524 The Spiritual Man
his power of imagination has slumped into passivity. He cannot
control his imaginative powers but has allowed the evil spirits to
manipulate them. The child of God should be aware that whatever
does not emerge from his own mind proceeds from supernatural
enemy forces.
DreamsDreams can be natural or supernatural. Some are inspired by God
while others are generated by the devil. Beyond those which are
produced by man’s physiological and psychological conditions, the
rest are supernatural in origin. If one’s mind has been open to evil
spirits his night dreams become for the most part just another form of
the “pictures” he encounters during the day. The wicked unseen
powers create pictures in the day and dreams in the night. To
determine whether or not his dreams derive from the devil the
believer simply should inquire of himself: is my mind usually
passive? If so, these dreams are untrustworthy. Moreover, dreams
and visions which God inspires enable man to be normal, peaceful,
steady, full of reasoning and consciousness; but what the evil spirits
precipitate are bizarre, rash, fantastic, foolish, and render a person
arrogant, dazed, confused, and irrational.
The reason why satanic powers can impart innumerable strange
dreams to the Christian is because his mental life is passive. To that
one whose mental faculty is already passive none of his dreams
proceed from God or from natural causes but are from wicked spirits.
At night time the brain is not as active as in the day, hence more
passive and more liable to being manipulated by the devil. Such
night dreams cause him to wake up the next morning with a heavy
head and a despondent spirit. His sleep does not replenish his
strength because through his passive mind the evil spirits have
affected adversely the well-being of the whole man. Anyone who
suffers from such night dreams is subject to the nefarious activity of