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Seven Steps to Interpret Dreams

and Visions

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the

glory of kings is to search out a matter (Proverbs
25:2).

When Adam lived in the garden he walked and

talked with God. When questions roused in his
heart the Lord instantly answered it. God spoke
plainly to Adam, not in complex parables, dreams
or visions.

When Adam sinned he became sinful flesh. His

heart grew dull, his ears hard of hearing and his
eyes closed lest he should see with his eyes and
hear with his ears and he should understand with
his heart. Then God started to speak to man by the
prophets.

In the earlier Old Testament times, prophets were

called seers because the Holy Spirit enabled them
to see mysteries hidden from the foundation of the
earth. Formerly in Israel, when a man went to
inquire of God, he spoke thus: “Come, let us go to
the seer”; for he that is now called a prophet was
formerly called a seer (1 Samuel 9:9).

The ancient prophets did not perceive the contents

and times of their visions. They understood that not
to themselves but to us, the heirs of salvation they
were ministering. Of this salvation the prophets
have inquired and search carefully, who prophesied
of the grace that would come to you, searching
what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ
who was in them was indicating when He testified
beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories
that would follow. To them it was revealed that, not
to themselves, but to us they were ministering the
things which now have been reported to you
through those who have preached the gospel to
you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven – things
which angels desire to look into (1 Peter 1:10-12).
God has veiled His wisdom in plain sight from them.
The wisdom of God reveals Jesus as surety of a
better covenant.

Since Christ, God spoke to man through His Son,

whom He has appointed heir of all things and
through whom He also made the worlds (Hebrews
1:1-2). Jesus, in His ministry, used symbolic
language as He taught by the parabolic method. All
these things Jesus spoke to the multitude in
parables; and without a parable he did not speak to
them, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by
the prophet, saying, “I will open My mouth in
parables; I will utter things kept secret from the
foundation of the world” (Matthew 13:34-35).

God’s language

Since the fall of man God conceals truth in

parables, dreams and visions which need
interpretation to understanding it. Biblical dream
interpreters include Joseph’s brothers, Jacob,
Joseph, Daniel and others.

Sometimes God imparts revelation through dreams

that require no interpretation. Nevertheless, most
dreams and visions are veiled in symbolism and
require interpretation. Then He said, Hear now my
words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord,
make Myself known to him in a vision; I speak to
him in a dream. Not so with My servant Moses; he
is faithful in all My house. I speak with him face to
face, even plainly, and not in dark sayings…
(Numbers 12:6-8a).

The prophecies in the books of Ezekiel, Daniel and

Revelation are expressed in symbolic language.
Why is God speaking in parables? Why is He veiling
His messages to some and reveal it to others? And
the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You
speak to them in parables?” He answered and said
to them, “Because it has been given to you to know
the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to
them it has not been given (Matthew 13: 10-11).

Historical background of dreams

Genesis 37:5-8 is the first Biblical account of dream

interpretation. Joseph’s brother’s interpreted his
dream about their sheaves bowed down to his.
Jacob probably taught them how to interpret
dreams, which he must have learned from his
father, Isaac and grandfather, Abraham. In the
accounts of Joseph and Daniel we found that beside
themselves magicians were also interpreters of
dreams. So dream interpretation was practiced
since ancient times.

Artemidorus of Daldus (AD 138-180), a Roman

philosopher, studied symbols in dreams. He
interviewed dream interpreters throughout Italy,
Greece and the Near East, and noted that dreams
could rarely be taken at face value. In his book
“Interpretation of Dreams”, he established
principals for the interpretation of fundamental
types of symbols and images appearing in dreams.
His work foreshadowed in many ways the work of
Freud and Jung, eighteen hundred years later, and
provides an important link between the ancient and
modern methods of dream interpretation.

The Christian theologian Gregory of Nyassa (AD

331-395) published a treatise entitled “On the
Making of Man”, wherein he stated that dreams
occur in sleep because the rational intellect is at
rest. Because the intellect is resting, the dream
mind can work through the day’s activities.

In the thirteenth century, the Roman Catholic

Church declared that the future was solely in the
hands of God and that dreams could neither be
prophetic, nor communicate divine revelation.
People, who claimed that their dreams were
divinely inspired, were condemned as
blasphemous. Joan of Arc, a dreamer whose visions
changed the course of French history, were burned
alive at the stake in 1431 as a heretical witch,
partly because the Church denied that her dreams
or visions could be divinely inspired.

The great reformer Martin Luther taught his

followers that dreams revealed their sinful nature.
The German Romantic Movement of the late
eighteen century developed various theories on
dreaming. The German physicist, GC Lichtenberg
(1742-99) was the first scholar to link dreams with
the unconscious. By the end of the nineteenth
century, dreams were recognized as products of
the unconscious and linked to the source of
creative and imaginative ideas.

Freud and Jung

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the founder of

psychoanalyses, began the first comprehensive
scientific study of dreams in the 1890’s. The result
of these efforts was the publication of his book,
“The interpretation of dreams” (1900), which
describes a method for the interpretation of
dreams.

Freud differentiated between the hidden meaning

and its actual content. He did this by trying to
reconstruct the motivation of the dream from the
dreamer’s waking associations. According to Freud,
thoughts that are characteristics of our early
childhood strongly influence our dreams. In his
view, the mysterious and absurd qualities of
dreams are directly due to the need for disguising
the wishes, which our conscious mind will not
acknowledge. Freud stated that dreams have two
principal functions: first, to attempt to fulfill our
restrained, subconscious wishes that are mainly
sexual and aggressive in nature and secondly, to
guard our sleep. Freud believed that the content of
dreams consists of our memories, but that the
stimulus for a dream is always a subconscious wish
that has its origin in childhood.

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1962) started his research

similarly to Freud, and later developed his own
theories. He analyzed the dreams of his patients to
explore the inaccessible regions of the
subconscious mind. He too believed that dreams
are largely symbolic. While Freud’s wish-fulfillment
theory was intended to explain the biological
function of dreaming, Jung’s theory suggested also
a psychological function of dreams. His view was
that the function of dreams is to compensate for
aspects of the dreamer’s personality neglected in
his conscious life. This viewpoint does not differ
substantially from Freud’s wish-fulfillment theory.
For Jung, dreams attempt to reveal rather than to
conceal what is in the subconscious mind. He used
mythology, comparative religion, and history in
interpreting the symbols appearing in dreams.

Following on from the early work of Freud and Jung,

a continual interest in dreams has existed. Many
attempts have been made to find a systematic
method to interpret the symbols occurring in
dreams and to give a consistent meaning and
explanation of these symbols. However, both
Freud and Jung concluded that the meaning of a
dream differs from person to person depending on
the person’s own perception of that symbol. They
suggested that ascribing any consistent meaning to
the symbols occurring in dreams is impossible. For
example, a lion could symbolize power and
authority to one person, but destruction and danger
to another. They concluded that the meaning of a
dream depends on the individual’s own perception
of that symbol.
We have to consider that in their research, Freud
and Jung did not differentiate between the dreams
of unbelievers and those of born-gain, spirit-filled
believers. They mainly worked with problem-loaded
people who had no relationship with God.

They spent some time together, discussing their

theories and interpreting each other’s dreams.
Each rejected the other’s interpretation of the
dreams. Jung believed every human being is deeply
rooted and connected with the history of mankind.
He established the term, common sub-
consciousness, while Freud’s theory was
personality centered. A growing conflict developed
between Freud and Jung and the final break
between them came on their trip to the United
States in 1912. During this period when Jung
pondered on the validity of Freud’s theory and how
this theory could be linked to human history, Jung
had a dream.

He dreamt that he was in an unknown two storey

house but he knew it was his house. He found
himself in the upper storey in a type of salon,
furnished with fine old furniture in rococo style,
with many old paintings hanging on the walls. He
was quite pleased with the appearance of his house
and wanted to discover what the lower floor looked
like. Descending the stairs, he reached the ground
floor, where everything was much older, dating to
the fifteenth or sixteenth century. The furniture was
medieval. The floor was tiled with red bricks, and
everything was rather dark. He then came to a
heavy door and discovered a stone stairway that
led down into the basement. There he found
himself in a beautiful vaulted room that looked
ancient. The walls dated to Roman times. On the
floor he discovered a golden ring. With it he lifted a
stone slab and saw another stairway leading down.
He followed it and came into a low cave cut into the
rock. Thick dust, scattered bones, broken pottery,
and two human skulls lay on the floor. The skulls
were partially disintegrated. Then he awoke.

Jung asked Freud to interpret his dream, which

Freud did according to his wish-fulfillment theory.
Before starting with the interpretation, Freud asked
Jung what two people he disliked the most. Jung
mentioned his mother-in-law and wife. Freud
claimed that the two skulls represented Jung’s wife
and mother-in-law because he was convinced that
Jung would like to see both dead. This was not true
at all. Jung liked both of them very much but had
deliberately misled Freud to test his interpretation
skills. Freud’s misinterpretation caused the final
break between the two.

Jung’s interpretation of the dream was that the

house represented a type of psychical image –
where the salon with its inhabited atmosphere
symbolized the consciousness, while the ground
floor represented the first level of the unconscious.
The further he descended into the house the darker
the scene became. The lowest cave was filled with
the remains of early civilization, which Jung
interpreted as the world of the primitive man inside
each of us. He said that the primitive psyche of
man borders on the life of the animal soul, just as
animals inhabited caves, before human beings
started to dwell in them.

However, Jung did not follow the basic Biblical

principal that a dream comes as an answer to the
questions a person pondered on before falling
asleep. For example, King Nebuchadnezzar was
concerned with the future of his kingdom after his
death (Daniel 2:29). In the dream, God gave him
the answer to his question and showed him what
the future would bring.
Because Jung pondered on Freud’s theory and how
it could be linked to human history, God gave him
the answer. Let me give you the interpretation. The
house in his dream symbolized human history.
Important historical periods were associated with
various levels of the house. The early history was
associated with the lowest part of the house, and
ascending storeys represented more recent history.

In the cave Jung found two human skulls. We can

relate them to Adam and Eve as the whole floor of
the cave was covered with thick dust. Adam and
Eve decided to exalt knowledge above the fear of
God and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil. In punishment God cursed them, saying
they would die and go back to the dust from which
He took them.

The basement of the house was set in the style of

the Roman period. This was a decisive period where
knowledge, argumentative skills and education
became very important powers governing mankind,
and truth was violated. The ground floor represents
the late medieval times and the second storey the
rococo which led to the age of enlightenment and
humanism. We note that Jung was impressed by
the fine appearance of the furniture and the
precious paintings, all produced by the human
mind. His dream showed that Freud was actually a
successor of all those people who had been seeking
the fruit of the tree of knowledge, valuing the
power of self over the fear of the Lord.

The house is a symbol of human achievements

throughout the ages, but founded on death, dust
and dead bones. All the things Jung saw in the
house are dead works with no real living value (all
the furniture was antiques), merely deceiving the
proud. The fact that Jung saw this as his own house
shows that Jung was deeply influenced by the
mindsets of his ancestors, dating to the beginning
of mankind. He was not, as he might have thought,
independent and free in his thinking. Repeatedly in
the history of mankind, the same sin has been
repeated, namely not seeking the tree of life that is
to know the Lord in all your ways and not to lean on
your own understanding.

Many people today are following Freud and Jung’s

principals and guidelines for interpreting dreams. It
is shocking to know that even spiritual leaders base
their understanding of dreams on Freud and Jung’s
ideas.

The ancient Russians were heathen. Presently,

there exist many books about dream interpretation
in the countries of the old USSR, which are based
on heathen religious believe and superstition.

The Biblical way for dream and vision

interpretation

The Scriptures should interpret dreams and visions,

and not theories or superstitious believes. The
Word and the Holy Spirit are one and will never
contradict each other. Jesus answered and said
unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures
[Word] nor the power of God [Holy Spirit] (Matthew
22:29).

If one does not study the language of the symbol

and type of the Bible some of its grandeur will be
missing and dreams and visions cannot be
interpreted. It is the glory of God to conceal a
matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a
matter (Proverbs 25:2). God is hiding mysteries
from us so that we must seek His face for the
interpretation. It is His way to draw us into a
relationship with Him.

The Bible indicates that an object may obtain a

specific meaning by its inherent character. So
animals, birds, fish and other objects, not referred
to in Scripture, can be interpreted by their
characteristics, habits and uses. But now ask the
beasts, and they will teach you; and the birds of
the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth,
and it will teach you; and the fish of the sea will
explain to you (Job 12:7-8).

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the

firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day
utters speech, and night unto night reveals
knowledge. There is no speech nor language where
their voice is not heard (Psalm 19:1-3).

For example, the hyena has extremely powerful

jaws. It is a scavenger, although it will also attack
and kill life prey. It scavenges the leftovers from
other predators with little effort and become very
aggressive when other animals want a share of its
prey. A hyena speaks of a person that takes
advantage of others.

Steps to interpret dreams and visions

Firstly, interpretation of dreams and visions is a

gift from God. As for these four young children, God
gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and
wisdom: and Daniel had understanding in all
visions and dreams (Daniel 1:17, emphasis
added).

I started to dream dreams and saw visions of

prophetic significance since 1973. It took me
eighteen months before I started to flow in the
interpretation of dreams and visions. In the
beginning I saw dreams and visions but could not
interpret them. One day I said to the Lord, “What is
the use, You are giving me dreams and visions but I
cannot interpret them. What a waste.” Immediately
I received the gift of interpretation because I knew
immediately the meaning of some visions I had
eighteen months before.

Secondly, the symbolology and typology of the

Bible should be studied in detail knowing that the
Bible is written in the language of signs, symbols
and types. Jesus taught in parables, thus using
symbolic language. I will open my mouth in
parables; I will utter things kept secret from the
foundation of the world (Matthew 13:35b).

Thirdly, record the dream or vision as accurately

and completely as possible. Record the dream as
soon as you wake up otherwise you may forget
some detail and often forget the whole dream.
Record all details such as colors, numbers, direction
of objects, field of vision, shapes and your mood
and if it was a positive or negative experience. Do
not add (never assume) or take away from the
dream, as it will influence the interpretation. Have a
pen and paper on you to record dreams as soon as
you wake up or to record visions while waiting on
the Lord. Then the Lord answered me and said:
“Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that
he may run who reads it” (Habakkuk 2:2).

Fourthly, analyze the dream or vision. Make a

thorough study/research of all the symbolic objects
and symbols in your dreams or visions. Create a
complete record of each symbolic object and
symbol and then update your symbolic dictionary.
State the definition or give a reasonable description
of the object or symbol as well as its most
important characteristics, habits and/or uses. If the
object or symbol is traceable in the Bible, record
the Hebrew and/or Greek meanings and refer to the
relevant verses. An object or symbol has as many
meanings (positive or negative) as it has
characteristics, habits and/or uses. So, the
interpretation of a specific symbol may differ from
one vision to another depending on which
characteristic the Holy Spirit wishes to emphasize.
A lion in a particular vision may reveal the Lion of
the tribe of Judah. And one of the elders saith unto
me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of
Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open
the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof
(Revelation 5:5). On a different time surrounding
other conditions, a vision of a lion may refer to
demonic attack. Be sober, be vigilant; because your
adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh
about, seeking whom he may devour (Jeremiah
8:7a). The characteristic, which the Holy Spirit
desires to emphasize is discerned by the Holy Spirit
and not worked out in the carnal mind. Practicing
the interpretation of dreams and visions need
patience and endurance. The more you know your
Bible the easier it becomes.

To update my symbolic dictionary, I use the Bible,

books on animal and plant kingdoms, Bible
dictionaries, Bible encyclopedias, Hebrew and
Greek lexicons and dictionaries. I also use the
Internet in my research. As a rule I prefer to
exclude secular material as far as possible.
Occasionally secular material proves to be useful.
Make use of Bible programs such as E-sword, which
can be downloaded from Internet at no charge. Use
the Internet and your local library, as books are
expensive. If you practice these steps you will start
to experience the leading of the Holy Spirit in
dreams and visions as you will come into an
understanding of the meanings of most objects and
symbols.

Occasionally the Lord uses objects and symbols

that relates to a person’s occupation and interests.
For example, a shopkeeper may occasionally
receive dreams and visions about products,
services and customers.

Fifthly, you need to know if the dream is symbolic

or literal. Normally if something in a dream is not
literal then the whole dream with all objects and
symbols must be interpreted symbolical. However,
there are rare occasions when this rule does not
apply.

You also need to know to whom or what the dream

really refers. Therefore, record the background of
all dreams or visions. The background involves the
activity a person was engage in or the meditation
of a person’s heart or the issue a person wrestles
with before he or she went to bed. Record details of
your prayer, experience or meditation before going
to bed. You need to know what the dream relates
to. Is this Scriptural? King Nebuchadnezzar
meditated on what would happen after his reign
and God answered him: As for you, O king,
thoughts came to your mind while on your bed,
about what will come to pass after this; and He who
reveals secrets has made known to you what will
be (Daniel 2:29).

Daily prayer and meditation on the word of God

stimulate spiritual dreams. Passivity will not
provoke spiritual dreams and visions. When you are
involved in prayer, waiting on the Lord, living in the
Word and ministering to others the Lord will often
use dreams and visions to lead you.

Sixthly, the dream or vision needs interpretation.

Sometimes the Holy Spirit reveals the meaning
immediately but normally it takes longer. It may
take hours, days or weeks or even longer to receive
the interpretation. So Daniel went in and asked the
king to give him time, that he might tell the king
the interpretation (Daniel 2:16).

Ask the Lord for the interpretation of the dream or

vision. Start at the beginning of the dream and
interpret the objects and symbols one by one and
thus the dream. Dreams may relate to you
personally, to your family, to your church, your
business, or be applicable to third parties, nations,
countries and continents. Interpretation of dreams
and visions should be treated with the same
sincerity as when you meditate on the word. It
takes time, patience and perseverance to flow in
your gift.

You must prepare yourself that you will make many

mistakes in the beginning. You can become pretty
accurate over time interpreting dreams and visions.
However, I doubt it if there will be a time in this
dispensation where you will be infallible. We know
only in part and prophesy in part (1 Corinthians
13:9). This reality should keep you humble.

Lastly, take responsibility for what the Holy Spirit

has revealed to you. Meditate on your dreams,
visions and interpretations and pray it through
until its fulfillment. As long as you cry out for
wisdom and understanding to do God’s will, He will
let you prosper in all areas of your life. And he
sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had
understanding in the visions of God; and as long as
he sought the Lord, God made him to prosper (2
Chronicles 26:5).

For more information on this subject read my book

titled: Interpretation of Dreams and Visions
(by Andre Niemand). It is available at
Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Waterstone, WH
Smith, Blackwell, Books a Million and many other
major online bookshops.