Dreaming About Bleeding Eyes: The Bible Gives It No Meaning

Biblical Dream InterpretationSee all 70 articles in this series

Scripture records no dream of bleeding eyes, and gives no meaning to one. No verse mentions it, no prophet interprets it, and anyone offering a reading has made it up.

We should say that clearly, because this is a frightening image and frightened people are easy to sell things to.

It does not. Scripture records many dreams and interprets a handful, and each of those meanings was given directly by God through a named servant, for one person, about one matter.

There is no verse about bleeding eyes at all — not in a dream and not awake. The image belongs to horror films and to certain corners of the internet, not to Scripture.

If we have been told this is a sign of a curse, a spiritual attack or a coming death, that was not Scripture speaking.

A great deal, and all of it tender.

The psalmist asks God to keep a record of his crying, and the image he chooses is almost domestic: Record my misery; list my tears on your scroll — are they not in your record?

A scroll of tears. Counted, listed, filed. Whatever we have wept about alone has apparently been written down by somebody.

And our Lord wept himself. Over Lazarus, in front of everyone. And over a city: As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it. He is on a road, in public, looking at a skyline, and he cries.

Christianity has never asked anyone to stop crying. It has only promised that the crying is not permanent.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

Let us notice how physical that is. Not “there will be no more sadness” as a general statement — a hand, going to a face, wiping.

Which means the tears are still there when he arrives. He does not prevent them. He comes afterwards and deals with them personally, one face at a time.

Images like this usually arrive on top of something: exhaustion, a fever, a frightening film, a season of anxiety, or grief that has not had anywhere to go.

Eyes in a dream are often about seeing — about something we have looked at that we cannot unsee, or something we are afraid of finding out. The dream did not create that. It gave it a picture.

And if the anxiety is persistent, it is worth saying that Scripture never treats seeking help as a failure. A physician is a good thing. So is a friend. God is not in competition with either.

Let us not interpret the dream, and let us not go looking for what it “means” in places that will charge us for an answer.

Let us take the fear to God plainly. If there is grief behind it, let us name the grief. If there is exhaustion, let us admit the exhaustion — it is remarkable how often a frightening night is a tired body speaking.

And let us open the curtains. Daylight is not a spiritual argument, but it is a real one.

May nothing we wept over in the night go unrecorded.

May the images that frightened us lose their grip in the light.

And may we live to see the hand that goes to the face and wipes.

Does the Bible describe anything like bleeding eyes?

No. The nearest scene is Gethsemane, where Luke 22:44 records that Jesus’s sweat “was like drops of blood falling to the ground” — a description of anguish, not of the eyes.

What does Scripture say about tears?

That they are counted. Psalm 56:8 asks God to list them on his scroll, and Revelation 21:4 promises he will wipe every one away.

Should a distressing dream worry me?

Not as an omen. If distressing dreams are frequent or are disturbing sleep, that is worth raising with a doctor — a practical step Scripture nowhere discourages.

• Dreaming About Blood: The Bible Gives It No Meaning
• Dreaming About Frogs: No Fixed Biblical Meaning
• 12 Consoling Prayers for Soothing Grief and Loss

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