Some people will argue that all dreams, nightmares and night terrors are all caused by different chemicals being released while you are sleeping. When asked about this I found an interesting correlation in how a person’s brain responds to dreams and to other external stimuli. For instance, studies have shown that your brain responds the same way to movies as it would if you were actually doing something in real life. It has been proven that dreams cause the same reaction in your brain and the same areas of the brain light up as they would in a dream or when you are watching a movie.
Since this is the case you could come to the conclusion that your brain responds to external stimuli. Since your brain lights up the same when you are doing something, or watching something, or even dreaming then it’s clearly evident that dreams are a result of some third-party external stimulant that is influencing the way you dream. This correlates to what the bible states when it says God gave someone a dream, a person’s soul caused someone to dream, or in Job 4 where a spiritual entity paralyzed a body during a nightmare and spoke to Eliphaz. Please don't just take my word on what I am saying. Get into the bible and seek these answers for yourself. Also, don't just start reading then confabulate what this article is saying. Check the scriptures I am giving you and see if what I am saying is true. Yesterday I shared with you that there is a Heavenly Realm that we access when we dream. I showed you the scripture identifying why I came to that conclusion, and I broke down the meaning of the word Enupnion in Greek (The sphere or realm of dreams). Now let's take a look at some scriptures that show visions and dreams, and sometimes both as one, occurring in different manners in this dream realm.
So many people would like to think that they have dreams, when the truth of the matter is we are given dreams, dreams have us, or we create the dream as a confabulation of the desires of our souls. When we fall asleep our brain can much more easily be bypassed by God so that he may speak to us and we may listen. I love the thought that God is in the room telling me bedtime stories while I slumber.
Take a look at Job 33:14-18,
14 For God does speak—now one way, now another— though no one perceives it. 15 In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on people as they slumber in their beds, 16 he may speak in their ears and terrify them with warnings,
17 to turn them from wrongdoing and keep them from pride, 18 to preserve them from the pit, their lives from perishing by the sword.”
The word bachalom is used for dreams in verse fifteen, and also the word machezeh (vision). The prefix “Ba” denotes that someone, or something, is coming or going. The fact that this word is prefaced by ba indicates that God actually comes to you at night while you are sleeping and gives you dreams, and visions, or he comes to you in dreams and visions which I have established in my heart is actually accessing a realm of the Heavenlies. God comes to you THROUGH dreams.
The same prefix used in Bachalom is also used in Genesis 15:1 when God is speaking with Abraham. The very first vision that is mentioned in the bible is found here in Genesis 15:1. God comes to Abram (soon to be Abraham) and tells him of his future plans for him. The word used for vision in this verse is completely unique to Abraham. It is used only one time, and this is the time. Bamachazeh means Came through vision. Remember, Ba in Hebrew means to come or to go. It states in this scripture that the word of Yahweh came to Abraham. We know now from John 1 that the word of Yahweh is Jesus. This is the second time that Jesus has shown up to Abraham, the first being Genesis 14 when Jesus appears as Melchizedek. Jesus chose to show up to speak to Abraham through a vision rather than manifesting himself in front of Abraham as he has done with Adam and Eve, or even with Abraham at other times throughout his life.
I find this interesting because the word Machezeh, without the prefix attached to it, is used multiple times throughout the bible as vision. A deeper investigation into this word reveals that these types of visions are equivalent to looking through a glass or window. When God is showing you a vision, coming to you in a vision, or giving you visions at night or day, he is actually giving you an open heaven to look upon. God not only speaks to us, but he Comes directly to us and opens the heavens that we may peer into to depths of that mighty, magnificent glory that is God Almighty.
I do not condone astral projection. That is a soul-based means of accessing the Epouranios that is practiced by devil worshipers and new-agers. None of what I am teaching you today is based on anything new age. This is all straight from a revelation that was uncovered while studying every dream in the bible and every vision. However, there is scriptural evidence that God will take you to the second and third Heaven without you having to violate his law. Astral Projection allows you access to the second heaven in your own strength and for your own purposes. It is a violation of the proper order that is set in place for Christians through Jesus Christ. You will notice that when a prophet is talking about accessing or going to the second or third heaven it also states they were "taken up." They didn't go up on their own.
For instance, Paul speaks of a man that was taken up to the third Heaven. In Revelation, we find that John was taken up into the third Heaven and shown the end times. But here is one that many overlook. There is no direct mention of the second Heaven in scripture. However, if there is a first Heaven and a third Heaven, then there must be a second by way of logic. Let's take a look at Ezekiel 8:2, "I looked, and I saw a figure like that of a man. From what appeared to be his waist down he was like fire, and from there up his appearance was as bright as glowing metal. 3 He stretched out what looked like a hand and took me by the hair of my head. The Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and in visions of God he took me to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the inner court, where the idol that provokes to jealousy stood."
Isn't that fascinating? Someone, whether an angel or God, took Ezekiel into the sky between Earth and Heaven. I am going to step out on a very sturdy limb here; I believe that Ezekiel was taken to the second Heaven. If an angel grabbed a person and took them up into the sky, albeit possible for God to avoid detection, someone would have probably seen this man flying through the air. "It's a bird, it's a plane, no it's Ezekiel!" What I find fascinating about that scripture is that it not only identifies that we can be taken into the second Heaven by God when God decides to take us there, it also shows that God physically transports people through visions in the second heaven (a heavenly realm) and shows us things. This blows my mind. God could have simply allowed Ezekiel to have a vision and see all these things that are going on in Jerusalem. Instead, God takes him to see with is own eyes transporting him places via vision, or open heaven. I am sure that there are many reasons that God did this. His logic is far beyond ours. One reason, I believe, was to help us understand better what is going on when we are in the dream realm.