Symbols in Dream Interpretation
(March 23, 2002)

Someone asked:

While we are on the subject may I ask a question? I would like to know if some symbols stay the same internationally. I have always wondered. If cultures and backgrounds are different does the Holy Spirit use a different symbol that would only have meaning to that culture?

In response to your question, I approach dream interpretation from a prophetic standpoint. I do not believe in symbols always (or even usually) having a specific meaning. For instance, I don't think we should always think "ministry" when someone dreams of a car, etc. I believe that we need to hear from God on what a given dream means.

Because of this, I do not believe in assigning a global meaning to any symbol.. even within a single culture, much less between cultures. I lean towards hearing from God for what a symbol in a dream means.

Also, there are times when the "symbols" are just "background" and God is actually communicating a theme rather than every detail in the dream having a specific meaning. For instance, if God wanted to speak to you about going through a dry time just before bringing you to a new level of power and anointing in your ministry, He might choose to give you a dream of walking through a valley that turns into a hot/unpleasant desert. Then as you keep walking you begin going up hill and find yourself on top of a beautiful high mountian peak where you suddenly turn into an eagle and begin to fly, soaring above a beautiful valley. The main points of the dream are going through a difficult (dry) desert experience that leads to a spiritual high (mountian peak) from you receive an anointing and begin to "soar" into ministry. God may fill in some of the "background" details to paint a complete picture even though they have no specific meaning in the dream.. such as adding cactus and rocks in the desert and adding grass, clouds and rolling hills covered with lush vegatation as you are "flying" over them. If you spend all of your time trying to figure out what the given shape of each cactus is, or the meaning of the various elements of "lush vegetation" you will be reading into the dream because that was just background and not part of the message that God intended to communiate.

There are also times when each symbol in a dream has a specific meaning and are not to be ingored. So how do you tell the difference? You ask God to explain the dream to you, to show you which elements are significant and to let you know which ones to pay attention to and what they mean in this particular dream. You want to ask Him what He is communicating to you (or to the dreamer if you are interpreting some one else's dream) in that specific dream. The key in dream interpretation is to hear from God on the dream.

Because of my strong prophetic biast, I have intentionally not learned what most of the "standard symbols" are .. I don't believe in them. I believe in hearing from God for a specific dream.

Scripture makes two things very clear. First, is that a given symbol can have vastly different meanings, depending on the context. For instance, the symbol "lion" is used to represent Jesus.. the Lion of the tribe of Judah (Rev 5:5). It is also used to represent Satan .. who goes about as a roaring lion, seeking who he may devour (1 Peter 5:9).

Second, God does not limit Himself to a single symbol to describe a specific thing. For instance, God has appeared to people as a pillar of fire and a cloud (leading Isreal from Egypt), a human-looking man (to Abraham, accompanied by two angels who also took human form), a non-human looking man with eyes of fire and head/hair like wool (Rev 1), a lamb (Jesus later in John's revelation vision), as a bright light (when Jesus appeared to Saul on the road to Damascus), and in many different forms. God did not limit Himself to a single symbol in visions and divine visitations. So why would we thing He might limit Himself to a single symbol for a given theme/object in dreams?

Having said all that, I have discovered that there are a few symbols that God has used with me in dreams that seem to communciate the same thing from dream to dream. It is as if He has chosen a few personal symbols for me that He uses consistently. He may choose to use a given symbol in a consistent way for a given individual. I am not yet convinced that He has some general symbols that He always uses with everyone to communicate the same thing. It may be that He has a few, but I am not personally aware of them. I still advocate going to God on a specific dream to find out what He says about it rather than interpreting it based on standardized meanings of given symbols.