Snapshot Dreams: Prophetic Answers & Notices

Have you ever seen brief images in dreams that seemed to be unrelated to any coherent thought? Maybe you’ve had a very short scene unfolding that ends almost as fast as it began but it seems completely random and not connected to anything you can make sense of. I’m willing to bet you’ve probably thrown these out as nonsense or an imagination gone awry. But, have you ever considered that just maybe these have a real meaning?

I’m going to show you here how a few examples of these snapshot dreams have actually been either answers to my own questions or advice on upcoming situations. In some cases, I’ve discovered that these have been an advance notice of something about to happen in a matter of hours or days. I believe after what you see here, you’ll start to see these types of dreams very differently from this point on.

Recently, I heard something about dreams that was actually a new concept for me. One of the teachers I follow was saying how God will answer our questions in dreams. He went on to say that if he just spent time praying about a situation, he would get the answer that night. I’ll admit I really had not considered that possibility. I’ve had plenty of nights go by and the dreams I got were not about anything immediate in my life, but mostly of a futuristic nature.

In the last few months, something new seems to have been happening. I’ve observed a new confirmed trend where several of my dreams have in fact been answers to a situation coming up in the very near future, even some on that same day. Take a look at these examples and you’ll see what I mean.

Sliding Door

In December, 2015, I had a very intriguing real-life situation come up that seemed consistent with a four-year dream series on the topic of investing. I immediately wanted to know if this was the answer I had been watching for in these dreams or if it was a prophetic life parable that gave another piece of the puzzle to fit my ongoing series. For the sake of simplicity in this article, I’ll omit the details but the short version is that it was a job opening that came to me out of the blue. When I read the ad, I wasn’t convinced it fit me but because of the dream series images that were highly relevant to the job opening, I thought maybe I was supposed to at least apply.

Three months after applying with no response, I finally heard back from the company. Much to my relief, I was informed they were considering other applicants. But the funny thing is, only a few hours earlier, I had a very short dream where I was standing in front of a sliding closet door. The door would slide in one direction and then in the other but no matter which direction I slid it, it was like the door never ended. It just kept going and going but the end of the door never came! I was never able to get in to the closet.

A short time later, I realized this dream was a rather strange way of showing a “door that no man can open” (Isaiah 22:22). For sure, there was no way I could open that door! Closets can be symbolic of a “prayer closet” and this was the answer to my prayer about whether that job was for me…thank God for closed doors!

Road Trip

Earlier this month, I was planning a drive to a church conference in a neighboring state. Without looking at the map, I had the thought that the church was about three hours away from where I lived. But several days before the trip, I had a dream where I was driving to a hotel at night but I arrived at the wrong hotel. As I was checking in, I discovered the error and had the impression that I had to go a little farther up the road.

After waking up, I started wondering if this was actually true. I plugged in the destination address into Google maps and discovered the church was actually about 45 minutes farther away than I had thought it was. In this case, the night time scene in the dream meant that my own understanding of the length of the trip was “darkened“. The dream was a true piece of advice for me!

On that same night, I had a another dream that I was driving to an intersection. I saw a line of cars stopped at a red light and the right turn lane was practically empty. I saw myself turning into that lane and making a right turn. The dream meant that my decision to go to this event was a good decision and I was figuratively going in the “right” direction.

Unknown to me at that time, this dream became a very important confirmation of my choice to go to the event. Shortly after I came back, I came under the heaviest spiritual attack of negativity I had experienced in about six months. Intriguingly, the last attack of this nature came as a result of my attendance of another event hosted by this same ministry.

As a side note, it’s a really good idea to watch patterns like this. When we step out in faith and experience an immediate spiritual attack, the correlation between stepping out in faith and a spiritual attack should never be ignored. Especially when the pattern repeats under similar circumstances at a later time. Attacks are always a sign that you are on the enemy’s radar (satan) and you are becoming an increased threat to him. The Apostle Paul told us we are soldiers for Jesus, so coming under attack should be no surprise to any of us!

Email Notifications

Twice I had a dream almost exactly like this. In the first dream, I was just about to wake up when I had a snapshot dream where I saw my phone with an email notification on the lock screen. The image had words that I could not read but I had the impression of the sender’s initials. The strange thing was it showed the initials of the sender in scrambled order. Shortly after waking up, I noticed that I did actually did receive an email from a friend who matched the initials. The topic was something of a personal nature but it was written in such a way that the message came across very confusing to me. This was my advance notice about the email and a signal to understand that the way it was written was not exactly what God intended.

In the second dream, I saw the lock screen again on my phone and I was scrolling all the way down the notifications. At the very bottom, there was something totally out of place. It looked like a pdf document I had been reading a few days earlier on a topic I had been researching. The odd thing about it was that in the lock screen, there would never be a document displayed. The only thing this screen will show is incoming emails, news headlines, weather alerts, text messages or something of that nature. Documents never show up here!

As it turned out, several hours after waking up, I received an email from a friend who I had not heard from in an unusually long time. The topic of the pdf document was related to a situation going on with my friend at the time of writing. This again was a prophetic notice given in this snapshot dream.

What’s the Reason?

At this point, you should be asking why God would give these seemingly not so significant dreams. I mean, these are not life and death matters. Rather, these are more like “very nice to know” dreams. So what’s the reason for these? Well, I think we should stop and ask ourselves a different question in response. Why would God not want to give us little hints, advance notices and answers about lesser matters like this?

Here’s the answer: there’s a bigger picture here. I’ve realized that dreams like this are God’s way of training me in lesser matters like this so when the big issues come, I will already have a good feel for how He speaks to me. These are like mentoring dreams. Believe it or not, God will mentor us and teach us in order to prepare us for His big assignments and plans. If you really think about this, it is an amazing revelation on the character of God and how He views us. I’m not an expert on God’s character, but this sure does reveal that He is willing to teach us just like a father does with his children.

Try This

Next time you are in need of answers or advice, pay attention to all your dreams with a bit more emphasis on the kind I’ve written about here. God likes communicating with us, as I’m finding out more and more lately. Get to know Him and you might be surprised what things He will tell you. Also, note how dreams of this nature end up being a prophetic advance notice of situations coming up in your life.

The more we understand the basic aspects of God’s character toward us, the more we will be inspired to get to know Him and communicate with Him. I can guarantee you will be amazed at what He is saying and how He reveals things to you in ways that far surpass anything you can imagine.

In a follow-up to this article, I’m going to show how recently I’ve been having inner visions while I’m awake that have been serving a similar purpose.

Dream Tips:

Write down all your dreams! You’ll be amazed at what you discover, especially when looking back at them at a later date.
Start paying attention to the questions you have or decisions coming up and see if your dreams are answers from God about the issues you need His wisdom for.
Learn to interpret dreams according to God’s metaphoric speech as we see in the Bible! If you’re stuck, I’ve listed many resources in my articles and on my resources page where you can learn from the same people I have.
If you need help interpreting your dreams, please contact me and I’ll help you out for free!