God has never spoken to me through a dream. At least not that I am aware of. When morning comes, all I have are the scattered fragments of something about grocery shopping, riding a bike, or being late to a college class I couldn’t find and it’s now the end of the semester, and I am not ready for the final. (Anyone relate?) Dreams, for me, are mostly noise.

And yet.

Scripture is full of people who cannot say the same thing. People who lay down in the dark, surrendered and unguarded, and who woke up with a word from God that changed the course of their lives, or even the course of history. So, if this isn’t the way God tends to speak to you either, there is something worth our understanding here about how He connects with us.

A Biblical Pattern: What Dream Encounters Have in Common

Think about the dreamers in the Bible. Joseph, the boy with the coat, received two dreams of sheaves and stars bowing before him (Genesis 37:5–11). Years later, from a prison cell, he interpreted the dreams of a cupbearer and a baker before eventually standing before Pharaoh to discern what no one else could (Genesis 40–41). Daniel, exiled in a foreign empire, was given wisdom and understanding in visions and dreams of every kind (Daniel 1:17). Mary’s husband, Joseph, received multiple dreams from an angel, each one guiding him as he protected Jesus and His mother (Matthew 1:20–24; 2:13, 19–22). Even the Magi, those mysterious travelers from the East, were warned in a dream not to return to Herod (Matthew 2:12).

Look closely at these encounters, and we see a pattern emerge. They come at moments of great stakes, and they carry specific direction, warning, or revelation that the person likely could not have accessed any other way, or would not have been in the right posture to receive. And they require response. Joseph doesn’t just file his dream away. He acts on it. Mary’s Joseph gets up in the night and moves his family to Egypt. The Magi take a different road home.

When God speaks through dreams in Scripture, He is preserving lives, directing obedience, revealing His purposes, and moving history forward.

Dream, Vision, Nudge: How Do You Tell the Difference?

The Bible uses the words “dream” and “vision” with some overlap, but I believe there’s a meaningful distinction worth holding onto. A dream happens in sleep, when our mind is passive, our body is at rest, and we’re not directing the experience. A vision often happens while awake: Ezekiel by the river (Ezekiel 1:1-3), Isaiah in the temple (Isaiah 6:1-8), Paul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3-6). Both are used by God for divine communication.

Then there is the quiet nudge that most of us are more familiar with: the feeling that rises during prayer, the Scripture that seems to leap off the page at us, the thought and/or comment from a friend or sermon that returns again and again until we finally pay attention to it. These are also very real and practical ways that God most consistently speaks to many of us.

So, how do you tell if a dream, vision, or nudge is from God? Most theologians and spiritual directors offer a similar framework that I tend to follow. I ask these questions:

• Does it align with Scripture?
• Does it align with God’s character and produce fruit consistent with the Spirit (clarity, peace, a call toward love and obedience) rather than an offering of fear, pride, or confusion?
• Does it persist and deepen with prayer?
• Does it find confirmation in a trusted community of believers?

When God spoke through dreams to those who were not His followers (i.e. Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar), He provided interpreters who were: Joseph for Pharaoh and Daniel for the king. And Mary’s Joseph acted in obedience when likely no one could have fully understood his charge. Others likely would have told him to leave Mary, or not risk Egypt. We see no evidence that he consulted anyone, but He believed his dream was from God and moved in obedience. In this case, it very well could be the witness of the Old Testament Scriptures themselves that made it clear that God was calling him to something extraordinary, and that was all he needed to know.

But What If God Doesn’t Speak to You in These Ways?

Here is a question I ask, and maybe you do too: why does God seem to speak through dreams to some people and not others? Is it a spiritual gift? A season? A temperament?

Acts 2:17 quotes the prophet Joel: “Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.” This is a promise about the breadth of the Spirit’s work, that God will speak to all kinds of people in all kinds of ways. Not everyone will experience it the same way, and that’s not a deficiency. It may simply be that God speaks to you through what is most natural to you. Otherwise stated, He may speak to you in a way that you would be receptive. For instance, some people hear God most clearly in music. Others out in nature in His creation. Others in the faces of the people they are serving, or in the words of a friend who says exactly the right thing. The Spirit is not limited to one channel. Dreams are one frequency, and can be a powerful one, but not the only one. Or, God may not have spoken to you or me in a dream or vision, yet.

But perhaps there is also something worth noticing about the dreamers themselves. They received these encounters not because they were particularly special or spiritual. Joseph was a boy, thrown in a pit by his brothers. The Magi were outsiders. Mary’s Joseph was so quiet that we don’t even have a recorded word from him. What they shared was a posture of obedience. To our knowledge, they did not over-contemplate the dream. They moved. And that is worth noting.

The Gift of Surrender: Why Sleep Can Be Holy Ground

I do believe that there is something significant about the fact that God so often spoke through dreams in Scripture. When we sleep, we are not striving. We are simply, helplessly, beautifully at rest, and fully out of control.

And that is precisely when God gets a word in with some of His children. My dear friend reminded me of this in a recent conversation. God speaks to her in dreams, and she has shared some remarkable stories of His work in her life through dreams. I wanted to pick her brain to better understand if I was missing something by not paying attention to my dreams (at least the parts I can remember…). She pointed out to me that perhaps God speaks to her in dreams because in sleep, He can capture her attention; she has finally stopped talking long enough to listen. She reassured and reinforced the fact that God will use different channels to reach each of us when we’re receptive. And I do know He uses other ways to speak to me. And regardless, I am to pay attention, use discernment, and be obedient.  

Psalm 127:2 says that “he grants sleep to those he loves.” Sleep is not just a biological necessity. It is an act of trust for each of us, and a daily practice of laying down our striving and our anxiety and saying, in effect, “I give this time of slumber to You, Lord, as I lay my head onto my pillow.”
So even if you never receive a dream from God in the way Joseph or Daniel did, the act of sleeping faithfully and resting in God’s sovereignty (rather than grinding through the night with worry) is itself a spiritual practice. It is its own kind of obedience and surrender.

So, What Are We Listening For?

Whether God speaks to us in the dark or in the light, in REM sleep or in rush-hour traffic, the invitation is the same: we stay attentive. Keep a posture of obedience. Test what we receive against Scripture and community. And hold it all with open hands, because He is still speaking. In visions, in nudges, in the still small voice, and yes, for some of us, in dreams. So let’s not sleep through it!

Lord, thank You for Your endless pursuit of us and for the many ways You connect with us. Thank You for Your patience and grace. Forgive me when I stumble, and please don’t let me sleep through Your voice. Please give me ears to hear, wisdom to discern, and a posture to consistently follow You in obedience. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.