Mike Parsons –
The difference between a lucid dream and a vision is really only that you are asleep rather than awake when you have it.
The difference between a lucid dream and a vision is really only that you are asleep rather than awake when you have it. They are basically the same thing, just in a different format, one being asleep and one being awake. If you are conscious of what is going on in the dream and you are engaging with the dream, there is no real difference to being conscious in a vision, having an encounter and engaging that vision.
Sometimes it is simply a way that God can engage with us when we are not in control of our conscious thinking, like when we are asleep. If it is a lucid dream and you are interacting with it, then is it a dream that God is giving you and you are in an encounter with God, and are the other people who come into the dream part of that encounter? Either they are visionary, in that God is showing you a person and interacting with you, or that person’s spirit is engaging in your dream.
Again, it all comes down to what God’s purpose is. Therefore you have to go back to God and ask him to show you what he was trying to communicate, what the significance was of a particular person, whether known or unknown, within your dream. Just like a lot of people have visionary experiences but do not know what they are about, they then have to go back to God and ask him.
If you are interacting with the dream and things are happening, those things can be actual things that are going on, or they could be symbolic of something that is going on. Again, you have to discern that. On many occasions where I was engaging things, visionary encounters and experiences, I was there engaging them and things were happening to me. If I was in conversation with God within that experience, then I could trust what he was saying. If God was not there and I was seeing things or doing things, then I would be more cautious in my interpretation of what was happening.
Usually I would then check out what happened with God to ensure that I was not putting my own spin on it. When I first encountered, for example, the high chancellors’ houses, and wisdom took me there and I engaged with the high chancellors and all of the houses, God was nowhere in that encounter. I believe God totally inspired that encounter and wisdom interacted with me in many different ways on God’s behalf. But I always went back and said, “Okay, I need deeper insight into this. What were you trying to show me?” I wanted to make sure that it was a pure experience, not something I was spinning through my own filters or trying to understand through my own experiences.
When God was with me, showing me something and speaking to me, I was more confident. I was sure this was God. Sometimes he told me things that were very clear. He has also told me things that were not very clear. I did not mistrust what he said, I just did not understand it at that point. That usually lodges in my heart and then works out in a future situation, where suddenly I understand what it was about. God will say something to stimulate my attention, where I think, I do not know what he is talking about, or I am not fully understanding this, and then I pursue the understanding of it.
When it comes to people, I have encountered people, or people have told me that they have encountered me in a vision or a heavenly experience. I did not remember those experiences because I was asleep at the time, usually at night, and my spirit engaged them. But when I focused on it, sometimes my spirit gave me information that affirmed that encounter. It was like my spirit said, yes, we did. Sometimes I would say, well, what did we talk about? When they described the conversation and what went on, it was very much in sync with what they said I had said. It was like, yes, that was exactly what I would have said if we had had that conversation.
There are different ways in which you experience and encounter things, and they are all good. Every time I go to sleep at night, I make my spirit available for whatever God might want me to do, outside of all the other things I am doing. It is simply saying, I am available for anything you might want me to engage with. That could include engaging other people. Often those people will gain something from the experience that they are seeking.
I cannot remember engaging a person in that type of visionary experience where I was seeking them, but I have engaged the cloud of witnesses for specific things where I felt there might be some insight. I have engaged people like Esther, David, Daniel, Jacob and Joshua at various times during my journey, and then gone back and re-engaged them at a future date to find out more. There is no real difference between a person who is alive and you engaging their spirit in a dream or a vision, and someone who is physically dead but you are still engaging their spirit and soul within a vision. Hebrews describes them as the firstborn enrolled in heaven. They are still active and we can still engage them.
One of the questions I would ask is whether I can have these experiences when I am awake and not sleeping, because then I can engage the experience more fully. I journal everything. I want a record of the things I have encountered. If you wake up having had that experience, it can be harder to journal exactly what happened in a dream or visionary setting. I have come back and written those things out, but mostly what I do is journal while I am having the experience, so that I am totally aware and completely lucid, writing down what is happening during that experience with God or any other encounter.
Occasionally I go back to an experience because I feel there may be some detail I missed. Often when I am listening and talking to God, I am not paying attention to what is going on around me unless he is pointing something out. Particularly in the early days, when all this was new, I would revisit experiences to make sure I had not missed something. As time went on, I became much more confident in my ability to discern, write down and engage.
So ask God whether you can have these experiences when you are not sleeping, and see what happens. If there is a particular person you are unsure about, ask the Father to show you what to do. Sometimes a person may appear in a dream and prompt you to pray for them, protect them, or respond in some way. Until you get into the flow of it and discover what was behind it, there can be many different specifics.
Sometimes a person may speak to you and tell you something, just as a prophet might come and prophesy. Sometimes a person can be speaking on God’s behalf. That is something I believe I have done on a number of occasions when engaging people in that realm.
Ultimately there is no right or wrong in this. It is all part of learning to discover and journey through encounters and experiences, becoming more discerning and more able to pick these things up. If we are open and we have a lucid dream experience, then it is because God wants to speak to us that way. It may be more difficult for him to speak to us while we are awake, perhaps because we are distracted. When you are asleep there is less conscious activity to interfere.
So ask him, and see if he has insight for you and a purpose for each encounter you are having. I do not see a difference between lucid dreams and visions or lucid visions. They are essentially the same sort of encounter, one when you are asleep and one when you are awake.
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Sons of Issachar 