Dream Perception

When the body is asleep, the soul is often wide awake. Some of my most profound thoughts come to me as I sleep. The body gets tired and rejects thoughts but the mind is often the most welcoming during rest:

Job 33:14-16

For God may speak in one way, or in another,
Yet man does not perceive it.

¹⁵ 

In a dream, in a vision of the night,
When deep sleep falls upon men,
While slumbering on their beds,

¹⁶ 

Then He opens the ears of men,
And seals their instruction.

Sleep is necessary for life. People can only exist so long without mind rest. Of course the mind never fully rests, but the folds in the gray matter which control the voluntary muscles slow down, and cease their going too fast. The folds that control the involuntary muscles continue on as if awake.

There are three degrees of mental activity: conscious, sub-conscious, and unconscious. These three are degrees of awareness. Consciousness is how the mind controls our activity. It's the state of activity, and is not to be confused with the conscience which is mankind's moral guide. Perhaps unaware to us, our consciousness is the entryway to the conscience. The verses from Job speak to that.

The conscious can either allow thoughts to continue or reject them. When we take things off our mind, those things must be replaced with a substitute. Sometimes when people feel guilty, they replace the thoughts emoting the feelings of guilt.

Guilt is a feeling of doing wrong things on purpose. With purpose implies consciously. Thus, the conscience responds to conscious thoughts. To quit having the unpleasant feeling of guilt, people change the mind's thoughts. It's easy to replace pleasurable thoughts for the objectionable. When people feel guilty for lusting or fornication, they simply think on the pleasures of sin. Most of this thinking is done while conscious. That's the way the mind tricks the ego into enjoying the pleasure. 

The ego mediates the activity between the conscious and reality. Lust isn't real, for instance. It is the mind engaging in mental copulation. The ego actually has more pleasure than we actually have. Most sexual pleasure is derived from lascivious thoughts. The same goes for prestige, power, and the other desires. 

Our mind is our self-god. We must appease it. The mind demands attention and pleasure. Lust is the state of mind which creates a false reality. Most of us know that the mind has better sex than the body! Lusting is consciously dwelling on the potential for pleasure. My mind created the perfect woman. It was married to her until she physically appeared to me. Now she is my wife. 

This perfect woman my mind created was much like the Stepford wives created in the movie of the same name. She usually appeared to my conscious with her back turned away, and her long flowing dark hair beaconing me. She had a perfect figure and dressed provocatively. My mind created her! Now all that I had to do is match the fantasy with reality. That is a difficult task.

During the days I sought my wife, all my thoughts were on that task. I had to continue life with work, friends, family, and God. However, sub-consciously I always hunted that perfect woman. Even while worshiping God, she was the hunted. I placed her among my friends as I enjoyed friendship. The thoughts of her were always with me!

Even as I slept, I enjoyed her company. To be honest, people dream about what they desire. Not only did I have conscious thoughts of my wife-to-be, and sub-conscious thoughts of her, but even desired her in my sleep - the world of the unconscious.

Because I am aware of my unconscious thinking, I question whether sleep is all of an unconscious nature. After awaking, sometimes I remember exactly all my dream and can even consciously relive it. The REM (rabid-eye-movement) stage is where most of the dreams which we remember occur. I believe that REM is the sub-conscious stage of sleep. 

At other times, we know we're dreaming by memories which cannot be procured. Others may even tell us that we're dreaming. That type of mental activity is of the unconscious - beyond the state of awareness.  It's possible that we are the most content in that entire world of fantasy - unless it's a nightmare!

REM dreaming can be controlled to a certain extent. For instance, if a person wants to dream pleasant dreams, before falling asleep, merely focus on the desired dream. We can consciously control the world of the sub-conscious to some extent. That's why it is "sub" and not "un"!

Our conscious minds have a problem. We are too busy to comprehend. Our minds are too busy just doing things to exist. Life is tiring. The portion of life of which we are the most aware is being awake, or consciousness. That state of mind is further divided into three states: deep thinking, semi-autonomous and autonomous. When driving, we make many decisions about destination, route, safety, the environment, speed of the car, etc. 

On the other hand, we do many things semi-automatically such as braking, accelerating, and turning the wheel. The deep-thinking is all conscious. Semi-autonomous activity is the sub-conscious and the conscious working in unison. If one falls asleep at the wheel, we may still do the automatic things to some degree but are not aware of our existence.

It appears that God deals with our conscience better when we sleep. I also believe God deals with us in REM sleep because there is more awareness there. In fact, I act out my dreams as I sleep on occasion, and enjoy my performance - or not - depending on the type of dream.

During the day, I study God's Word by reading scripture. All day long I either consider His Word consciously or sub-consciously. Many times I have awoke from day-dreaming as something comes to me. Day-dreaming may be the thoughts of the sub-conscious mind while we are fully conscious of our surroundings. Walter Mitty is a well known novel character who lived in the a realm somewhere between the conscious and sub-conscious. He dreamed while awake, or at least operational.

At night, my mind remembers the conscious thoughts I had during the day. As I begin to tire, sub-conscious thoughts are retrieved. I might remember the beautiful landscape that my mind hardly noticed in reality. I bring it back from some hidden realm to enjoy more fully. I might retrieve Terri's loving gesture as I retrieve that thought for my pleasure.

That of which I am aware comes to me as I begin to rest, but right before I go soundly asleep, I dream things. If my mind was on God before I slept, God presents the meaning to me as I dream. Surely, it is in the REM stage because when I awake, I can recall what I dreamt. I'm more receptive to abstract thought as I sleep because I don't consciously reject the thoughts. 

Sometimes, as I sleep, I suddenly awake. Enlightenment has wakened me! When in college, the solution to the long unsolved calculus problem would suddenly be revealed to me. I credit God for the solution because it had not occurred to me until I slept. To be honest, I don't know how I ever graduated from engineering college without God's input! That's the practical side of God.

On the other hand, even today, God provides spiritual answers to my problems, even as I sleep. Those bible verses I dwell on as the day passes, are revealed to me as I sleep. Many times I awaken with the answer to God's divine mystery because God speaks in dreams. 

"Deep sleep" is NREM (non-REM) sleep. While our secular enlightenment may come during REM, perhaps divine enlightenment comes best when we are sound asleep. Therein, the conscious is not active at all. It's not there to interfere with pure thinking. My spiritual enlightenment seems to occur when I'm startled from a deep sleep. Suddenly, without consciously thinking, a profound thought comes to me!

My most profound thought coming from a deep sleep is that salvation was always by grace. My mind had been acclimated to the idea that the Old Testament was all about works. After reading about "the mystery of God", from a deep sleep that mystery was solved! Salvation was always for everyone of all time, it was always by the blood of Jesus, and it was always by grace!

I never perceived that doctrine until I awoke and considered the text in light of the dream. God, I believe, revealed truth to me when I could not consciously reject it! The dream is my "spiritual ears" spoken of by Job in the scripture above. Somehow, I sub-consciously had those thoughts mostly unaware to me, but in my sleep he made them firm. God reveals truth the best when we're in no position to reject it. That may be why he blinded the obstinate Paul, so that he could "see" the divine better, and hear it with only "spiritual ears". Perhaps, that's how he uses sleep for us; it's much more recoverable than blindness. 

Sleep seems to be where reality is set aside, and the supernatural comes alive. However, we need to be careful because the conscience has dualism: the flesh and the spirit. They fight each other for our dreams. That's why it's so important to sleep with God's Word fresh on the mind rather than these awful movies, and so forth. We are profoundly effected by angels of both sorts as we dream. Choose your dream wisely!

We know that John was in "the Spirit of the Lord" as he saw his visions.(Rev 1:10). Perhaps the visions were in real time, or on the other hand, perhaps they were placed there when his mind was more receptive to deep thinking - in a deep dream which became clear upon awakening. We'll never know that but he wrote what became clear to his conscious.