Lately, I've been having incredibly strange and very vivid dreams. Now, for most people this would be weird, I suppose, as anyone I've ever asked always admits to having bland dreams, if they dream at all.
I admit, I have browsed through books with titles like "The Meaning of Dreams," which list items or circumstances you could dream about and what they really mean. I even have one on my shelf. Whether they are true or not, I have received criticism for reading these books, much less owning them. I have been told that it isn't "Christian" to read these books, and that they are like perusing the horoscope section. I can see where that idea could spring from, and I suppose there are better things I could be reading, but at the same time I wonder why, in the Bible, it says that people have dreams in which God speaks to them. Or they dream about things that tell them where to go or what to do next.
What changed between the times when the Bible was written and now? I would say that it is okay to interpret your dreams if you do it under the direction of the Holy Spirit, but how do you know when it is God and not your own ideas? I have even heard that some people, for example the Muslims, come to Christ through dreams, instead of through missionaries or other more "conventional" ways - these are people who have never heard of Christianity. That, to me, is a pretty powerful indication that dreams are useful for something - that they mean something, at least some of them do.
But how do I know which ones are blazing signs and which ones are nothing but my brain firing off randomly? Or are they all important? Anyone out there have any ideas? Or is there anyone out there at all?
2 comments:
i'm out here! and, when i dream, my dreams are always incredibly vivid (i see colors, titles of books on shelves, details that i don't notice in waking life, hotel room numbers...). and, i do not think you are unchristian for owning books on what dreams mean. actually, i've given a bit of thought to the phenomenon. i think there is something to the idea that dreams are more than electric impulses randomly firing in our brains. the mind and brain are a fascinating meeting ground between the spiritual and the material - it's that interaction that has stumped philosophers and scientists since descartes. clearly, man is more than a machine; there is a ghost haunting that realm (inexplicably to materialists), a self that does not fit in the modern model. another sign that man is more material is the human use of signs - neither entirely material or entirely spiritual. unlike angels (or what we traditionally know to be true of angels), we do not intuit reality. neither do we interact with reality solely in stimulus-response manner like other animates (animals, plants, etc.) in the world. instead, we find ourselves capable of symbolizing our experiences and ideas (even language is symbol). humans qua human must symbolize reality in order to access it. dreams, it think, are part of this. even if it is not wholly conscious, i think dreams are part of our way of understanding life and the world and accessing reality. so, do dreams mean something? i think so. that does not mean, however, that i know how to interpret them... ah joseph! what a gift!
Yay I'm not alone out here! I'm glad you agree, granted you said it much more... prettily than I did.
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