I am often asked how I make sense of my dreams, as people usually feel their night visions don’t mean anything at all. They have trouble figuring out how their dreams actually relate to their waking lives, much less how they can be translated and understood to be revelatory messages from the Lord.
I want to share with you the special method I use for organizing my dream work, and I encourage you to use the same technique. It is very useful in helping us zero in on the key elements without getting distracted by all the details. Once these core aspects are clear, the meaning and interpretation of the dream will shift into focus.
We call this daisy-chain format the DAESI Dream Work Method, and we simply record the Dream, Action, Emotion, Setting and Interpretation. It looks like this.
DAESI Dream Work Method
Dream: Summary (Reader’s Digest version) of the dream.
Action: In the dream, what was I doing? (Running from something? Ministering? Fighting?) That is the key action.
Emotion: In the dream, how was I feeling? (Excited? Disappointed? Loved?) That is the key emotion.
Setting: In waking life, what issues is my heart processing? (What did I do that day? What was I thinking about when I went to bed and praying for as I fell asleep?) That is the setting.
Interpretation: We match up the dream’s action and emotion with similar actions and emotions in our waking life which show us what area of our life the dream is speaking to, and we journal out God’s message to us through the dream.
Breaking It Down
First, we write down or type up a short summary of the dream. Then we zero in on the main action of the dream as well as the strongest feeling the dream evoked within us. Next, we look at the setting and what we were processing in waking life when we had the dream. Often this is enough to give us at least a preliminary understanding of the interpretation.
However, we don’t want to stop with just what we think the dream means; we always want to know everything God is speaking so we make sure to ask Him through two-way journaling and record what He tells us, too. It is essential that we hear directly from Him what He wants to say to us because the interpretation of dreams belongs to God (see Gen. 40:8).
Example—The 8-Year-Old Dream Interpreter
I am always encouraged when people share how easy it is to learn our dream work techniques and that they are finally able to understand what God has been speaking to them through their visions of the night. Jesus said we must become like little children in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, so if we have made any part of our faith too complicated for a child to practice, we’ve made it too hard!
The following testimony comes from an amazing family in California who attended our Hearing God Through Your Dreams Workshop. Their 8-year-old son, Will, and his 10-year-old twin sisters, Grace and Faith, sat near the front with their parents for the entire workshop, asking thoughtful questions and even taking notes!
After we returned home, I received the following email from Will’s dad illustrating how Will put the DAESI Dream Work Method and other workshop training to immediate use. Wait until you hear this!
“A few days after the seminar, Will told us that he was teaching his friends in school how to hear God through their dreams. His best friend had a dream and wanted Will to help him see what God might be saying to him through it.
“Dream: In Will’s friend’s dream, he was riding his RipStik and fell down and got hurt. Then he got back up and continued riding. So Will walked him through the steps to hear what God was saying:
“Action: falling down, getting hurt, then getting back up.
“Emotion: fear, hurt, then comfort.
“Setting: In his waking life, his grandfather had recently been diagnosed with a brain tumor.
“Interpretation: He has felt a lot of pain and sadness with his grandfather’s sudden and serious illness, and it hurts a lot because he is close to his grandfather. God wants him to know that He is with him in this pain and that even though he feels like he has fallen down, he will get back up.
“Will’s friend was very encouraged by this and immediately felt God’s peace and comfort in this painful time. I spoke with Will’s friend’s dad, who is my good friend, and he was very touched as well since the whole family has been struggling with this, and they see the children are especially impacted. He was grateful that God was speaking directly to his children through their dreams, bringing comfort and peace.
“I love the faith that was built in our children from your teachings on dreams. I did not know they were teaching their friends at school to hear God through their dreams. Grace and Faith have also been teaching their friends how to interpret their dreams!”
Praise God! I love this testimony and trust it is a huge blessing to your heart as well. Translating the language God speaks at night is easier than you think. If these precious children can interpret their own dreams and help their friends understand God’s messages through their dreams as well, then you can too. {eoa}
Charity Virkler Kayembe has a doctorate in biblical studies, is passionate about the sacred supernatural and writes about the unfolding adventure that is walking by the Spirit on her blog at GloryWaves.org. She has been featured on Sid Roth’s It’s Supernatural!, Cornerstone TV, Charisma magazine and The Elijah List. Charity is the co-author of four books, including Hearing God Through Your Dreams, Unleashing Healing Power Through Spirit-Born Emotions and Everyday Angels.
