“The Dreams Guy” - John E Thomas AlongTheWay 106

God speaks through dreams but  they aren’t as cryptic as you might think.“The Dreams Guy” John E Thomas explains how you can understand the hidden meaning behind the nighttime visions and how he learned how to help others understand the deeper meanings.

Dream Interpretation Steps

1. Write down your dream - Summarize the dream in as few words as possible

2. What would be the Title of your dream?

3. Why did God give this dream to that dreamer

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Transcript

John E Thomas: 0:00

People would come up to me and say, hey, you know, I had this dream. Do you know anything about dreams? When somebody visited the church where we were serving out and I was on the ministry team, and I'm upfront to pray for people and this guy comes up and, you know, hey, you know, I came to this church because I had a dream. And I felt like God said, I was supposed to come to this church to find out what it means. Do you know anything about dreams?

John Matarazzo: 0:23

Welcome to along the way. I'm John Matarazzo, your host and fellow traveler, thank you for joining me along my way as I try to become more like Jesus every day. The goal of along the way is to identify the moments in life that Jesus really is walking with us and trying to get our attention. But just like the disciples along the way to obey us, we are missing those moments that our hearts are burning within us. I want us to be able to identify these moments, learn from others and apply those lessons to our lives so that we don't miss the blessings that God has for us in our along the way journey. Dreams fascinate me, they are like a puzzle, movie mystery, and often a wild ride all rolled into one. But God wants to speak to us in the nighttime through these nocturnal parables, while our unconscious minds are recovering from the previous day. Dreams are often considered as just unconscious entertainment. But there is so much more to them. In this episode of along the way, John E. Thomas, host of the dreams guy, podcast and author of the book, Dream elements, joins me to talk about his journey into the ministry of dream interpretation. I'll get to our conversation in just a moment. But I want to thank you for listening to along the way. All of my episodes and social links are available on my website along the way, dot media, all the links from this episode will be in the show notes. And now here's my along the way conversation with John E. Thomas, the dreams guy. Well, I am here with John E. Thomas of streams ministry International. And a couple of weeks ago, he and I had the opportunity to talk about his podcast, which is phenomenal. It's he's he's known as the dreams guy. And we're gonna be talking all about dreams and dream interpretation and how important it is that God is speaking to us through dreams, when we are asleep, and just how God uses imagery and different pictures in our, in our minds. And, John, there's a lot of things that I want to learn from you in this podcast that we're going to record. But I just want everybody to know that his book, Dream elements is available. Now. It's an alternative dream dictionary. And we're going to go into what some of those things are. But I want to encourage everybody that's listening, that by the end of tonight, and normally, I would tell people that by the end of the day, I want you to do this. But really, I want you to because we're talking about dreams. I want people to be able to go to sleep tonight, have dreams, and wake up in the morning and be able to take the first step in interpreting that. And so that's what we're going to cover today. Am I right, John, we can cover all those things.

John E Thomas: 3:11

Yeah, I think snow I think so good, good. Good can at least touch on them? Good. It's a deep subject. We could talk about it for a long time. But we can get there. Yeah. So

John Matarazzo: 3:19

I want everybody to make sure that you are taking notes, you're writing down things that you're learning, and have a notebook ready to go by your bed stand tonight so that whenever you wake up in the morning, you can write down what God has been speaking to you through these dreams and visions. And so John is great to have you on along the way. Thanks so much for being here. And I'm looking forward to hearing how God has led you to where you are today. You're you've taken over the ministry that was that that was started by John Paul Jackson, I can't wait to hear that story. So tell us how God has led you to where you are today.

John E Thomas: 3:59

You know, every time somebody asked that question, I tried to figure out how far back there really, because it's always this journey of how God leads us. But I grew up in a and house a lot of people would call a haunted house. It was not a Christian. Okay, that ground and there were things that would move around and stuff that would happen and I had spiritual experiences that were very demonic and very dark, and didn't have any hope. But when I found the Lord, all of a sudden those things got reframed, and I started to realize what was happening and pursue understanding. So I've had a hunger for supernatural activity my whole life. And when I came into the kingdom, it was through this. I had a thought while I was driving down the road that the world was going to end and I'd better figure out what side I was on. And I knew that I needed to get a Bible to figure out what truth was. And so I started reading the Bible Yunkai because I was a drug addict at the time, wherever I was at I read the Bible every single night, asking for the truth. And one day I woke up and everything was different, completely delivered to drugs, I was aware of the presence of God. And so I go to this church to learn and grow. They're very open to the supernatural, and would teach about the spiritual gifts. And I began to learn the the way that the spiritual world operated and realize what had happened. So this kind of started this journey. And actually, it's how I met John Paul, because John Paul Jackson had an open invitation to come to this church whenever he was in the area. And he came and ministered. And I'm like, wow, that that was astounding. I need to figure out how to hear from God like that.

John Matarazzo: 5:46

Wow. So you've always had this desire to hear from God and understand what he's saying. But I don't want to skip over something you said very quickly. You grew up in a haunted house? How long? Were you there? Like what are you said some things were moving around? What? What is going on? And why did you stay there as long as you did?

John E Thomas: 6:06

So, well, we grew up, I grew up as Jehovah's Witness, okay, and they don't believe in supernatural activity. So the stuff that would happen, I do not know why we stayed it was we would hear people's voices. I remember when I was a teenager, I was in an upstairs room, we'd had a fire me and my brother did drywall. So we were fixing the walls after work, because it was not what we're getting paid for. Because it's our house. And you know, a car drove up to the upstairs window, lights flashing, and we hear a voice a John come out and play and look out the window, no car, no light, and that kind of thing would happen. Things would be in one place, and it would move to another place. You know, one time and a record started playing on its own with nobody in the room. That kind of thing. And then I would have nightmares and haunt, you know, terrors. And how old were you at this point? Well, from the time as young as I can remember, I had night terrors and was aware of this stuff that happening that the car driving up, I was 17 at the time when that happened. I mean, it was it was intense atmosphere. And you know, some kids talk about, you know, the the monster in the closet or under the bed. I did have one. Wow, there was a demon that was tormenting me for for most of my life. And when I found the Lord and I got some deliverance, and got some freedom and learn how to fight, it changed my life.

John Matarazzo: 7:44

How did that change your life? I mean, obviously it did. But like, what were some of the things that happened that you that you realize that this really this Jesus thing? I didn't understand him before. But now, this new revelation of who he is, has changed everything in my life.

John E Thomas: 8:01

Well, one thing I mean, being free of drugs, I mean, I went from one day getting high, and that was just normal to the next day, I had no desire to do drugs. I never had DTS, and it was not a little addiction. I mean, because of the torment I hid myself in drugs inside did crack cocaine, heroin, crystal meth, I did anything I get my hands on. And then that's just gone. And I'm aware of the presence of God and I feel loved for the first time I could ever remember feeling loved by God. And I mean, just ever being loved, curious, but I felt loved by God. And so that was so unique and so astounding, that I, you know, I remember because I growing up, yeah, as I said, as a Jehovah's Witness, I didn't believe in heaven. I just thought, you know, we, you know, some people that were good enough, they, they, they, when they resurrected, they got to live on the earth, but the rest of us just were gone. You know, as I read the Scripture, I learned differently. Yeah, but I can remember telling God, like, I don't even care if I ever go to heaven, like this is so amazing, being loved and being free. And just knowing that he was there. I was happy with that. Now. Grown in my understanding. Thankful for. Yeah, but I mean that that was genuine. It was such a difference from what I was used to that it's like, wow, this is amazing.

John Matarazzo: 9:30

Yeah, it really is. I mean, God does want to connect with us. And he is I love that he is a relational God. He's not like the the Greek gods where they're far off, and they're doing their own crazy things and having their own crazy adventures. God wants to have adventures with us and He wants us to partner with him. And you've committed your life to doing that. And God has brought you to a place where you're now helping other people reach their vision for their life there. goals for their life that God has really given them. But sometimes we're just not connected to understanding how to walk those out. And so you said that John Paul Jackson was speaking at this church and that he always had an he always had an open invitation a time to speak there. And so you started going there. But you know, how often do you actually get to know the guest speaker, the guy that you actually want to? How did that connection come about?

John E Thomas: 10:27

So he had come in, I think it was the second time that I'd seen him says about every, you know, eight to eight to 10 months, maybe once a year that he would come. And the second time he was there, he ends up prophesying over people and says, you know, I'm going to be doing this class on the art of hearing God I'm and teach you guys how to hear from God. And the things that I've learned. And I thought, you know, I need to go take that class. So I went to the class, and I didn't interact with them any more than anybody, um, there's, you know, over 100 people at this class. So, you know, he saw my face, I think I can't even remember if I even asked a question. But over over a couple years, like that class literally changed my life. And I started to, you know, understand that God spoke through dreams and visions, and I started to see stuff that had been in Scripture, but I just hadn't seen it. And it came alive in a new way. And I got to this point where I was just kind of dissatisfied, I was just doing normal Christian life. I was a banker at the time, and I was doing very well, making a lot of money and things were going in the right direction I was serving at the church. And outwardly it looked like things were going well. But I was starting to fall asleep, my spirit was starting to fall asleep. And I started getting hungry for God. And something shifted in I knew I needed to be around where kingdom stuff was happening. I listened to a lot of John Weber's teachings and started the vineyard movement. And this phrase that he said just was stuck in my heart. The things of the kingdom are more caught than taught. And so I'm out walking with my wife one night, and we're talking about our hunger, like, we need to grow, we need to learn there's there's got to be more. And she makes us you know, this question as well, who's the most like Jesus that you want to be like? And I'm like, Well, you know, whimpers already passed away, I jump all Jackson. She's like, Well, where does he live? Let's, let's move there. And at the time, he was up in New Hampshire. So where were you? We were in Arizona at the time? So that's

John Matarazzo: 12:35

a big difference.

John E Thomas: 12:36

I mean, that's a huge dip. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And we, so we had not actually personally met him, like, we'd not had a conversation with him. So all we met him at a conference, you know, and, you know, been there with other people. And we decided that, you know, through a number of different things, God made it very clear that we were supposed to move. So we sold our house, I quit my job, packed everything up in a U haul, and drove up to New Hampshire, we sent an email up there to the offices and got a reply, basically said, you know, make sure that it's God. And, you know, spiritual warfare can be intense. So make sure you're out of debt before you come. And that that was easy, because I was a financial advisor. So we That's great advice. It was really good. If you're gonna go where there's warfare, make sure you're out of debt, you don't want pressure. It just makes everything easier. So we moved up there not knowing anybody, and just started to surf wherever needed to happen. They, they knew they had meetings on at the offices, we would show up and set up tables and chairs. And when they had Sunday service, they met at a gymnasium. So we showed up and helped to move stuff in and set up the sound system and put up chairs and just do whatever needed to happen. And there was an opportunity to serve, we were there. And they started to recognize, Wow, these guys are really helping out, you know, why don't we ask him to do this as well. And so they asked my wife to come on staff to help with customer service. And a couple months later, the, the invitation was this, you know, jump, you know, one of the one of the leaders came to me and said, You know, John Paul has noticed that you ask really good questions. And we think that you, you would be able to help us with our partners, would you be willing to be the partners pastor? And so I came on staff at that time, and that's where we, you know, we had interacted with John Paul, at that time, a few different times being a part of the church. That's where we really started to be mentored and grow.

John Matarazzo: 14:38

Wow. So tell me about the about John Paul Jackson, who he is for people that don't know I mean, I am kind of familiar, but I don't really know his story about his ministry because you what, what was it that drew you to him and what was he already doing? You said, that's what I want to be like, What were those things that really stuck out to you?

John E Thomas: 14:58

Yeah, so In literally listening to his teachings is really what we had to draw that in it was the the emphasis on character. And actually knowing God as, as a person that is real and is active, not as a thought or a concept or philosophy. And, you know, we run into, you know, different people. I mean, obviously, growing up, I mean, I grew up as Jovis witness, I had a philosophy, philosophical god, yeah, philosophical is a better way to say, philosophical God, right? I had a philosophy about God, but I didn't know God, yeah, I have thoughts about him. But there was no real interaction or real relationship. And here's this guy that actually talks with him that actually has this, you know, this relationship. And he wasn't the only one. But he was teaching others how to do it. And he was emphasizing, you've got to be like Christ characters more important than gifting. You've got to grow, you've got to know scripture, don't just go off of your experiences, keep it founded on scripture, and, and there was an emphasis on the church. And it's so all of these values that we had been discipled into. He was not only communicating, but living and teaching, and we're like, this is what we need to learn. And then he has these crazy supernatural experiences that that were astounding, you know, miracles that would happen and visions that he would see in dreams that he had. And it just made sense with the God that we saw in Scripture.

John Matarazzo: 16:38

Yeah. So you just want to serve and just be around it. Then God opened up the door for your wife then got up and up the door for you to become the partners, Pastor. How, how long were you doing that before God brought you to the next place?

John E Thomas: 16:55

So I ended up being partners pastor for around a year. And John Paul invited me into his office one day and said, you know, the Lord showed me that you have a calling to plant churches, and I'm supposed to sew into whatever I can to get you ready for that? Would you mind starting to travel with me wherever I go, I can't pay for your plane tickets. But if you play for your pain, if you pay for your plane tickets, you can come but anywhere that I drive, you can ride along and ask me any question that you want and just kind of be my shadow. And so I started doing that for about nine months. I felt like I just won the lottery. Yeah.

John Matarazzo: 17:36

Very long about that.

John E Thomas: 17:37

Yeah. Well, I actually I did, I did well, I went home and I asked my wife before I was like, Alright, so this is the opportunity. She goes, Are you crazy? Yes. So we, you know, we made that decision. And we started traveling, and we were part of this church that he was pastoring at the time was two hours away in Boston. So we traveled down there every weekend that he wasn't flying somewhere. And we became a part of the church. And after nine months, he asked if we would take over that church because he was moving back down to Dallas where he'd been from, so that he could start a TV ministry, which ended up being the dreams of mystery show that he did.

John Matarazzo: 18:18

Dreams and Mysteries show. Well, that I think that's a good little stepping stone to kind of get to where we want to end up because we talking about dreams is really important. So many times, I think in our modern day, we just kind of gloss over dreams, you don't really pay attention to it unless it kind of startles you. Sometimes I have dreams that I do remember details. But most of the time I wake up and I'm like, I just feel like there was a there's something happened. There's like flashes of something, but I don't remember those things. I'd like to get better at that. And I know that that every time that I'm more focused about that. And I'm like either reading a book about dream interpretation, or God's dream for your life, things, things like that. Those dreams start to become a little bit more vivid for me. How did you get then connected with interpreting dreams and helping people understand that? Just let's break this down a little bit?

John E Thomas: 19:15

Yeah, so that was it was actually earlier in the story. It was kind of it was really a sight issue to me, because it was really about relationship with God and dreams are just one of the ways that that happened, right? But at that first seminar, the art of hearing God when I went to it, he had this tape set at the time, which it's, you know, we now have it at CDs and mp3 is the essentials of dreams and visions, which was six messages about dream interpretation. And he mentioned that dreams are from God. They're in Scripture and did a little teaching on it, but not much but I got that tape set and they were cassette tapes back then. I almost wore those things out because I listened to them again and again. And all of a sudden I would have people randomly come up to me I didn't Tell him I was interpreting dreams tell him I was learning anything. But people would come up to me and say, hey, you know, I had this dream. Do you know anything about dreams when somebody visited the church where we were serving out, and I was on the ministry team, and I'm upfront to pray for people, and this guy comes up. And, you know, hey, you know, I came to this church because I had a dream. And I felt like God said, I was supposed to come to this church to find out what it means. Do you know anything about dreams, I just kept on ending up in those situations. And I would have an idea when somebody would share a dream, I just have this sense, kind of like a prophetic word, it would just bubble up inside of me, and I'd share with them and they would be blessed by it. And then I started learning more and more and started studying and taking some of the courses. And when we got on staff up in New Hampshire, and we were there every day, a number of the staff at that time, we would get together during lunchtime. And over our lunch, we would talk about our dreams and interpret dreams for one another. And, you know, it's kind of like a mentoring time that happened. And I learned so much from from that time period, and I just started pressing in and looking for the opportunity. And since then, I've, I've been through well over 10,000 dreams, I haven't kept count. So I don't know exactly how many but 10,000, I feel is actually conservative number, the number of dreams that I've interpreted over the last 1520 years.

John Matarazzo: 21:25

Yeah, and I know people post on your social media, and they'll send messages. They're just like, helped me understand this. What's what's what's going on in this dream. It's It startled me. You know, I think I was trying to say something, but I don't understand it. God wants us to understand what he's saying. Yeah, he really, really does. And, you know, as I'm just talking with you, I'm thinking about all the times in the Bible that dreams are talked about, you know, it's a law throughout the Bible. I mean, of course, we've got, you know, Joseph interpreting Pharaoh's dreams. We've got what King Nebuchadnezzar had dreams. And I think Daniel interpreted that. You have Joseph, the Father, the stepfather of Jesus having a dream or having a couple of dreams. And one of them said, Go to go to Egypt after you know to protect Baby Jesus and Mary and or was that an angel? I forget. But like all throughout scripture, God uses dreams to speak to people, but they often do need to interpret it. Yeah. So how did you start interpreting dreams? Because I mean, one of my favorite movies is the Christmas Carol. Okay. You know, I like the Muppet version, because it's I like the songs. It's a lot of fun. But, you know, there's, there's a line in there where Ebenezer Scrooge is like talking to himself. And he said, what I just saw isn't real. That was maybe just a bad dream, a crumb of cheese, a blob of mustard. You know, well sometimes blame the dreams that we'd have off of blame pizza for the dreams or something like that. Yeah. So where do we balance the pizza dreams with the gods dreams?

John E Thomas: 23:08

Well, they're both, which is the thing that they're their dreams. I mean, Jeremiah talks about the the prophets who cause themselves to dream. So their dreams because we are thinking about something too much, or we we've decided to, we really need this, we really want this. But it's also clear that God speaks through dreams. I mean, numbers 12 Verse six, he is talking to Aaron and Miriam about Moses, and he goes, you know, hey, if there's a prophet among you, I'm going to speak to him in a dream, I'm going to reveal Myself to him in a vision but that's not how I talk with Moses like him, we're face to face. So his normal means of communication with prophetic people his dreams and visions, according to his own words. So there's there's this both then and learning the difference. And the probably the best way of doing it because it really comes to practice. The the best way of understanding is is something that I learned when I was when I was working at the bank. So when I started working at the bank, I started out as a teller, and they were teaching me how to recognize counterfeit bills before they let you handle any money they teach you about that. But in that training, they never want showed me the common mistakes that counterfeit are made. They showed all the different things that were built into a real bill so that you could recognize the reel. And at the time, I mean, they've changed a little bit from there, but there's like threads that are built into the fabric because they're actually made out of cloth, not paper. And there's different colored threads and you can pull them out and you can actually scratch them and they'll they'll come loose, there's a little there was a little band that was in there that would have the denomination. If you held it up to the light that you could see it there were watermarks, you could see it the light what face goes with what number How do you know a good serial number? That it's actually a real bill? What what meant was it based off of what MIT has, what serial numbers like all these details, I mean, there was like 1415, very specific things. And I learned everything that there was about a real bill. Well, I'm working there for like four or five months. And I'm counting through a stack of $110 bills that somebody had turned in for a deposit. And, and, you know, as a teller, I mean, you learn how to count very quickly, and I'm counting through them. And I literally had to stop and go backwards, two or three bills, because it had gone past that quickly. But something was not right. And I found a counterfeit bill in the middle of that, because I was so used to the real that I recognize what wasn't real. And the way really to recognize dreams from God, the more you spend time in his presence, the more you time you spend time with him, it just becomes easier and easier to recognize, you know, that felt like Jesus, that felt like the God that I spend time with. And is there's a there's a familiarity that comes with that. And there's this since when a dream is not from him, it's like, it just doesn't have the same life to it, it doesn't have the same spirit to it. That's just there's something off about that. And paying attention to that and being willing to pay attention to because I find most people, they recognize it, but they doubt themselves so much they doubt their relationship with God. And so they actually question The discernment that God's giving them. That's,

John Matarazzo: 26:40

wow, we do question The discernment that God's given us. And, you know, that's something we need to cultivate. We need to you know, work on developing that discernment. But we do question it too much, sometimes, too, because we write things off that where God is trying to communicate with us. But thank God, he is so faithful that he's going to give us multiple times to get it. Yeah, he's not going to give up on us. So if you have a reoccurring dream, it's probably because God really wants to get something across to you. And I almost said, we need to wake up to it. But we need to just pay attention to it. Yeah, go to sleep to it. Yeah. So can you tell me about some of the dreams that you've had? Or that you've been able to interpret? And some of those things that have that have come as a result of that that have been pretty dramatic?

John E Thomas: 27:26

Yeah, well, I'm going to share one that that my wife had, because it was just one of those dreams that really marked a season of our life, when we were trying to figure out about this whole move up to New Hampshire, she has this dream. And in the dream she's walking into the church that we attended, it was it was a larger church. And she she turns to go down to one of the hallways to where the the bathrooms are. And she notices that in one of the adult education rooms, John Paul was actually standing there at that church and the door. And she's thinking, Oh, that's interesting, John Paul's here to do a class on dream interpretation. I didn't know he was going to be here. But he's busy talking to somebody, I'm not going to bother him now. And so she goes on into the bathroom, and she walks into the bathroom, he walks in behind her, and says, Hey, you know, I've heard that you and John are going to be moving up to New Hampshire to join us and what we're doing for the kingdom, hey, I have something for you. And he had pre printed name tags, and he pulls off the name tag it had her name on it, and hands it to her, and then pulls off the name tag that had my name on it and hands it to her. Because Oh, and you guys are gonna need something, go over there. And he points to a corner where there's, there was a fika tree in the bathroom. And when she goes over there, this gift starts appearing through the wall. And so she grabs the gift and he goes, Oh, go over there. And so she has to go to another place and another gift starts coming. And then he goes there's too much activity we're going to need some help. So he gets on the phone. And and in a few minutes some people that she recognized that were on staff at streams at the time, they started coming in and there's all these gifts that are coming in they're they're they're being received into the room and then sent back out through different parts of the room by everybody. And it was just wonderful. And people just began to worship and praise God because it was amazing what he was doing. Which was so cool because when we moved up there she she got invited us as a pre printed pre printed name tag, like we didn't have to write our names down we didn't apply for a job they just said hey, you know we're you know, would you come and help us and then mine came second is exactly what happened. And then that season where there was so much spiritual activity we learned so much and grew so much in a short period of time. It literally still to this day, I think of it and I'm like wow, that was amazing what God was doing. Through that season that dream just it mark that season. It was such a clear prophetic word of what was going to happen. It was it was beautiful. Wow, that's really beautiful. That is really

John Matarazzo: 30:02

cool. So it really was kind of a roadmap for what God was going to do. And as those things were happening, it was kind of confirmed with with that. Because you'd already she'd already seen it in a dream. Yep. Now I know this isn't necessarily a dream, but deja vu. Yes. My experience with deja vu has normally happened when I've been on in the mission field, or there's been, like, there's been times where it's happened at work. We're just something it just seems like something lines up for a brief moment. And I just have this like, flash of like, I've been here before. This happened in a dream. And I normally take it as this is where God wants me to be. And I'm right where he wants me to be. Is that Is that a good understanding of that? What's your what's your thought about Deja Vu and how God uses something's like that?

John E Thomas: 30:57

Yeah, that's exactly my understanding in job 33. What the one guy that was giving job advice that God did not rebuke, he makes this comment about dreams. This is you know, God may speak in one way or in another in a dream. While man slumbers on his bed, he seals their instruction. And so there's this, this understanding one that God speaks, and God communicates. But we don't always recognize it. And sometimes God will seal that instruction. And so God will speak to our spirit man, but our mind does not always recognize what it is that he said. Deja Vu is when our spirit knows something, but our mind doesn't know something. So it feels familiar to us. But our mind is still trying to argue saying, but it's not familiar. And so that that kind of that disconnect between those two going on is that feeling of, oh, this is weird, like I've been here, but I haven't been here. And it can happen because it was a dream that God's sealed. Sometimes he just gives us something in meditation or in our prayer time. And we don't even realize what what he's done inside of us. And we come into that moment. But what you described is exactly how you respond like there's something going on here, I need to really pay attention to because God has prepared me for this moment. So I want to make sure that I do exactly what I should do in this moment to see the kingdom come,

John Matarazzo: 32:25

it definitely feels like it's a holy moment at that time. And you kind of want to stay there as long as possible. But normally, it just happens very quickly. And you just got to keep moving. The two that pops in my mind right now is when I was on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, in 2003. When I was there on a mission trip with my discipleship training school when I was in YWAM. I had never been there before. So I knew that for a fact. But it had felt like I had seen this before. Like I had, I was looking around, I felt like I had seen this before. And then you know, you're on your computer so much. You know, this was years, years later, actually, just recently than the last 910 months, something like that. I'm sitting at my computer at my desk at my old job. And I have that moment and I'm praying and thinking about it and something happens something like lines up on the screen the way that it was in the dream, I guess or the deja vu moment it just kind of fit and I'm like, Okay, God, you have my attention. You have my attention. What's what's next. And so I know like those are different than dreams, but it's still God speaking in the same in a similar way. I I've had books that our dream interpretation, dictionaries and things like that. What are some of the key tactics or key principles that we need to be keeping in mind as we are trying to understand our dreams?

John E Thomas: 33:52

You know, the biggest one is one that Joseph communicated when he was talking to the the baker, the cup bearer, and then also to Pharaoh. He said, Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dream. So there's this back and forth it only God can answer and unravel a dream that God has given. He's the only one that knows the answer. So you can have all the dream dictionaries in the world. But without him breathing on that interpretation. You end up with what we call a Frankenstein interpretation. It's got all the right pieces sewed into all the right places, but it doesn't have the breath of life on it. And without that breath of life, it doesn't have that impact. But when the Spirit breathes on, all the sudden there's life there and something real that can happen. And so keep the reliance on God keep the reliance on God speaking and trust in that relationship with Him. Because that's the key. That's the foundation for everything. Once you have that, then you can Take what other people have learned and what you've learned from other dreams. And you bring it before the Lord, but you're asking, so God a lot of times, you know, cars could represent ministry does it mean ministry in this in this dream? No, actually in this dream is talking about your your job. Oh, okay. So you're you're holding it loosely and letting Him teach you. And there there's a logic to to the metaphor that God uses. But it's usually not so clear, as we contend to think because we like to put things in little boxes, and we like to get them really clarified. And you know, one of my favorite statements, you don't put God in a box, the last time he was in a box, he killed anybody who touched it. We tried it, we tried to define things too much. And we got to hold things loosely. I mean, you take a look at how Jesus himself use the metaphor of seed in different parables. You look through Scripture. And so Jesus and Paul, you look through scripture, one time, seed is a message about the kingdom. One time seed is people that are coming into the kingdom, one time seed is faith. One time seed is giving. They're different in different situations. But here, there's a common theme. It's something that's small, that has potential when put in the right environment reaches its potential. Wow. Now that so now you've got the piece that you can understand, and then just trying to figure out so what does that mean for this dream? So holding it loosely. And then with that, trying to realize how God uses dreams, he does not often give dreams and like the example I gave earlier, this dream is so clearly, we didn't understand that that's what was going to happen. We look back on it, we're like, that's exactly what that dream was, look how detailed it was. Most often God gives us communications about what's going to happen not so that we understand what's going to happen. But so that after it happens, we can look back and say, Wow, God, you knew you were in charge. Because if we know it all ahead of time, we don't need faith. And we were not trusting in Him. But He is actually developing trust that he can guide us and he's taking us where he wants us. And it's not about us understanding. And so if we hold the revelation, but dreams it any revelation from God in the right place, where it's not always about giving us the answers, but about developing relationship and trust, then we'll be able to go in the right direction.

John Matarazzo: 37:57

Wow. So you're saying that dreams are more confirming than determining.

John E Thomas: 38:02

There's there's both in there. But more often, I think, in general, God's revelation is understood more in hindsight than it is beforehand. Most of the time. We don't understand me looking at Scripture. All the prophecies about the Messiah coming they were not understood until Jesus showed up and he didn't even open up the the Old Testament so that people could understand it until he was resurrected. He's on the road to a mass and he he lifts the veil, and all the sudden they see him throughout the Old Testament. They're like, what? Yeah, like our hearts of burning, and it changed everything from that point on. Yeah, that's how God often uses revelation. It's there. And it but it waits until the right moment to be revealed. And it's more that confirmation of faith and trust in Him than it is confirmation and faith and trust in our ability to hear or in our understanding.

John Matarazzo: 38:59

So is that why whenever I have a dream about my future wife that I never see her face?

John E Thomas: 39:06

Probably yes. Because you probably mess it up if you met her face. Probably it's like all of us, would any of us would do is like when it's like and I saw you in a dream. We're gonna get married. She's like, No, you're weird.

John Matarazzo: 39:19

Yeah. So you you brought up the the Emmaus road story. And that's, that's what this podcast is themed about. And I love the fact that they were walking with Jesus but had no clue that it was him. Yeah, until they sit down at the table. Jesus blesses the food breaks the bread, their eyes are opened, and then poof, he's gone. They turn to each other and Luke 2432 and say, weren't our hearts burning within us along the way as he was revealing the Scriptures to us just like you said, and I love also like the second part of that which I often kind of don't even get into this but the They literally just spent hours walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus. But like the next verse or so, it says that they immediately ran back to Jerusalem to tell everybody what just happened. Their lives were changed because of an encounter with Jesus. So John, I want to hear from you. Just like they had that experience with Jesus along the road to Emmaus, but didn't realize that it was him. When you look back at your life, where do you now see Jesus was walking with you, but you didn't recognize it in the moment?

John E Thomas: 40:33

Um, I could go over so many details the last 25 years. And it's, it's it's been astounding. I mean, thinking of, you know, looking back on it afterwards. I mean, so I'm in worship one day, so I grew up Jovis witness, I mentioned that one of the, one of the heresies that Jehovah's Witnesses teach is that Jesus is not God, there's no such thing as a Trinity. And so I, you know, I'd had this life change. And I was, you know, I was hungry, and I was, you know, I went to church, but I didn't believe that Jesus was God. Well, I'm in church one Sunday, and this is, you know, within a couple of weeks. So this is very soon into this experience. I'm in church. And while I'm there, the worship leader says, so I'll start with that. You know, I feel like the the Holy Spirit wants to encounter some people. Just open up your heart to the Lord, whatever that means to you. And so yeah, this picture of you know, forgot to open up my heart, there's something there. So I'm opening up gate after gate after gate. And finally I get to, you know, this where my heart is open. And I see a dove eyes close fly into the room in this in this direction, and it flies right into my heart. And as soon as goes in my heart, I'm no longer there. I'm standing next to this river. I'm walking alongside of river river right here on my, my left side trees on my right side trees on the other side of the river, and I recognize the river and the trees, I knew it from a zekiel from Revelation from Genesis, and the river is getting smaller. So I know I'm going towards the throne of God. And as I'm walking, and just everything was beautiful, I could go into detail but don't need to. And I get to this point where I look up, and I see the throne of God in front of me, and I see a lion, a lamina, dove all on the throne. But there was only one being there wasn't three, there was only one, but I saw a full lion, a full lamb, a full dove. And there's only one and then I'm back in worship, and it's just completely free. Now, in that moment, I'm not seeking I'm not look, I mean, I'm worshiping I'm just going about my day. But everything is I've never had a problem with the Trinity. Since everything was shifted like that moment. Everything just changed from that moment on. It wasn't because I was trying or because I was seeking or because it was just because God decided to show up in the middle of something I'd done that it a number of times, I'd been in worship services, I'd been going to church for a couple months trying to figure things out. And even before I'd had that experience, I'd been to church a few times, just curious. But this time he shows up in that way. Wow. I mean that that was such a life changing thing that I wasn't looking for. But that was Jesus with me. What's fun is looking back even before I knew the Lord, and you know, remembering I just my brother in law passed away a couple months ago. And he was a partier, and him and his wife, my sister, had they given their lives to the Lord a long time, before I did while I was still partying. And I can remember going over to their house and just their kindness, and the difference in their lives. And just, I mean, they were they protected me that there's just different things. I didn't realize that at the time, I'm looking back and I'm realizing like that was Jesus showing up in their lives in their kindness, the way that they served me, the way that they invited me into something. I mean, it was just, it was astounding. I didn't I didn't understand it for almost 20 years. But even after I found the Lord, I didn't realize it until he was passing away. And I started having these memories of how God had used him to change my life that this moment this experience, this conversation, this thing over here where I wanted to go to this party that he was invited to and he wouldn't take me and I'm realizing he was trying to protect me, like all of these things. And there's just so many moments that you could go through from the huge profound to the mundane.

John Matarazzo: 44:56

Right. And as you said earlier, those kind of confirmed You know, like looking back at it, you're able to see that Jesus was right there. And it kind of confirms all those different things, even though they were frustrating at the time in your sin, you know, you didn't want to you don't want to go to this party, somehow, your brother in law wouldn't take you and it's Wow, okay, God was really, God really had his hand in that, you know, John, if you could go back in time yourself, and spend a little bit of time with a younger, much younger version of yourself, and you could give yourself a piece of advice. What would you say to yourself? And what's going on in your life at that point that you would want to speak into your own life?

John E Thomas: 45:38

Wow, that's such a good question. Such a good question. You know, I was so broken and so afraid. I didn't realize how much fear had ruined my life I, that I think the one thing that I would most want to find a way to communicate, and I don't know how I could have been, I would have most wanted to communicate, was that that God hadn't left me. Hmm. I thought, I thought God hated me. And if I would have realized, because it was that revelation of God's love, that everything changed. I mean, I just never had a desire to do drugs, complete personality change. I mean, I mean, it was all of that all combined. But if I could have found a way to communicate that God loved me, I thought that he had rejected me. So I was trying to reject him. I did anything that I could to hurt his feelings, and sometimes consciously, and sometimes unconsciously, but it was, it was a genuine choice, if I didn't just realize that he loved me, and that I didn't have to be afraid, that would have changed everything.

John Matarazzo: 46:57

That God loves you and that you don't have to be afraid. hearing your story, John, of how you grew up in a haunted house. You know, fear seemed to be an everyday part of your life. But you didn't know the love of God at that point in your life. Now. There's people that are listening right now that their scary dreams are a reality to them. They don't understand what God's trying to say to them. And maybe they're having a lot of pizza dreams, that they're just trying to drown out what God's saying, Would you speak to people right now that are at that at a place like you would want yourself to speak to like, how would you talk to somebody and pray for them, lead them an opportunity to get to know Jesus in that relationship way. Just I want to give you some time to minister to that person right there. Because I just feel connected with what God wants to do there and give you that opportunity. And so I just want to encourage everybody that's listening to really grab a hold of what John says here, because these next words can change your life forever.

John E Thomas: 48:05

Now, I want to say powerlessness is a lie. God has not left you. God has not forgotten you. God is not forsaken you he is near you. And even in those places where you feel so alone, and so afraid. He is doing things underneath the surface that you can't understand right now. But one day, you will be so grateful for what he's doing right now. I just I would encourage you to trust that His word is true in the midst of the loudness of that fear. And how loud that that torment and that thing it says that you're alone, that that lie is actually a lie. It really is a lie. You are not alone, he will never leave you He will never forsake you. And if you ask Him to reveal Himself to you, he will just ask him, just ask him to come. And when He comes, it changes everything. And it may be small, and it may be huge, but it changes a little by little. And sometimes it's this whole new scope of life that you jump into but he's there and his heart is for you. He is not against you. He is reaching out so that you can come to believe that you are loved For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son in your in that world. You are part of that he still loved you. You're not separate. He didn't hate the world. He wasn't judging the world. He came for an invitation. And this is your invitation To believe His love is real. His love is true.

John Matarazzo: 50:04

Would you pray for them right now?

John E Thomas: 50:05

Yeah. The Father, I'm asking that you would come. But you just put that little seed of faith in their heart that would cry out God, if You're real, just show me the Lord, would you answer that cry? Would you let your presence just come and begin to rest on on each person listening to this, that, that that love that you've placed, would come into their experience. I pray like, like the apostle Paul prayed for the church that you'd give them power to be able to comprehend how great how wide, how deep, how expansive Your love is love, because they don't have the capacity to contain how astounding Your love is, would you give them pacity to experience that love? And love? Would you break through shame? And would you break through fear and cause your love to change every part of their heart? Lord God bless them. In the name of Jesus Christ,

John Matarazzo: 51:09

amen. Amen. John, thank you so much for just taking that time I just felt in my spirit that somebody they were holding on to what you were saying they were really trying to grasp that. And they just needed to take that next step. And so thank you for, for helping people with that. And helping people understand that God loves them, that God does want to have a relationship with them that God does want to communicate with them. And I don't want to, I don't want to forget that. You know, we're talking about dreams here. And your book, Dream elements is is a really, really a cool book, because you have different topics and different sections in this. And you know, obviously how to use this dictionary, you've got people and body parts if those show up in dreams and buildings and rooms and animals, creatures, objects, implements and other elements, you know, other things that are interesting. But I love that you put in QR codes that people can scan in their phones. And it takes them to videos, at least the ones that I did, they took the videos of you teaching more on this. Why do we need another dream interpretation book? Like what is what did God want to do through this book that is unique?

John E Thomas: 52:23

Well, what I was hoping to do was to give a dream dictionary that's not teaching people what to think about different dream elements. But how to think about dream Eleanor again. So like I was talking about earlier in the idea of a seed, and taking it beyond the application of its faith or its giving or its person but taking it down to the root and beginning from there to be able to talk to God and understand what it means. So we go through instead of just having a line well car means this, we've got a whole chapter on cars, like why would it mean this? And what would be different in this kind of dream in this kind of dream? And how do you know if it's your car, somebody else's car and all of those. So I'm talking through the things that you really need to ask when you're trying to understand it in a dream. So you don't end up with a Frankenstein interpretation, right? But constantly drawing people back to that place of relationship. Alright, so here's some ideas. Now you've got to ask God, what does it mean in your dream? Here's some concepts, but let's bring it back to relationship and being able to hold that tension. And that's really what I was trying to communicate with this book.

John Matarazzo: 53:36

That's great. You know, I love the whole concept that, you know, this element doesn't always mean, this exact same thing. It comes down to how are you? How are you feeling in the dream? How does this what does this mean to you on a normal basis, you know, all these, there's so many different things where you really need to submit your dreams to the Lord. And so, at the beginning of our conversation, I told the listeners that, you know, have a notebook by your bed so that when you wake up in the middle of the night or in the morning, you can quickly write down what you remember from that dream. And I promise you that as you do this more, the dreams will become more memorable. I need to get back into that practice. i At times I was good at that. But I've got kind of slipped from that. I need to get back to that. Because if God's speaking I don't want to miss it. Yeah. And so what are some things so somebody writes down what God was speaking where what happened in the dream? What is the first step that somebody needs to do that they can actually put into practice the next time that they have a dream?

John E Thomas: 54:45

So once you've written it down, and you're trying to figure out what it means one of the best things to do is what title would you give that drain? If you're going to title this, what would be the title that you'd give it because that usually kind of consolidates it? It brings into focus the main point of the dream. Because like a parable, dreams can fall apart if you pick them apart too much. If you get too caught up in the details, you start to miss it. What's the main theme? The main focus, the main thing that's going on, if you are going to communicate this dream in as few words as possible, how would you do that, that that practice and that development? Will it'll really help you to draw down because that the answer that you want to get to with your interpretation is why did God give this dream that this dreamer? Like? What was the main thing he was trying to communicate to me and so a title, summarizing it and as few words as possible? And then you start to pray about the different elements? What does this mean in my life? What does this mean in this particular dream?

John Matarazzo: 55:53

That is some great homework there, John, this is very practical. And I want to make sure that I put information about this in the show notes as well. So those those steps that John just laid out, I'm going to make sure that those are in the show notes, so that you can kind of follow along and put this into practice in your own life. Because as we've been talking about, God does want to communicate with you. That is so important. He is not far off. He is a friend that sticks closer than a brother, and he wants to whisper sweet nothings in your ear. He wants to tell you about the hope and a future and a great plans that he has for your life. And if we're paying attention, we're going to be encouraged by that. Our lives are going to be changed by that as well. And, John, you got a great podcast as well. You're a part of the charisma Podcast Network, which now I work for charisma. And I'm also on both on the podcast network. What can people expect when they tune into the dreams guy?

John E Thomas: 56:49

Yeah, so one of the things that is really trying to do is draw, draw this whole thing of dream interpretation back to Scripture, because there's so much that's out there that's based off of psychology. And I've done enough study of Freud and Jung to be really concerned with the foundational understandings that they base that off of. And so what does the Bible actually teach? So every other episode is going through a dream in Scripture and what we can learn about dream interpretation from the dream in Scripture. Then the other the next one will be somebody that's live somebody that is had a dream recently, and we talked through what the dream means, and then what to do with it, how to apply it into their life. And then we do another dream from scripture, and then another live dream. So we're taking those things, we're learning them, and then you're seeing how they can be put to practice right now.

John Matarazzo: 57:43

That's so cool. John, how can people find you on social media and the Ministry website? How can people get a hold of your book?

John E Thomas: 57:50

Yeah, best way streams, ministries.com, you go to streams, ministries.com. It has links to all of our social media channels. And there's, it's very easy to find the dream elements book, they're on streams, ministries.com, that's the best way to find us. Very

John Matarazzo: 58:06

cool. All that information will be in the show notes as well. So you can just click the link there, and it'll take you right to John's website, and you can get the book and check out the podcast and all the other great stuff that he has. I mean, there's a there's an app even that you have, and you've got a YouTube channel. And there's a lot of really cool stuff. If you want to learn about dreams, and how to understand what God is trying to communicate, you need to get a hold of John's resources and all the things that we've just been talking about. And dreams are important. God puts the desires in our heart. And as you seek first the kingdom of God, all these things will be added unto you know, God gives you dreams, he gives you desires in your heart, he places them in you, he installs them in you. And dreams are a part of that, I think, and God wants to speak to you through that. And it's not just craziness that happens at night time. And your life can be changed because of the dreams that God speaks to you. As we talked about earlier, write down the dreams. What would be the title of your dream? Why did God give this dream to this dreamer? And what was the third point there?

John E Thomas: 59:12

Summarize the dream and as few words as possible, that'll give you the main theme.

John Matarazzo: 59:17

That's so practical. And so whenever you do that, I want to hear what it is that God has been doing. Give us some feedback. We want to hear that you've put this into practice. And your life has changed because of what John and I were talking about today. And so reach out to John reach out to me. And this is exciting. I love talking about dreams. I love talking about the mysteries of God. John, thank you so much for writing this book. Thank you for being a podcaster on our network. And thank you for allowing me to join you along your way.

John E Thomas: 59:49

Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you so much. It's it's really good and appreciate your encouragement, your help.

John Matarazzo: 59:58

I hope that you enjoyed my conversation with The dream is guy, John E. Thomas. I really want to encourage you to take time and purposefully dream with a notepad beside your bed. Take time to write down what you remember as soon as you wake up. The steps that John laid out are, write down your dream and summarize the dream in as few words as possible process and come up with a title for the dream. And ask yourself, why did God give this dream to that dreamer? I would love to hear how God speaks to you through your dreams and how this conversation helped you in your along the way journey. Let me know at John along the way@gmail.com I'll be providing John's info in the show notes. Thank you for listening to along the way. If you've enjoyed joining me along my way, please share this with a friend who you think will be encouraged by this podcast. Also, please rate and review along the way on iTunes. That helps more people discover along the way. And subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening. You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram and through my website along the way dot media. If you want to support me in this podcast, I also have a Patreon page. The link to become a supporter is in my show notes. I hope that you've enjoyed this part of my journey, and may you realize what Jesus is walking with you along your way. Along the way is honored to be part of the charisma Podcast Network. You can find tons of spirit filled content from their vast catalogue of podcasts, including my Monday through Friday news stories for the charisma news podcast. Go to CPN shows.com To see the full list and latest episodes