was, to say the least, fascinating. As I asked him to help me travel into the night hours and discover what we are all doing as we unconsciously lie there apparently doing nothing, I realized that we are not unconsciously lying there doing nothing. With that said, let me set the stage by diverging into a bit of science from what up until this point has been all biblical teaching.

Brain activity during dreams can be studied noninvasively by affixing anywhere from 4 to 256 tiny electrodes to someone’s head and then attaching these electrodes to an electroencephalograph, or EEG. “Brain waves” are then marked and measured with wavy lines on a paper graph. Heaven knows, I have had my share of EEG glue in my hair over the last three decades. Back when I was suffering from violent convulsions, reading one of my EEG printouts would have surely been like looking at the erratic scribblings of a hyper toddler with an imposing black marker. But neurologists and scientists have a skillful eye when it comes to determining EEG results. They know what a seizure spike wave looks like versus an eye blink wave versus a sleep wave. And yes, there are even special waves for dreams.

There are also special, specific times each night for dreams (or if you work the nightshift, then you sleep and dream during the day, or even when napping). These times occur during what is called REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, a portion of the sleep cycle where you not only experience darting eye movements,
higher blood pressure, accelerated breathing and an inability to maintain a normal body temperature, but also, through a sudden, automatic release to the brain of an amino acid called glycine, you are paralyzed.

And for good reason! If you were not, you would be acting out all those crazy dreams and be a great danger to yourself and to those around you. However, maybe a dream sometimes lingers at the cusp of exiting REM sleep, because one night my husband had a long soccer dream, at the end of which he finally was given the ball and allowed to kick a goal. He must have been given the ball right as he was exiting REM sleep, because the next morning I had the sore shins to prove it.

A complete sleep study involves a PSG, or polysomnogram, which not only studies brain waves but utilizes an EOG (electrooculogram) to detect the REM eye movements, an EMG (electromyogram) to detect when you move and when you are paralyzed and an ECG (electrocardiogram) to track heart rhythms. As for the EEG monitoring the brain, our brain waves ride a roller coaster all night long as we sleep, into and out of and back into five different stages of sleep.

Throughout the day, though, your brain waves are characterized as either alpha or beta waves. Beta waves appear during the normal daily stimuli you encounter (talking, listening, processing information), but alpha waves are slower, wider and typically present during times of relaxation and peacefulness, such as when in quiet introspection or prayer. But during the five nighttime sleep stages, these waves change remarkably. Think of the first four sleep stages (termed N-REM or non-REM sleep) as four gears that drive you to dreamland. As we look at the stages, you will see that sleep is less like one long, consistent journey and more like a trip with many rest stops.

Setting the Stage

The nightly ride you take, using your varied gears to get to these metaphorical rest stops, is what we will now explore.

Stage 1 (N1): You climb into bed. You find your “sweet spot” and close your heavy eyelids, and deep drowsiness sets in. You fade in and out of a relaxed state of early sleep, but if awakened by a shutting door or conversation, you will deny ever being asleep. However, your brain waves paint a different picture. They are already slowing down, your eyes are moving very slowly and your muscle activity reduces. Many people experience muscle jerkings and twitches called hypnic myoclonia at this time because their muscles are reacting to a sensation of falling as they relax and unclench. Brain waves during this stage are characterized by theta waves, which are even slower and wider on a graph than our daily alpha and beta waves. Stage 1 lasts between five and ten minutes. Think of it like first gear.

Stage 2 (N2): Your eyes stop moving, as does your body. Your heart rate slows, and your body temperature decreases. Your brain waves become even slower, continuing with theta waves, but with the periodic occurrence of a phenomenon termed
sleep spindles
, which are 1-second to 2-second bursts of electrical activity.
K complexes
also occur, which EEG readings show are sizable peak and valley brain waves. Some scientists believe both of these types of brain waves help us turn off the outside world and its sounds. Since the elderly seem to have fewer sleep spindles, this could explain why they are such light sleepers. If you are prone to sleeptalking (somniloquy), it usually occurs during this stage. Your body is preparing to enter deep sleep, and after about 15–20 minutes in this second gear, you do.

Stage 3 (N3): You are totally separated now from the cognizant world around you, your problems, worries and all stress. Your brain activity is more synchronized and seems eagerly unified to reach its destination of deep sleep. The theta waves become delta waves, which are the slowest and strongest waves our brains produce.

Many sleep study specialists now combine stage 3 and stage 4 into one stage called N3, but the slight difference in the stages is that stage 3 contains only 20 percent to 50 percent of these deep sleep delta waves, whereas stage 4 is marked by a majority of delta activity. This non-dreaming sleep in stage 3 is the time at which you are most likely to sleepwalk (somnambulism). Dr. Evans says this occurs in up to 40 percent of children, peaking around the ages of 11–12. (Having had six children, I can attest to this statistic with many comical accounts.) Although it is difficult to predict how long a person will spend in stage 3 before drifting off into its near twin, stage 4, it is known that we enter this “third gear” about 35–40 minutes after falling asleep.

Stage 4 (still considered N3): Now you are in slow delta wave deep sleep and are utterly oblivious to any external stimuli. Your body, bringing all that ails it, is happy to be here since this is the slice of night when restorative sleep occurs. During delta deep sleep, a phenomenon occurs that is nothing short of miraculous: The pineal gland automatically releases growth hormone, which in children results in bone and muscle growth, but in adults provides tissue repair and total body rejuvenation. And since the body also decreases its breakdown of proteins during deep sleep—proteins you need to have stick around and repair damage from the day’s stress and ultraviolet rays—it is also thought that deep sleep is your “beauty sleep.” Prolactin and gonadotropin are also secreted, which makes the precious time spent in this stage a phase of healing and rehabilitation. If awakened during stage 4 (deep N3) sleep, you will be very disoriented and may even appear drunk. It is also during this stage that most bedwetting occurs.

Then, before you shift into our proverbial “fifth gear,” which is REM dream sleep, the other stages actually reverse and you downshift gears, going from stage 4 back to stage 3 and then landing at stage 2—as if you are moving back up the charts toward awakening, but you never do. It is as if you are pushing up a hill in second gear, reach the top and then begin to coast downward—fast. Before you know it, you have skipped all the
other gears and have shifted immediately into a proverbial fifth gear, REM. Ah . . . dreamland!

Your first complete sleep cycle is stage 1 to 2 to 3 to 4, then back to 3, then 2 . . . then finally into the final phase, REM dream sleep. That is one sleep cycle down and only four or five more to go before sunrise. Each of these full sleep cycles lasts between 90–120 minutes, and after the first cycle, each of the remaining cycles shifts gears in a little different order. As the night goes on, you spend less time in N3 deep restoration sleep and more time in N2 and REM sleep. In the first sleep cycle, you only spend about 10 minutes at the end in REM dream sleep, but like some dangling carrot intended to lure you to get more sleep, the latter sleep cycles have you in almost solid REM dream sleep.

Each night, with a full eight hours of sleep, you are experiencing between an hour and a half and two hours of dreaming. That is like watching a full-length movie each night as you sleep!

Sleep Debt

It is not normal for a healthy adult to board an airplane before lunch and fall asleep within five minutes in an uncomfortable chair, surrounded by strangers, but we do. Why? Because we are starved for sleep. The world seems to be spinning faster every day, full of opportunities and activities vying for our attention. The way we respond to those opportunities is to sleep deprive ourselves and seize them.

“Sleep debt” is exactly what it sounds like: accumulated sleep deprivation for which the body will pay a great price. When you hear that you owe it to yourself to rest, it is true. Count sheep
or get overdrawn at the sleep bank. Sooner or later, your body will insist the debt be paid.