Sid Roth - How To Interpret Your Dreams
Sid Roth: Hello. Welcome. Welcome to my world where it's naturally supernatural. That rarified air of Heaven, I love breathing it in and breathing it out. We spend a third of our life sleeping. What if that third of your life was actually arranged by God to have you in a total seeing state in your dreams and He wants to tell you what decisions you should make, yes or no, what direction you should have, wisdom for friends in your dreams. My guest totally demystifies understanding dreams. She teaches how to remember your dreams and how to understand them, and one-third of your life will not be wasted on pizza dreams. You will know the truth through your dreams. I have to tell you I'm a pretty pragmatic person, and therefore, I've had my dreams, I've had literal dreams, but only a few. I can number them on one hand. However, they're all symbolic and I never can know exactly what they are. So being the type of person I am, I've tossed them all out. Laura, why doesn't God just make it easy and give us literal dreams?
Laura: You know what? You're right, a lot of times He does. But you know, Jesus spoke in parables and he is still speaking in parables today. But mainly I say the reason he does this is because you have to apply your faith. When he shows you something then it requires you to seek him. It requires to pray and to come up with an interpretation or go to someone who interprets, and then you have to apply your faith to it, and that's pleasing to the Lord.
Sid Roth: Well you know what? You said the key operative word. It's pleasing to the Lord to apply our faith. So I was, there's a Hebrew phrase, meshuggah, a little crazy for tossing out God giving me direction. I'm not going to do it anymore. And you told me something last night that I've been thinking about ever since, Laura. And that is you have gotten up at night and opened your eyes and seen someone protecting you right in your bedroom. Tell me about that.
Laura: Yes. I have seen someone twice at the foot of my bed and once over to my right where just reaching over me to touch me, like this. And I had seen angels in the past, but it was through bright bursts of light or in other ways, over people, around a situation where protection was needed. But this was just a man. And I'm telling you he was there as if you're there right now, just guarding over me.
Sid Roth: Now you're provoking me to jealousy. I want that angel over my bed. How about you?
Laura: You know what, I pray often for people to receive that. I don't want mine leaving my bed, but the Lord to send someone over, because I believe that He also can give us sweet sleep. God says in Psalm 127, "He gives His beloved sleep". But it's not sometimes so automatic. You say, well I'm not sleeping. I'm His beloved. But you know, there's a war going on for that third of our day. The enemy wants us riddled with sleep debt, apnea, insomnia, he wants all of that so that we don't rest, so that we don't have an opportunity to hear from God at that time of day like we can.
Sid Roth: How did you get into this understanding dreams? I mean, because you have become so expert at it. How did, what was the nucleus of it to start?
Laura: Okay, well I'll tell you. Twenty years ago I was teaching classes on hearing the voice of God and I began to notice that people were less comfortable saying, I had a word from the Lord or I have a prophecy for you than they were, I had a dream last night. Let me tell you what I think it means or what do you think it means? And so I began to just teaching, you know, and exploring scripture on what dreams say. That's really where it started. And then I changed the name of the classes to "Seeing the Voice of God". So what happened to me personally during that time, and this was about 15 years ago, I was still teaching the hearing classes, I went through this hearing drought, as I call it. I was spiritually dead. My husband had just walked away from a lucrative music industry job and we had five children that time, and it was, and had a sixth one in the interim. And it was a really, we had to hear the Lord on our next step, and I wasn't hearing anything. And then one night, I finally heard this small phrase and it was "five days". And I thought, what does five days have to do with anything? And the Lord downloaded into me all at once, and I do mean all at once, "You're going to get away with me for five days and you're going to read the Bible in five days, and I'm going to let you ask me that question, 'Is God ever silent?'" Because I was mourning. I was hearing and seeing these books on Christian bookstore shelves that when God is silent. And I just, I couldn't bring myself to the point where I, you know, my God was silent, like He had a mute button. I just did not think he would do that. So the Lord provided a way at my father's prayer cabin and I went, and in five days with a very strict reading schedule, it was just, you know, 12 to 15 hours a day, I read the entire Bible. I didn't stop to chew on the Greek or Hebrew, or anything like that, just asked that one question. And Sid, I did not find one place in scripture where it says that God is silent. I found scriptures like, "If I regard inequity in my heart, you will not hear me". But coming to that conclusion I thought, okay, it's not God's mouth, it's my ears. And that's where Job 33 came into play for me. God began to bypass my ears and pour out visions and dreams. And Job 33 says, "God speaks in one way and in another, yet man does not perceive it in a dream, in a vision of the night. When deep sleep falls upon men while slumbering in their beds, then He opens the ears of men". So the visions and the dreams started coming and during this time we changed the name of the classes to "Seeing the Voice of God" and voila, suddenly my ears were open again.
Sid Roth: I love that. There is hearing the voice of God, but you're going to start, not just hearing, you're going to start seeing the voice of God.
Sid Roth: Now my guest tells me she gets angry because it's the devil that is causing insomnia to stop God's people from hearing God, seeing God so clearly in their dreams. Insomnia is a big problem.
Laura: It is. And it's not just God's people that the enemy doesn't want sleeping. Remember, Jesus can reveal himself to people, and this is happening a lot in Muslim nations right now. He can reveal himself to people in their sleep. So you know, be comforted by that. That family member that you have thinks they're an atheist by day or they think they're an agnostic by day. We are made of three parts in God's image. And so there's that portion of us that does not sleep, just like there's that portion of God that does not sleep. Our body and our mind sleep at night, but our spirit is awake. And so that person who says by day, I'm agnostic, listen, they go to bed at night and their spirit is the Lord, so the enemy doesn't want them sleeping either. Insomnia and other sleep disorders...
Sid Roth: But Laura told me, this is so exciting, is when she has friends that are non-believers, agnostics, atheists, another religion, she's got a captive audience to pray for them while they're sleeping, because the Bible says that God neither slumbers nor sleeps and the human neither slumbers nor sleeps. But tell me a bit about what you learned about insomnia.
Laura: Yeah. Well there's 40 million people in the world who struggle with insomnia, chronically, another 20 million who just have it periodically. There's always times for each of us, maybe we can't sleep. But yes, I believe it is attack of the enemy to come against that period of the day. Listen, the moon and the stars, and the nighttime, those were not an afterthought when the Lord created those. That is a sacred time and it is a time for you to be able to receive information from the Lord when your busy mind is turned off. And I sat next to, on a plane on time, a person who was really into Sigmund Freud, okay, and they had a lot of psychologists in their family. You know, Freud was Jewish by birth and atheist by choice.
Sid Roth: Unfortunately.
Laura: Right. But his, can you imagine having those roots and ignoring them. But his whole take on dreams was that it was a psychological. I'm like, it's so much more than that. We can receive in our spirit from the Lord as we sleep. So yes, the enemy does not want us to sleep and that's the place where I get excited about praying for people.
Sid Roth: Now you actually had a dream before my staff called you, that told you what was going to happen.
Laura: I'm so thankful. I woke up one morning, so it was a waking dream, and yes, there was a dream. And I saw a...
Sid Roth: Excuse me, what is a waking dream?
Laura: Well it's exactly what it sounds like. You wake up to this dream.
Sid Roth: Just as you would in the middle of the night.
Laura: Yes. It can be in the middle of the night if that dream wakes you up.
Sid Roth: I see.
Laura: This one was in the morning and I saw a hand. It was knocking on a door. It wasn't my hand. It was a hand knocking on my door and that was it. Then I heard, "opportunity knocks". So I waited. Well the morning before that I had a dream that I was big and pregnant. Okay. So I've had six children, so that was analogy that the Lord knew I would understand. I was expectant. You know, you're expecting, when you're pregnant. So I put those two together in my mind and I thought, something big is about to knock at my door. I'm full and here comes the opportunity for, you know, delivery. And hours later, we got the email from your executive producer.
Sid Roth: You know, that is exciting to have this knowledge before it happens, that it really is God knocking at your door. But also, you can have what you explained, warning dreams. Explain a little bit more.
Laura: Can I give an example of one?
Sid Roth: Please.
Laura: Because it's sort of self-explanatory. But I love this example. It was a warning waking dream, and waking dreams you just have a hard time shaking. I woke up one morning, it was a Sunday morning, and I saw myself standing in front of my church. My husband and I pastor in church in Nashville. And there was a huge wrecking ball, and it was coming towards the church. Now I'm standing in between, you know, it, so I see it coming at me. And I woke up, and I knew immediate danger...
Sid Roth: That's dangerous.
Laura: It was, it was, not just because I saw it coming to me at my church, but it was staring me in the face at a rapid beat. And so I got up, I got out of bed. I knew that the early morning prayer team, the pre-service intercessors would be there praying. And so I must have barged in there like a bull in a china closet. I gathered every elder I could find, I gathered every pastor, the music pastor, everybody. And I said, "Listen, there's something that is about to happen. I'm not sure, but if we'll pray with this, I believe we can thwart it". So sure enough, that week we had two of our key families, a feud broke out between them that could have been really divisive. It could have split the church. But because we had already been praying, we had fondued the whole situation in prayer. We had gotten prepared to clear our schedules if need be. We did. We had some mediation meetings. And you know, love won. Prayer won. They...
Sid Roth: If you had not had that warning dread...
Laura: Exactly.
Sid Roth: What would have happened?
Laura: Exactly. Well who know? I mean, the enemy, he was after more than just our family, he was after our church. These were two very key families. So you know, I say it's like those DVDs that you can watch. You have the alternate ending, you can choose which ending you want. That to me is what a warning dream is about. It's not fate, it's not set in stone. Many people mistake them for nightmares because what they actually are is they're information like intelligence being given to you by God to pray to change a situation.
Sid Roth: You know, a lot of people miss that. They see a warning dream and they say, oh no, something awful is going to happen. Oh no, you're to pray so something awful doesn't happen. Well Laura, you researched 1000 symbols, if you will, from the Bible, and when you did this, what did you find as far as opening your understanding of your dreams?
Laura: It was so important. It was difficult to write a dictionary. I wasn't quite sure, you know, what I was biting off at first. But I did it because I wanted people to be able to understand what they were dreaming and not to just rely on, oh my goodness the secular websites that are out there or New Age interpreting books on symbols. I went to a secular website and dreamed or saw that if you dream about biscuits, it said you're a woman who's ambitious in your career. And I was like, what does that have to do with anything?
Sid Roth: Toss that stuff out. I like the biblical understanding.
Laura: Exactly.
Sid Roth: I'll tell you what, when we come back, I'm going to have Laura pray for you. She's prayed for people with insomnia that have been able to sleep. She's prayed for people that don't remember their dreams. They start remembering their dreams. I'm going to have her pray whatever the spirit of God wants her to. Be right back.
Sid Roth: Laura, since you 've been research dreams, I'm sure many people have asked you questions. Tell me two of the questions most people ask you.
Laura: Well I think the number one question I get asked is, why don't I ever dream? And my answer to that it is scientifically proven, I've researched it, you have between four and six dream REM cycles, rapid eye movement cycles, each night, and then you have in those, each of those, between four and six dreams. So you're having, scientifically proven, between 16 and 36 dreams each and every night. So if you live to be 75 years old, that's almost a million dreams.
Sid Roth: Wait a second. If you're having a million dreams...
Laura: Right.
Sid Roth: How come someone can say, I never dream?
Laura: It's because they're not remembering their dreams. So are things that you can do. There's nutritional issues that need to be addressed. And I often have people ask me, well can't God override all of that. Do I really have to nourish my body, my brain and make sure that I'm able to have better recall? And my answer is, absolutely, God can override anything. But see, the issue isn't just that God wants to communicate with you during times of conflict. He wants to be able to reach you any time, and ultimately He wants you to sleep. So that is the question I get asked the most, why am I not dreaming. But I would say the number two question I get asked is, why do I only dream pizza dreams? Why can't I just have..
Sid Roth: I can picture that. That's probably, I have an idea you're asking, how come I just have pizza dreams. Just talk to me literally. I've said that so many times, Laura. You convinced me earlier in the shake, without faith, you can't please God. And you know the thing that's so overwhelming to me, Laura, is that once you started moving in faith on your dreams, you started hearing God better.
Laura: Oh, it's like it doesn't take grandiose faith either. It's child-like faith. And so...
Sid Roth: So what happens to people that say, not only I don't dream, but I don't hear God.
Laura: Yeah.
Sid Roth: What would you say, what's the reason?
Laura: Well there are many reasons for that static. It's as if we're on a different radio frequency with God.
Sid Roth: Right.
Laura: And I say there are many things that cause us to get off the right channel. We have to get back on the right channel. And then that static, it clouds our hearing, if I can say it that way. And so I teach about that static and the things that prevent us from hearing God. And just really quickly they are sin. That's a biggie. That would be the "S", because sins dis-fellowships us from God. Time, our busy schedules, A, ambivalence. We're not sure. Was that God? I'm not certain. And you waiver, and you never think anything. You know, you pray to hear him and you can't take yes for an answer. The other "T" would be trials. Sometimes we sit with God with our grocery list. When we're finally still, we just run down our list of everything that we need and they eclipse our entire visit with Him. "I" is illiteracy. We have an illiterate church who does not know how to read the Word of God, and how can you stand on the promises unless you know what they are. And then "C", the competing voices. Now this is, I always say, there are least five voices in your head at any given time. There's your flesh voice, there's your reasoning voice, you know, that tries to reason its way out of everything. There's your conscience, which we're all born with, knowing right or wrong. There's Satan's voice and then there's God's voice.
Sid Roth: How do you know the difference with all these voices?
Laura: Well you know, scripturally, you can look at each of those and you can see how that they compete with one another. The one that people get tripped up over the most is not my voice or my flesh. You kind of know when your flesh is leading you somewhere, but it's Satan's voice and God's voice, and those are the two polar opposites. And so what I tell people is, pray over your hearing. Tell the enemy he is not allowed to minister to you. And what you will find is, you will find that diminishing your ability to hear him diminishing and your faith to hear God increasing, and getting the Word. Because Romans 10:17 says, "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God". So if you hear you're going to have faith.
Sid Roth: You know, our time is slipping away. I need you to pray those supernatural, how would you like to have Laura against insomnia, pray for you to recall your dreams, pray for you to understand your dreams. She has a gift from God to do this. Would you pray right now?
Laura: Oh I would love to. I'd love to. Father, I just pray in the powerful name of Jesus that you would touch every listener within the sound of my voice right now. Father, that you would bless their sleep, that you would make it sweet, that where they have laid down in the past and their minds have been troubled, that the Prince of Peace would rule there and reign there, and that they would find sleep and stay asleep. All insomnia, all sleep apneas, we come against those in the name of Jesus. His name is powerful. And so we come against those and we ask you, God, for you to release sleep, sweet slumber, over your children and over those who are watching. There are some who are watching and you've not been able to sleep, and you don't know God, you don't know the Prince of Peace. And if you'll ask him into your heart right now and just say, come on in, fill me, take all of my sin, take every spirit I'm troubled with and replace them with one spirit. I trade them for one spirit, the Holy Spirit. And as he comes in, you're going to notice, you're going to notice the difference in your sleep. You're going to notice the difference in your dreaming.
Sid Roth: Our time has slipped away. He gives us beloved sleep.
Laura: Yes He does.