Understanding God's dream language is extremely beneficial to the dreamer and perhaps to whom the dream is pertaining to. Before we can receive accurate revelation and clarity about the message God has sent us through our divine dreams, we must first be able to discern and determine whether we have had a symbolic or literal dream. The reason why is because things are not always as they appear. If we remain in the habit of taking things at face value, we may miss the specific message God is using to bring our attention to a situation that we wouldn't have otherwise had foreknowledge of.
There are ways to determine whether your dream is symbolic or literal. And yes, some dreams can be both. This is where you as the dreamer require greater insight and clarification to unlock the meaning of your dreams.
We must look through our spiritual lenses and gain deeper knowledge of how symbolic and literal dreams are conveyed by identifying the difference between the two. Let’s examine and define the meaning of symbolic dreams.
Symbolic dreams represent people, objects, and events through riddles or parables. They are also known as dark speech and are not literal.
Dark speech means that the dream is unclear because God is showing us scenarios through parables or symbolism. God speaks to us in dark speech to position us to communicate with Him for divine enlightenment in order to spiritually illuminate and translate the dream language He is utilizing to reach us through dreams and visions.
Literal dreams on the other hand do not generally require the same amount of effort in understanding what we are looking at because unlike symbolic dreams, the message of literal dreams are plain, explicit and straightforward.
Literal dreams means that what you see in your dream is clear, actual, obvious and therefore, direct speech. In other words God uses a direct approach to speak clearly to us in our literal dreams.
Direct speech means that what you see in your dream is clear, literal, and is precisely what God is showing you through His dream language.
There are many biblical examples to illustrate the symbolic dream experience and how they have been decoded by individuals with the gift of dream revelation and interpretation. When we have symbolic dreams, it requires more work in terms of seeking the Lord because the objects, people, places and even spoken words are riddles or mysteries that must be revealed by God.
“But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream and the visions of your head as you lay in bed are these” Daniel 2:28 KJV
Symbolic dreams require dreamers to utilize our action items in a more strategic manner. By this I mean that when we have dreams containing dream symbols, it’s imperative that we communicate directly with God for divine revelation so that the Holy Spirit can bring interpretation to us.
Prayer and meditation is an action item that should be applied immediately to discern the truth from a pure source to and receive clarity. Simply asking God what the dream means and what He is trying to tell us is a great start. Sometimes God sends us messages through riddles and parables to position us to rely on Him for guidance and understanding. The details of some scenarios may remain a mystery until the manifestation of our dreams in some cases. At times, we just need to allow our dreams to play out and come to fruition before its true meaning is completely known to us.
Documentation is the second most vital action item crucial to decoding a symbolic dream. When we write out what God has shown us, each dream symbol, albeit a person, place or thing, stands out as God brings revelation of what each object or character represents while we review what we witnessed in our dreams.
This can be a bit frustrating when dreamers are not clear on whether a dream is symbolic or literal. Here are a few ways to determine the difference.
Let’s examine people as dream symbols. Did you know that people can represent other people? At times, you may symbolize a family member, friend or another individual that may have similar physical features or characteristics. For example, I have symbolically represented my brother, a godsister, female cousins and even a close friend. In these instances, there were physical and behavioral characteristics that were clear indicators that I was conveying another person. Such as my height, weight, hair, attitude, dialogue or demeanor that let me know that it wasn’t my personality or how I would handle or behave in that situation. When you notice that certain ways of being, behaviors and characteristics are out of the ordinary, this is helpful in determining the literal versus symbolic components of our dreams.
Timing is a factor in understanding symbolic and literal dreams as well. Sometimes we dream of ourselves or others prophetically and symbolically. There have been times as a child that I’ve had a series of dreams of myself as an adult. My futuristic physical description was a complete contrast to how I appeared in the natural realm and present tense when the dream occurred. Which implies a period of time and years (seasons) would need to pass before these dreams came to fruition. I realized that those dream scenarios would not manifest until I matured and fit the physical profile of the image from my dreams. In waking life, I was short, undeveloped, a minor with shoulder length hair. In the dreams, I saw that I was tall and slender with an athletic figure and long hair.
Other times, one may experience symbolic reversal dreams where you may represent a sibling even if it appears to be you. This can occur with a variety of family combination relationships such as, brother/ sister, mother/daughter, father/son, mother/father. Meaning if you dream of a situation involving your father, it may be a symbolic reversal dream representing your mother. Always remember, divine dreams reveal the truth, so details and discernment are crucial in identifying a symbolic dream from a literal dream!
Do you consider yourself a literal or symbolic dreamer?
-Prophetess Sasha Elycia
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