“Your guides may also appear in dreams. Believe in the Lord, he will send you his best.”

– A passport to god, R. Holmberg

Since mankind rose from the ground, there has always been a way for humans to connect to the spiritual center of their life. One such way is through dreams. While dreams may appear as a way for the mind to regenerate or to relieve itself from the daily activities, there is another component that they serve. Dreams provide answers to deep-seated questions surrounding the person’s existence. They build knowledge about the underpinnings of the world within the body, including teachings about the Lord and his family.

The hypnagogic state, the onset of sleep, is when people can acquire relevant information about their life or receive notifications from beyond before passing out. Information is usually visual and can arrive in short packets and be viewed as static pictures or as a brief motion picture. The visuals are kaleidoscopically changing. People may see images of others gathered together in social settings or in the open, such as in city downtown areas. Sometimes there appears an eye or sudden flashes of light. Or they may see or sense objects, creatures, shapes, colors, settings, falling, spinning, and floating; some are describable and others unusual, incomplete, or indescribable. Hypnic jerks are common during this stage. The jerks are sudden contractions of muscle groups and are associated with the feeling of falling or floating. Seventy percent of the general population have experienced hypnagogic visions. These visions are referred to as hallucinations by the scientific community. Scientists believe that this phenomenon occurs because the rapid eye movement stage of sleep overlaps the wakeful moment just prior to sleep. Interestingly, a high percentage of people with narcolepsy say they experience hypnagogic visions. The problem is that people who suffer from narcolepsy or other sleep related disorders have a hard time telling the difference between their hypnagogic state and their awake state. Thus, a person who abruptly exits the hypnagogic state may increase the frequency and ability to remember their dreams, but with the possibility of confusing dreams with reality. Caution is advised when purposeful changes are made that disrupt the sleep patterns.

Dreams can be still or in motion. They can engage hearing, sight, touch, smell, and taste. They can be in flux for a while, feel long and drawn out, or be a brief whisper in time. Many variations are possible. All dreams display or share sensations bounded in a structure. They are formed with scenery, people, animals, elements, objects, some recognizable and some seemingly not from this world. The structural settings are equivalent to props seen in theatrical performances. The props are there to frame the context of the dream and to assist people in remembering the dreams. Retaining the dreams is imperative for understanding them and requires active management. Often stimulation from internal programming, external sources, or from excitement triggered by the props can awaken the person enough, at the right moment, for them to be able to record it. However, when people analyze every nuance of the props, they will find themselves lost in fantasies and theories. If they were to look at the dreams and explore them without allowing the mind to over interpret them, they would learn that dreams transcend earthly time and are a wealth of knowledge delivered by the Creator. The Prince of Peace always has an opening for those who want to hear him. The dream state is a magnificent way of communicating with him.

Lucid dreams occur almost exclusively during the rapid eye movement stage. Lucid dreamers are largely those who initiate interactions while in the dream or visualize how the dream should turn out. Lucid dreamers are able to stand back and see, arrange things, or manipulate parts of their dreams or visions. But they don’t see, hear, or control something that otherwise would not be seen. As they participate in the dreams they may have emotional experiences, and they might smell, taste, touch, feel, and hear things in a similar way they would in the awake state. Lucid dreamers show a higher rate of activity in the frontal temporal cortex then non-lucid dreamers during the dream state. The frontal temporal cortex is responsible for the highest levels of human thinking and behavior, but it is dampened during normal dreaming. Lucid dreamers are often able to remember previous lucid dream experiences. The activation of the working memory may allow lucid dreamers to analyze the dream content and dream environment, and specify dream behaviors according to their preferences. The specific method for learning how to lucid dream can be found in journals associated with sleep and dream studies. The techniques are beyond the scope of this website. Although lucid dreaming may seem like a fun endeavor, it is important to recognize that serious drawbacks can occur when certain techniques, drugs, or stimuli are used without careful understanding. They include dissociative states, and phenomena like sleep paralysis, nightmares, or even psychosis.

The hypnopompic state of consciousness is when a person exits their deep sleep. This is related to the semiconscious state before awakening. It is during this period that a person can learn how to manage their dreams and to remember them. Memory is fused with the brain and loses its relationship with the awake mind unless told to keep it “present” during the state of being awake. A person who gets out of bed and starts fiddling with daily bathroom, dressing, or cooking routines will likely not remember their dreams. But a person who allows time to reflect on the dreams immediately upon joining the awake state has a better opportunity to remember their dreams. Initially, this may take much effort, concentration, and practice. By taking a note pad and recording the visuals immediately upon waking up, key phrases or images can be used to trigger the memory of the dreams during the waking hours. Similarly, hypnagogic visions or sensations can be tracked and recorded by aborting that stage of sleep and waking up. But this is not the best solution health wise. Alternatively, that person could simply reflect on the visions for a few moments and register it internally while relating it to something familiar. The familiar object or situation is generally more readily accessible at a later time and serves a mnemonic.

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Working out is not an unrealizable challenge for those who truly hope for their body to rebuild or to grow. The same thing happens when people understand that dreams are a form of a workout. Any dream or vision can be seen through a lens without having to interpret it. Interpreting dreams or visions is least likely to be accurate when a person chooses to analyze them through academic methods and scrutinizing every last part. The right way to look at these visions is unencumbered. No matter how hard a person tries to guess its meaning, it is usually never correct unless they find a neutral way to explore it. To access and to properly examine the dreams during the waking hours takes a bit of work and complete faith that they are relevant to their life. Commonly, psychoanalytic dream interpretation methods explain the meaning of the performances in terms of need identification or worries coming from daily life. This style of analysis is a way to imbibe in entertainment and usually has little to nothing to do with understanding the meaning of the dreams. The analytical mind is likely to overlook the simple yet salient information intended to be delivered through dreams. An active mind may promote its own interpretation that leads to misguidance and self-centered behavior. For most people, the easiest way to accurately determine the meaning is by suppressing answers that come from the cognitive brain, the thinking cap. Once they look past the props, they will find the essence behind the dreams are very simple yet profound. But no one has to accept what they hear as fact. It is up to them to discern truth from fiction. It is their choice. The Bible is a good starting point to figure it out when there is any doubt.

It is important to know that there is an internal voice that can act as a guide, and that same guide can explain the meaning of the dreams or visions. The first step to access the guide comes from being still and listening. A voice may materialize, quietly, or be just an awareness of something that surfaces. Gradually with time it will become more pronounced when the person endeavors to accept the gift of “hearing.”

Thousands of non-secular groups worldwide promote proof-positive growth and recognize that hypnagogic visions, hypnopompic visions, and dreams are far-reaching. They know first-hand that they can reach beyond our physical world as we know it today through dreams. But observations of these types of manifestations will yield nothing, if a person believes that God is nothing more than a figment of the imagination. Firm belief in the life after allows people to see these visions as relational to God and that the messages serve a purpose. When a person passes right through the dream stages when there is an opportunity to remember, they are missing out on the potential learning that can come from them. But peaceful transitions can come through the night or a peaceful event might pass by without notice when a person chooses to sleep while under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

The science based hypothesis and conclusions that explain “hallucinations” as solely an internal creation are based on limited understanding and lack of experience. Skeptics may say that the wealth of knowledge comes internally and not from an outside source, such as the Creator. The reality is that unless a person actually experiences communication from deep within in a proof positive way, they will have doubt as to the source of communication.