The Importance of Dreaming

I am continually unpacking the intentional design behind dreams.

In recent nights I have had extremely vivid dreams. They aren't just any dreams because they are not just your surreal visual blur of people and movements of color. These have felt very real and defined, involving the senses of sight, hearing, and touch. They almost feel like parallel events occurring in a life I live somewhere else, like there are different sides of my character that come out in dreams. It allows me to explore the nature of myself and reflect when I wake.

However dreams carry a heavy weight on my soul. At times they can feel so real that it feels like they actually happen. Depending on what was experienced in that dream it plays into my emotion at the very start of my day. Those emotions are typically ones that I do not let myself feel during the conscious parts of my day. They are strong and bold emotions that are uninhibited in the dream world. They are raw, in as honest of a display as possible. And I believe that these dreams show the most authentic emotions I find in myself because they are not controlled. My mind is allow to stream without disruption. I believe there is value in this.

What I have come to know as true so far is that our brain is more powerfully designed than we could ever imagine. The capacity of our mind is beyond what we experience; we only use a fraction of our brain to function. Because our brain is so powerful and complex, it intrinsically soaks up memories and reactions to events without effort. Our mind controls a great amount of who we are, and dreams are often representations of the processing experienced while we rest. Dreams are not just short movie clips that our mind likes to make up, they are actual meaningful thought processes that are developed as the brain functions as its designed to do. They can reveal great parts of who we are that we may not consciously choose to dive into. It is a revelation of self.

For those who believe that dreams mislead us and wedge a fantasy-filled mentality between us and reality, I would challenge you to explore what dreams do have to offer. If we can clearly separate what does happen in our minds from what happens around us, we have little worry. God designed us to spend 1/3 of our lives sleeping and dreaming, and I don't know about you, but I want to know more of why I was created the way I was. My mind is more than I understand, and I wish to know the richness of the person that I am.

“And afterward, 
I will pour out my Spirit on all people. 
Your sons and daughters will prophesy, 
your old men will dream dreams, 
your young men will see visions. 
Even on my servants, both men and women, 
I will pour out my Spirit in those days."

-Joel 2:28-29