Wednesday, 14 July 2010
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Dreams: Meaningless or Meaningful?
Do dreams have any meaning? They seem to in the Bible, but it doesn't seem like many people still experience prophetic dreams. My instinct is to write dreams off as meaningless nonsense, but the Bible provides us so many examples of people's lives being changed by dreams.In the Old Testament, Joseph becomes greatly respected in Egypt for his ability to interpret dreams rightly. He correctly predicts years of feast and famine and plans accordingly. Daniel is also able to interpret dreams and unlock their significance for King Nebuchadnezzar. In these examples, dreams can actually predict the future with the right interpretation.
In the New Testament as well, God uses dreams to announce world-changing events. It is in a dream that God instructs Joseph that Mary's child is truly born of God and that he should marry her. In this dream, God uses an angel to send his message clear as day to Joseph, no interpreter needed. Wow! I wish God talked to me like that.
Maybe he does, and I forget about them as I do most dreams. But most of my dreams are random/bizarre or somewhat bad, and so I'm glad to forget them. Dreams have never sent a clear message, at least as far as I can tell.
But lest you think I'm judging the examples of the Bible too harshly, most modern theories about dreams are quite off-base as well.
Freud's theory about sexual metaphors and wish-fulfillment seems even more unlikely. Though some people do report having piles of gold or meeting Nicole Kidman in dreams, most dreams are just too random to support the idea that they reveal the deepest desires and/or urges of our hearts. Although, I did once have a dream about being an award-winning writer. But compared against the number of times I've dreamed about flying, falling, my teeth moving around (but not falling out), arguing with people, finding things, getting lost, badgers playing chess, being a dog, etc, I hardly think that my dreams constitute sub-conscious wish fulfillment.
Another theory is that dreams are a way for your brain to process unsolved problems. It's what we mean when say, "I'll sleep on it." We expect/hope that in the morning we will have a better sense of the issue. Maybe that works for some people. It happens for Agent Mulder in the X-Files, but that's TV. Usually when I try to "sleep on" a problem, the morning is even worse because I realize that rather than come to any coherent realization, I've just procrastinated and the deadline for deciding which college to attend is just that much closer. A pros/cons chart or, heck, flipped a coin would have been more helpful.
In the same vein, I've had scores dreams about finding an object that I have lost. But when I wake up and look for my keys under the dresser (or wherever the object was in the dream), it's never there. My hopes of having psychic dreams are always dashed. (Sometimes I find the water bottle somewhere else later, and sometimes I don't).
The last theory holds the most water, in my opinion, but still comes up short. It's the idea that dreams are our brain processing the experiences of our day. This seems to explain the dreams about meeting FDR in Crate & Barrel (having learned about him that day and visited a Crate & Barrel). At the same time, it doesn't account for the way dreams seem to make your sister look like your best friend, or being in a totally new or non-existent place, or explain why you are absolutely certain that the spoons have a critical secret to tell you if you could just lean your ear in closer...*they're so quiet*. Ahem, dreams are random. Usually they feature occurrences very out of the norm that have little to do with the events of the day. How is flying a processing of the day?
In conclusion, dreams are random nonsense. Or if they do mean something, I don't know what it is.
What do you think dreams mean? Have you ever had a particularly insightful or meaningful experience while asleep? Do you think God still uses dreams to speak to us?
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- From: StephanieP
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Comments (13)
I mentioned a prophetic dream I had in another ongoing thread here. Another I had was that my mom was in a car accident. It seemed so real that I called her that day half expecting to hear bad news. I was relieved when she answered the phone and all was normal. I didn't tell her about the dream but brought up that she should start wearing her seatbelt, something she didn't do. She said she would. The next day her car flipped over in an accident. Her seatbelt held her in, protecting her from possible head injury had she landed upside down on the roof of the flipped over car. Coincidence maybe but I've long stopped believing in coincidence.
An ex-girlfriend was a psychotherapist. She told me I should think of every part and every person in a dream as being an aspect of myself. I tried that for a while but I could never really figure anything out from that. I'm guessing there are different types of dreams, i.e. prophetic, working puzzles of the day out, and introspective to mention three.
I have on occasion awoken with solutions to problems I couldn't solve the day before and at times when I was working as a computer graphics artist and came up against a technical problem, like a piece of artwork being too big to render, I found that if I took a 15 minute break a solution would often spring to mind. Those were never planned. I'd get frustrated and tell a coworker I needed to take a break but didn't do so to come up with a solution. Then eureka! Happened a lot.
Meaningless.
You dream about all types of nonsense, dozens of times a night, then one night you have a dream that your friend breaks his leg, and the next day that friend breaks his arm, and you find meaning in that one...
If you count the misses as well as the hits, you won't find dreams to be very reliably predictable.
@When_We_Were_Both_Cats@xanga - I dreamt I had sex once....and I did have sex once. Coincidence? I don't think so! :P
jk
Since I have deceided to become a missionary I have had prophetic dream. Not about me, though about other people. I'm not sure if I always trust them, but I do tell the person what I saw. God is always speaking to us. Sometimes he uses dreams. Sometimes he uses an elder, someone of great wisdom in our lives. My pastor would say that God never speaks in dreams anymore. I would say that we can't put God in a box to say that I know that God will not do x or y or z. God spoke through dreams in the Bible in the past, why can't he do it now? But whatever personal experiences we may have in the spiritual realm must always be measured against scripture. God will not speak to us something that contradicts the Scripture, His word as already revealed in the Word.
For those interested further in how God speaks thorugh dreams today, I recommend the book: The Heavenly Man: The Remarkable True Story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun by Brother Yun and Paul Hattaway.
I would say dreams are maninginless. I think that more anything they are probably the musings of the prelinguistic and prelogical brain. It's interesting that during the time your dreaming your brain is actually much more awake even though its logic circuits are shut off. While god can definitely speak through dreams to say that dreams are communication from God is to give a moral and religious significance that they are not worthy of.
I'd say- yes, God still gives us prophetic dreams, I've gotten a fair few myself. Luckly nothing has come true....yet.
@TheSutraDude@xanga - Those sound like some amazing dreams. I think that some people may designed a little differently to receive those dreams, like Gardner's 8 intelligences. Some people are more open to certain types of experiences than others.
I like the quote from Elder Packer that he is a great believer in dreams that come true.
If you have a dream that seems meaningful, ask Heavenly Father if it is from Him. If the Spirit impresses you that it is from Him, then ask what the interpretation is and what you should get out of it. Write your impressions down and pay attention to them. If you don't get anything, then don't worry about it. You may not be ready, it may not be the right time, or the dream may mean nothing at all.
I have had several dreams confirmed to me to be of the Lord. They have been enlightening, comforting, directive, or prophetic. Heavenly Father loves all of us and will guide us in many ways if we will prepare ourselves to both receive and follow His will.
I've had a few dreams that predicted future occurences, one in particular that may well have saved my life. So I think God can use dreams if that's the best way to reach us at the time, but He doesn't have to and most dreams don't seem to have much meaning. Oftentimes they CAN give us insight into our own thought processes and how we are handling things in life and occasionally they can inspire us, too.
Mostly, however, my dreams are random, often very violent (odd for me, considering how tame I usually keep my movies, unless all the adventurous books I read at a young age influenced my dreams forever afterwards), and very strange. I think it could just be the brain processing random information and perhaps even just entertaining itself.
I'm sure not all dreams have meaning. I should hope they don't. I dreamt recently that I had a baby and then it turned into a kitten. Another time I dreamt that my husband got some other girl pregnant and we all went shopping for baby clothes together. Speaking of reproduction, lol. Dreamed about it twice lately,as you can see, and that could mean something or it might not. I often dream of things attacking me and having to fight them off. Sometimes I can turn into a panther in my dreams to fight the things that try to kill me. Honestly, I forget my less interesting dreams. I hate the ones where I'm working really hard in my dream then I wake up and have to go to work. lol.
I think that dreams can have psychological uses, occasionally spiritual uses, and are mostly just random. If you think a dream seems important, think about it. Not all dreams should be overanalyzed.
A short time after my father died, I had a dream that me and my sister were at a resturaunt. We both looked at the window to see our father outside. He waved to us and walked away. My sister said, "I guess he ain't coming in." I like to think that was really him saying goodbye. I'm sure others would just say that was my subconscience or something? Who knows?
After my grandpa died, too soon for me, I dreamt we had a nice long goodbye talk. This supports theories of wish fulfillment. Yet another time, I was to meet my then first grade son's new friend and grandparents miles away, off the highway. This playdate site we had previously gone to was remote to say the least. My cell phone reception had been iffy. The treehouse(where the kids were) was many yards away from the house(where I would be). I had a good feeling about it. Then I had a nightmare where the grandparents were evil and purposefully lured us there. I was terrified over the way they wanted to "get" us. I chose not to go there again. Did I really have fears I was unaware of, or was God warning me? Either way, I didn't want to take that chance.
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