Dreamform

In my second year of seminary, I went to a conference at the Falls Church on dreams and healing prayer.  It was led by one Russ Parker, who is something of an Anglican guru on dreams and healing prayer.  Healing prayer has always been an interest of mine, as emotional healing and contemplative prayer has always been a   substantive way in which God has shown himself to be Lord to me.  I had always been curious about dreams, as is probably anyone with half a mole of imagination, but I had not had any particular reason to take them seriously or believe that dream interpretation was anything more than a gift sometimes but not frequently given by God to help his people.  At that conference, I was persuaded otherwise and have come to believe that dreams are a valuable source of spiritual insight and that they are more often "written" (as Russ Parker says) by our own minds than by the Holy Spirit.  Sometimes the Holy Spirit speaks to us in special visions, but more often God speaks to us through our own imagination and the normal processing of dream work.

Since then, I have had an unusually rich dream life.  Partly that comes out of concerted effort to remember my dreams--I've spent a few weeks here or there writing down every bit of every dream I can remember, mostly as an exercise to develop my skill at remembering dreams.  (I'm told one only remembers dreams if one wakes up during a dream.)  I've also spent a fair chunk of time praying through dreams and have found that it is one of the most reliable ways I hear God speaking to me.  If I am having trouble hearing God's voice because of my own anxiety or distress or doubt, I oftentimes ask him to tell me something in a dream.  I find--not surprisingly--that the medium of narrative is a medium I understand well.  It is easy for me (and I imagine, for lots of people) to understand the point or morale or even the nuances of a story I read.

I find there are two or three kinds of dreams I have that are valuable.  There are "normal" dreams in which I normally pray about how the emotional resonances of a dream match up with strong emotion in my life, and discover what that has to tell me.  Sometimes this is as simple as, "Gee, I didn't know I was anxious about that!"  Or, "I had no idea I was feeling resentment toward this."  There are also dreams that are heavily "plot-driven" in which I generally do pray about the emotional resonance, but the plot of the dream itself mirrors something that has happened in my life, but not in a way that is immediately obvious to me.  (Partly, that's because I dream mostly in science-fiction as a language of metaphor--space ships, other planets, apocalypse, unidentified bizarre objects I assume are alien . . . so far none of these things have shown up in my waking life.)  Sometimes when I pray about those dreams, it isn't long before an "Aha" moment occurs.  I often have plot-oriented dreams after I have prayed for discernment for something specifically, and also prayed to have my answer come in dream form.   A third type of dream--or perhaps it is a subset of plot-oriented dreams--are dreams that are plot-oriented with strong enough emotional resonance that they bother me or continue to bother me as I have prayed through them.  At that point, I have either been prompted or decided to take Russ Parker's advice and invite Jesus into the dream and imagine him there.  His actions are always surprising!

I will be writing a few synopsis or descriptions of some dreams I have had.  Partly I do this because some dreams I have had are so vivid and creative they might as well be stories, and partly because I think this is an overlooked part of our humanity that God has always intended to integrate into our life with him.  Enjoy!

See also Russ Parker's website for more information.  I do believe he is leading a conference in Eastern PA this October on healing prayer.