Chalam' To Dream Series

Did you know that you’ll spend about 1/3 of your life sleeping? Yes, we all spend massive amounts of time, in the night usually, passed out, face smashed against a pillow, unconscious.

And eventually when we reach REM sleep, we begin to experience dreams. Some of us will remember many of our dreams, some of us often forget most of our dreams. But it’s clear that the mind stays active while we sleep. We process things emotionally, thoughts in our minds play out in dreams, and we even can experience intimacy with God, while we sleep. We begin to have spiritual dreams.

And that today is our Hebrew word, called “Chalam” which is pronounced khaw-lam.' This Hebrew word means “to dream.” It can mean three different things in regard to dreams. It can mean an ordinary dream. It can mean a prophetic dream which is a dream from God. And it can also mean a false dream, a dream from Satan.

What’s interesting is that Chalam can also mean “to be healthy.” Or to be “restored to health.” That tells us a lot about dreams right there, doesn’t it? They can be ordinary. They can be from God or from the enemy. And it also tells us that dreaming is restorative to our body and soul.

Our scripture today from the book of Job makes reference to the concept of dreaming.

Job 33:15-16 NIV says “In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on people as they slumber in their beds, 16 he may speak in their ears and terrify them with warnings.”

In the King James, “15 In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed;16 Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction,”

Chaim Bentorah writes, “Looking further at this word for “dream” I find that the chet represents bonding and binding with God, the lamed represents instruction from heaven, and the mem represents the hidden mysteries of God. It is in our dreams that we bind ourselves to God as He reveals His hidden mysteries to us” (Bentorah, p. 127).

Now of course we know that the vast majority of our dreams are not from God. They are simply dreams that reflect our thoughts and actions during the day. Many of us I’m have had stress dreams, where we’re hiding from a tornado, or falling off a cliff, or dreams where we see old places where we used to live or visit, I often see my grandma check’s living room, my grandma Steckbauer’s kitchen, my aunt colleen’s old house, the house I grew up in with my parents. Most of these dreams are simply reflections on memories, or things we’re thinking about during the day. You might say the mind is processing those things.

Now, you can also have something called a demonic dream. This is a dream planted by demons. I’ll share that this has been a week where almost every night that I’m having nightmares, many of them demonic dreams. These can happen if we’re opening ourselves up to demonic attack, so you have to ask yourself, are you watching movies or reading books about vampires or zombies or witch craft or spells or other occult imagery, that may be opening you up to demonic attack? That is an important question. Also certain drugs and chemicals can open us up to demonic attack. Certain medications may produce a high that opens us up to demonic influence. Do you occult symbols in your home, like a ying-yang, or a Ouija board, or shirts or clothing with skull and crossbones on them?

But in any case, even if you aren’t opening yourself up to those things, sometimes the enemy can plant dreams anyway. You’ll usually notice while your dreaming that you feel an oppressiveness. And something will feel unusually dark in the dream. I will tend to see zombies attacking me, or I will find myself in a dark room, and afraid for no apparent reason, or I’ll feel something very scary near me and I’ll be afraid, just last night I dream I was in my old bed room and it was very dark and I couldn’t find anyone, and then I was trying to close my door and something was opening it and trying to get in. Demons can also create dreams where they appear as a handsome man or a beautiful woman, and you engage sexually with them, then they morph into a monster or creature. Scary stuff. So if you’re under demonic oppression in your dreams, pray, and if you can realize that you’re dreaming, you can stop in the dream, pray, and God will wake you up.

But perhaps you’ve had a dream from God. Have you? If you ever do, you’ll know it was from God. It will be different from a normal dream. You’ll feel something is special about it. I encourage you to immediately write it down if you do. Otherwise you may eventually forget it. So do write it down. Reflect on it. Pray on it. And God will reveal the meaning to you.