In your dream, the dim surroundings do not represent your own intelligence. They actually represent feelings that you have about “dim” elements that are strong enough to hinder or disable you in your waking life and cloud your judgement, like an addiction or perhaps financial worries.
With the right understanding, dimmed lights are interpreted as an important visual cue on dream analysis. Cloud judgment means ignorance of the person with whom they have a close connection. Lack of clarity in sleep implies being disconnected from the subject at hand and is oftentimes a signal that your own clarity is lowered.
Feeling misled is often because one is actually deceiving oneself and not thinking straight will prove wasting time and lead to setbacks.
The thing that makes dreams difficult to interpret more than anything else is their profound ambiguity so there are as many interpretations of dim lighting in dreams as there are stars in the sky. They serve as poorly heeded warnings or blessings, signs of great success, or causes for sadness or depression seemingly at random.