Dreams

Does the average person put much thought into what they dreamt about the previous night? Me, not really. Although, I guess it depends on the dream.

I've had a reoccurring dream about a house fire. It has been a long time since I've had it. I've had prophetic dreams. I've been called to pray over those particular dreams, and after some time, have seen the results of those dreams and prayers come to fruition.

I've also had quite an intense experience. One night before bed, I prayed and asked God to communicate with me about something in particular. I was woken in the middle of that night by the most intense fragrance. I questioned it. Am I smelling this? I looked over at a sleeping Eric to see if he had stirred. No. I sat up in bed confused. What is this? Is this real? Am I imagining this? Being awake, I decided to get up and walk down the hall to check on the girls. The air was still heavy with perfume when I returned to my own bed. I sat there and breathed it in.

The next day I think I mentioned it to my mom. I believe I called my pastor a few days later. While he had never experienced this personally, he had heard of such a thing. He asked if it smelled like incense and I said, "Yes". Bingo-incense, that's what it was! He said that God was there in my room with me. I believe this to be true.

I have a friend who takes dreams very seriously. I had a very detailed dream about her one night and kind of forgot about it. The morning after the dream, I read a baby farm animal book to my daughter and came across the name of a baby swan-cygnet. I suddenly remembered the dream (swans were involved) and emailed her. This made me think...should I look at the imagery represented in my dreams? I've always paid attention to them, but hadn't taken the step to interpret them.

This brings me to a few nights ago. I had a vivid dream. It involved a long, aggressive, brightly colored snake with a pattern of about three colors. It came after me and I picked it right up. It lunged for my face hissing, barring its fangs, but it couldn't reach me. I remember looking down at it in my hands, amazed that I held the thing and that I had control of it. I let it go and it actually attacked the first thing in sight-a boy (whom I didn't recognize) playing in shallow water. He was facing the shore and the snake went straight to him and bit his knee.

I actually looked up "snakes in dreams" out of curiosity. There are different scenarios involving snakes. I'm pretty sure now what the dream was about. It makes sense based on what is going on in my life right now. I don't think I'll be consulting the online interpretation of dreams websites regularly, but I do think that looking into the meaning of extremely detailed and vivid dreams (which are rare for me to have) might offer a little insight now and then.