Divine Dreams?

The following is something I wrote for my other blog, which I thought I would also post here since I went to the work of putting it together.

To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds.
Daniel 1

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, �Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 1

In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.
Acts 2

One day at about three in the afternoon he had a vision. He distinctly saw an angel of God, who came to him and said, �Cornelius!�
Acts 10

During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, �Come over to Macedonia and help us.�
Acts 16


It seems like God speaks a lot in dreams in the Bible, but there does not seem to be an awful lot of people who are hearing God through dreams today. I don't know why that is.

What I do know is, the few times I have had dreams or visions that I felt were from God, I actually knew they were from God. Sometimes I was awake, but more often than not I was in what scientists call a liminal state (that time where you are not quite asleep but not quite awake either--usually right when you go to bed or wake up.) I can tell you that when I had a vision like this, which I emphasize again was very rare, I just had a sense deep in my heart that it might be God speaking. And there were a few times where that sense was confirmed. At time there was simply a word that beamed through my mind like a neon sign. Other times it was a flash of pictures in rapid succession of a person, and what they said, followed by what I believed was a supernatural insight into their lives. In all these cases I would recommend the following course of action with these visions:

1. If you sense God is speaking to you through a dream, test the dream to see if it
is true. And do so with humility. Just keep the dream to yourself, or talk to a
few mentors or leaders you respect about the dream and how it spoke to you.

2. Test the dream against the fruit of the Spirit. Is this allowing me to be more
self-controlled, more kind, more loving etc.?

3. What action is this dream calling you to? Is this dream consistent with
Scripture?

Any other thoughts or contributions?