Section 01 - Prophetic Dreams and Visions

I would like to start this series by asking you a question. That question is:

Are Prophetic Dreams and Visions Scriptural?

Let us look at three Scriptures quickly which confirm this, even though you probably already believe they are.

Numbers 12:6 says:

And he said, Hear now my words: If there is a prophet among you, [I] the Lord [Yahweh] will make myself known to him in a vision, [and] will speak to him in a dream.

Job 33:15 says:

In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, in slumberings upon the bed;

The last one is from Acts 2:17. It is probably the most definitive verse on this subject. It says:

And it will occur in the End Times, says God, that I will pour out from my Spirit onto every kind of person: and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young people will see visions, and your seniors will have dreams:

As you can see from these verses, dreams and visions are spoken about very clearly in the Scriptures. They are part of what God is doing and will do in the church. We will be looking at it especially where the Prophetic Ministry is concerned.

Dreams and visions are very important as a vehicle for ministry. I will be showing you how they operate and how you can use them in your prophetic ministry.

What is the difference between visions and dreams? They are very similar, but they are not exactly the same. That is why I plan to cover the two of them separately so that you can see the differences between them.

Everyone Dreams

There is one very important thing that you need to realize from the start, even before we look at it from a supernatural or ministry point of view. It is the fact that everybody has dreams and visions.

I am not only talking about Christians and born again believers here. Every human being has dreams and visions. But when it comes to the Prophetic Ministry, dreams and visions have a very special place. That is why we will be looking in detail at how to use them in ministry.

We will look at visions first, and then after that at dreams. I will be covering these in a lot of detail and show you how they work. You will learn how to use them, interpret them, and make them part of your prophetic ministry.

Visions Are Natural

Let's start then with visions. I said already that everybody has visions, but not all visions come from God. I want to make this very clear. Seeing visions is actually a natural process, but it can become a spiritual thing. In fact, seeing visions is perfectly natural.

As people begin to move into ministry, many of them say,

"I really wish I could see a vision."

Well if you are human you have already seen visions. You were just not aware that they were visions. Seeing visions is a natural process, and if you are a believer you have definitely seen them. But I want to explain to you the difference between natural visions and the other kinds of visions.

Let's start by looking at natural visions. This will help you to understand what they are, how they come, and how you can tell the difference between what is a natural vision and one that is not natural.

Spirit, Soul and Body

Visions are part of our human makeup. I often use a chart made up of three circles inside each other to illustrate the way God made us. We are made as a tripartite being which means we have three parts to our being. The outer part is the body, the inner part is the soul, and the innermost part is the spirit.

Example: Body, Soul, Spirit

I have taught this in detail in many other teachings so I don't need to explain it now. However what I would like to explain is what I have in this chart below which is laid out slightly differently. Instead of looking at in three circles, I have drawn it in layers like this:

Example: Conscious and Sub-Conscious

The Holy Spirit lives in your spirit when you are a born again believer. He does not live in your soul or body, although strictly speaking He does.

Your spirit is right in the center, so yes the spirit is within the whole person. But the Holy Spirit especially has become united to your human spirit from the day you were born again.

Conscious vs. Sub-Conscious Mind

When it comes to the realm of the soul, there are three main functions, which are mind, emotions and will. I would like to look at the mind specially, because the mind is what is involved in seeing visions. The ability to see is one of the five senses which is sent inwards via the mind.

When you see something from your body, that information is sent downwards into the soul; into your mind. But the moment you use the word 'mind' it now starts to get a bit complicated.

Psychologists have created a new term for the mind which they call the 'sub-conscious' mind. So I want to explain to you quickly the difference between the conscious and the sub-conscious mind.

The mind itself sits in the soul. But where the soul and body join together (usually in the brain), we have the conscious mind. That is the thoughts that you have while you are awake.

All the thoughts that are going through your mind right now that you are aware of are in your conscious mind. But a lot of what enters into the conscious mind, over time begins to sink down deeper into another place. It is a kind of storage area if you like, and this is the sub-conscious mind.

Analogy of a Computer

If you know a little bit about computers, I can explain the conscious and sub-conscious mind to you using a bit of computer jargon. If you have a computer you will know that there are two storage areas in it. The one is called the memory or the RAM.

We usually like to try and put a large amount of RAM in the computer. This is because the RAM or usable memory of the computer is the place where all the transactions take place and all the programs run from.

While you are working on the computer, everything that is happening right then is taking place within the memory or the RAM of the computer. But you don't keep the information in the RAM. When you switch the computer off the RAM empties and there is nothing in it.

To store your information permanently so that you can use it later, you need to have a drive on the computer. It is called the hard disk; a large storage area in the computer.

When you feed information into the memory of the computer, you tell the program to take that data and store some of it away onto the hard drive. Then if you need it later you can bring it back again.

You can see that the RAM is like your conscious mind. It is the part that you are working with right now. The sub-conscious mind is like the hard disk that has all the information stored that you might want to use later.

So you need to think of the sub-conscious mind as being the hard drive of your human computer. It has stored everything you have put in during your lifetime. It is all hidden away there, but it is too big for you to remember it all.

You cannot remember every moment of your life, especially if you have lived a long time. But it is stored away in your sub-conscious, ready to be pulled out again.

How Natural Visions Work

To get back now to the subject of visions, what we call a vision comes from the sub-conscious mind.

How does a vision come? It happens like this. Over time, information that you have fed deep down becomes stored away in your deeper memory. And at times those memories will begin to come back out again.

When you see something and receive it in the beginning, it goes into your mind and eventually settles down into the sub-conscious. When you get a vision, all that happens is the process now goes in reverse.

In other words you weren't thinking about it. It wasn't in your mind, but now it comes up from deep within. Where does it come from? It comes from your memory, because those are the pictures that you put down there before.

So when you see a vision in the natural process, what you are doing is seeing images that you put down in there maybe years ago. Now they come back into your mind again. It is a natural, normal process. There is nothing supernatural about it in any way.

Familiar to You

These visions are seldom original, because all that can come up out of your sub-conscious is what you have already put down there. So if you have never put anything into your sub-conscious in the first place, there is nothing to come out.

This means that when you get a natural vision, you will always see something that you have seen before. You may not even have fully remembered it, but when it comes back out you say,

"Oh that looks familiar. I have seen that somewhere before."

In the world they use a little term which they call deja vu. Of course this is slightly different, but deja vu is the same sort of thing. It is where you suddenly find yourself in circumstances where you say,

"I feel like I have been here before. This looks familiar. I'm sure I've done this before and heard it before."

You see these are natural visions that come up from the sub-conscious mind.

Using Visualization

You can create a natural vision by deciding to visualize. What is visualization? It is when you choose by an act of your will to put a picture into your conscious mind.

I can make you visualize something. I want you to think of a dog. Okay, let's be a bit more specific and think of a black dog. What kind of dog are you thinking of?

Let's be even more specific. Think of a small, black dog. Are you beginning to see something? Now think of a small, noisy black dog that keeps barking all the time and keeps you awake at night.

If you had something like that from your memory of the past, I know exactly which dog you are seeing right now. It is that small, black dog that used to irritate you.

You see you have chosen through visualization to call up something from your memory. The picture comes up and you can see it clearly in your mind. You have just had a natural vision.

As you can see, natural visions can be created based on your past experiences through a process of visualization. You can even do it through speaking it out loud. It is done by choosing, bombarding, digging deep down and pulling it out.

You can use a vision that you receive in this way. You can use it in ministry. You can use it in your preaching or in counseling people. But you will probably use it as an illustration. You could say something like,

"I see your situation as being similar to this kind of situation."

Then you pull something out from your past memory; something that you have seen and experienced in life, and you can use that. So you have a kind of a natural vision which you can now use to minister to people.

Real Not Symbolic

A natural vision is always a real vision that you can use as an illustration. But it is not an allegory. It is not symbolic; it is real. I want you to understand this very clearly, because when we get to the next kind of vision you are going to see it is very different.

A natural vision isn't a symbol or a picture that comes. But what you can do is convert it into a symbol or picture. You could say,

"You know you sound just like a barking dog."

In your mind you are seeing this barking dog that used to irritate you. You have now turned it into a symbol, but the vision was not symbolic. You saw a very clear vision.

So a natural vision can be taken and applied to something. It can be used to illustrate, but you don't have to interpret it. You don't have to say,

"I am seeing a black, barking dog. What does it mean?"

It doesn't mean anything. It is just something from your memory. It doesn't have an allegorical meaning so it doesn't need to be interpreted. That is the main characteristic of a natural vision - that it doesn't have to be interpreted. There is no allegory or symbol in it.