The hardest part about dream interpretation is typically figuring out the actual interpretation. Sometimes you nail it with ease. Other times the dream is all over the place, the symbols are extremely weird, and you have NO IDEA what the dream means.
As I shared in the last blog, not understanding the meaning of a dream is a call into intimacy with God.The less you know the more you have to lean into him to learn. In this Blog I will share with you a process that I use that helps me translate God's parabolic messages that he bestowed unto dreamers in their sleep. First of all, please note that it is imperative that before you attempt to discern a symbol that you are stuck on, you pray. It's o.k. to not know what something means. Moments like this are typically God's way of testing you to see if you are going to allow him to help you, or make up an answer just to look good. Good dream interpretation requires a broken and contrite heart that is not interpreting from poor doctrine, filtered vision, or soul lead ways of thinking. Die to your flesh and watch the growth you ascertain by living as the Ambassador of Christ that you are.
Step 1: Pray and ask Holy spirit for revelation.
Step 1 and half; Write the dream down. Even if you can only remember one sentence of the dream, write it down. This will help you to remember the dream and you will be able to reference it again in the future as you get more understanding or more revelation.
Step 2: Title the dream. Write out a full sentence describing what happened in the dream. Typically this will result in giving you a basic understanding of the overall meaning of the dream. Give it a noun, and adjective, and a verb such as, The cat that wouldn't stop meowing.
Step 3: Draw an oval in the middle of a sheet of paper. Inside the oval write the title of the dream. Draw 3-5 lines coming off of the oval like rays of the sun you wold draw as a kid. On each of those lines put one symbol from the dream that seemed important to the dreamer.
Step 4: Draw another line coming off of the symbols you wrote down. On that line write the meaning of each of those symbols
Step 5: The interpretation will now be visible in the definitions of the symbols. Take all of the symbols meanings and plug those into the dream. So if a dreamer stated I dreamed that a large fish had taken my bait, You would take two elements such as bait and fish and get the meaning of those symbols. They would be bait= what you are using to draw or lure something in, and fish is a person you want to appeal to. Typically this is a person that you are evangelizing to so the bait is the hook you you use to entice them with the message you have. Here is a sample:
Please note that this is just an outline of the process that I find to be most effective. There are many other processes out there that will help. Feel free to get creative. Creativity helps loosen you from your own lower level logic and allows the Holy Spirit the ability to apply his divine logic in order to help you interpret.