It's Supernatural

Sid: Now my guest Laura Harris Smith had a quote that we spend a third of our life in bed; a 60 year old has been asleep for 20 years. And Laura I believe that that’s probably the most open we are in a 24 hour period to give God our undivided attention when we’re asleep. Tell me what you think.

Laura: Oh, I definitely agree with that this society is so action packed and you know going and coming and hardly sitting down. I’m not just describing the world and the lost, I’m describing Christians. And so yes, God is always with us; He never leaves us or forsakes us He says in scripture. So He doesn’t just tuck us in and go minister to other people in other time zones. He wants to be with us; I usually put it like this concisely “He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, He is trinity and we’re made in His image.” We are 3 parts as well and it says in scripture is the one who guards Israel He never sleeps or slumbers. We know that He never sleeps or slumbers so obviously we do but what part of us does. It’s our body and our minds that sleep; but our heart, our spirit is awake all night long. That’s why it encouraging when let’s say they have a family member that has gotten off into false doctrine, let’s say “They call themselves an agnostic by day; listen when they’re sleeping their spirit was created by God to communicate with God and He can work on them at night. And so often times Sid I’ll go to bed and I’ll pray the verse from Song of Solomon which says “I sleep but my heart is awake listening for the voice of my Beloved.”

Sid: So as you put it and as scriptures puts it our body goes to sleep but our spirit is awake 24–7, is that what you are saying?

Laura: Hmm, hmm it sure is; I believe it and I know that God would not waste so much time. We spend an equivalent of 122 days sleeping. And I just have a really hard time the God who said “I will never leave you or forsake you” is going to leave you just because you go to sleep. I mean He is much bigger than that. You know He created the moon and the stars and nighttime for a reason; it was not just an afterthought it was a sacred time.

Sid: Now, I have heard of people that pray in tongues all night while they’re sleeping. I’m not sure that I could do that, but what do you think about that?

Laura:   (Laughing) I don’t know how they could do that while sleeping but I will say that you can train your spirit, your spirit man can commune with God. And yes there are times that I have awaken from a dream and perhaps it’s something very startling you know in the middle of the night and I’ll sense an evil spirit that’s trying to come in with fear or something that is trying to threaten me and you bet I sit straight up in bed and I start praying in tongues. (Laughing) to get rid of it because we as God’s children cannot be harassed by the enemy.

Sid: Now do you just believe that your spirit-man communes with God all night or is this something you really can train your spirit-man to do?

Laura:   Well, like I said if we truly believe the Genesis story and you see very quickly the trinity emerging there. God says “Let us make man in our image.” So already He saying this is trinitarian and so there’s 3 parts to me; so there’s going to be 3 parts to them. So sure when you lay down at night it’s proven your body and mind goes to sleep. But your spirit… I guess you can just say that in my entire life and this has been my story. And I did dream before I was baptized in the Holy Spirit but I’m telling you once I got baptized in the Holy Spirit 20 years ago it’s been like all night at the movies most nights. He really… yes, the closer my spirit walked with the Lord and especially more time I spend in prayer and worship, that’s a huge one, my spirit man may not. You know you sit with the Lord; you might feel you like anything significant happens. You don’t maybe hear anything while you’re there; you think do I even just waste my time my prayers just floated off to cyberspace (Laughing). But what you’re doing is your preparing your spirit-man and what I often find is I go to bed and get the answer. I was really blessed to have Cindy Jacobs endorse the book, and you know she on the back of the book she talked about how “You can solve life’s most pressing issues even while you sleep; I love this book.” So we coined the phrase “Solve your problems while you sleep” because God truly does want to communicate with us there.

Sid: So when you go to bed on a practical basis do you ask God questions just before you go to sleep; how do you do that?

Laura: Hmm, hmm. I often do; but you know though I don’t see evidence in the Bible where anybody ever begged God for a dream. So I caution the reader to not seek the dream but seek the dream giver and that’s the difference in Sigmund Feud and myself as well. He talked about dreams and wrote about dreams but he didn’t know the dream giver. So we have to be very careful that we don’t pursue the gift we pursue the giver. But yes, I really do believe that this is something that is available to every believer. And I believe that our spirit can definitely communicate with the Lord at night. But I also want to add that we definitely need to have faith that when we are… you know when we need to be able to hear Him as well. So I’m not going to negate one or the other; I’m saying that we need to be able to hear and see the voice of God.

Sid: Now you have a whole chapter on nutrition, out of curiosity when you started following your own advice what difference did it make in your dreams?

Laura: (Laughing) Well, I started following my own advice I guess before it was my advice. I came through a lot of trial and error with myself many many years ago. Then I was very pleasantly surprised I guess I shouldn’t have been to learn that when I began studying it for the book to get actual scientific studies that had been done on this it was everything that I was taking. I mean the Lord had just led me right to all of this; and so I was really grateful to Him; I did use myself as a guinea pig during the book, writing of the book, to experiment with some different vitamins and something’s that I read about that would alter your dreams you know. Because I’ll just give you one example “People talk about vitamin D and how important it is if you…or that you can take it and it will increase your dreams.” And I’m like whoa, whoa, whoa vitamin D is very important for your health and for many bodily functions but if you take… remember what vitamin D is it’s the sunshine vitamin right. So if you take the sunshine vitamin to close to bedtime it’s going to give you bizarre dreams. I’m not trying to increase peoples nonsensical bizarre dreams I want them to be able to do something with…

Sid: And that’s why you have all of these instructions in your book. Give me the best answer you have to what is God’s purpose for dreams.

Laura:   Hmm, hmm. To communicate with us, to get our attention when nothing else has it finally in our busy day. And I believe Sid that this is why the enemy comes after our sleep. He will do whatever he has to do whether it be insomnia, apneas or injuries or whatever it is, stress, worry. You know so much of our world has a massive sleep debt I call it and they’re on medication and things that really are not even helping. In fact, they are altering their dream and sleep cycles; so we need the miracle of sleep to reenter our lives I say it again it’s a sacred time. That’s why I spend so much time in those two chapters the medical chapters giving you ideas; things you can do to get a better night sleep. They actually let me include a section called “Laura’s ABC’s for Z’s.”

Sid: Tell me two of the things that you advise.

Laura: (Laughing) Well, I think the one for some reason everybody, and I spell them out A, B, C, D, E I’m very practical like that. So the one that has been curious to me people are surprised at is the letter F and it’s forgive. And when you’re lying down at night and you need to perhaps you’re thinking through the day, you’re thinking through and your trying to find a place of peace so that you can sleep every single night you need to ask God “Show me who I’ve not forgiven.” And I’m telling you sometimes it’s the person lying in bed next to you and you don’t need to go to bed on your anger. Or as the scripture says “It gives your enemy a foothold.” So forgiveness is a huge one; but I will also say that it’s important for you to de-stress that’s letter D. And I say to take about 5 minutes before you climb into bed and really just start this wind down routine where you dim the lights you wash your face, whatever it is get your own bedtime routine. And ask God to help you be disciplined to make it a sacred time, don’t just fall into be stressed after eating a whole pizza you know. Really take this time of night serious and yes, ask God to speak to you there.

Sid: Okay, our time has slipped away and there’s so many questions I want to ask you but there’s so many people dealing with insomnia, so many people that don’t understand their dreams. This 1000 symbol dream dictionary did you just copy someone else’s?

Laura:   No I didn’t I in fact would find so much discomfort; I would be grieved in my spirit when I would different dream interpretations even Christian books with dream interpretations in them. And one time I went to a secular website to check out what they thought on certain things and I read that if you dream of biscuits you’re a woman whose not ambitious enough in your career. And I thought “Are you kidding this is… people are making life decisions.”

Sid: I’m going to tell you, you researched the Bible for a thousand symbols with everything that they could possibly dream and as a matter of fact when someone reads your book “Seeing the Voice of God.” And the DVD “Ten of the most frequently asked questions about dreams and visions and the 3 CD set “Twenty Twenty Hearing.”