The Dream Post

So, after many years of talking with individuals about dreams, especially regarding what, if any, messages from God those dreams may bear, I finally got the chance to do some teaching about it this Sunday. I didn't get the chance, however, to share a few important things.

Important thing #1:

First and foremost, I was unable to make one really key point about the importance of perseverance.

The problem with catching that second type of dream is reality and time (the first type of dream being Joseph's type of dreaming, with crazy premonitory visions, the second way being the way that God gives to all who follow Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit: with the onset of strong convictions and desires to see God transform the world). At some point, the difference between the dreams that God gives us and the reality of where we are and what the world is like makes it tempting to give up those dreams. After all, it gets tiring trying to change something that just doesn't want to be changed. Look at how long people have been fighting poverty and homelessness. Look at how long people have been sharing the message of Jesus Christ. Even despite all of that effort, it often feels like nothing has changed.

I'm thinking also of those who dream of a transformation in their own lives, whether freedom from addiction or illness, or the advent of God to move in some amazing way. You wait and pray, and wait and pray, and, the longer it feels like nothing is happening, the more tempted you are to believe that dreams are for fools.

If this is you, let me encourage you to look at Joseph's life. He was thrown into slavery at age 17 by his own family, thirteen years, first as a slave, then as a prisoner. Seven more years passed after that until finally his original dream comes true. Altogether 20 years for this vision that God gives him to finally come to pass. In Joseph's life, faith wasn't just about believing in the first place, it was also about believing in the second, tenth, and hundredth place.

If you are questioning how long you can hold on, let me encourage you: God-given dreams will come to fruition at just the right time.

Important thing #2:

Dreams of the first type (what I've been calling the Joseph-type) are not the most common occurance in the Bible. The Bible does, though, give us two extremely important things to keep in mind when we encounter those out of the ordinary, perhaps Joseph-type dreams. First, in Psalms we see dreams mentioned twice as metaphors for the ephemeral and insignificant (73:20, 90:5 - "You sweep them away; they are like a dream"). In other words, even the ancients knew how little dreams really meant sometimes, that even the worst nightmares run scared at the sight of the sun.

Second, in Jeremiah 23, the prophet calls out those false prophets who tell people that God has spoken to them in their dreams. In those days, it seems, there was quite a living to be made as someone who could deliver an entertaining enough word, disguised as a message from God. A true prophet, God says through Jeremiah, hears the word from the very council of the Lord, and is ready to answer for the word that is given, even with their lives (look at the prophet Micaiah at the end of 1 Kings).

There's a word here for today, even though not many people now claim themselves to be prophets. One of the truly exciting things about following Christ is that anything can happen. When you start to see things out of the ordinary go on, it's amazing and encourages you to take even bigger steps of faith. But we must always resist the temptation to think we can put a leash on God's power and make it do tricks for us. Jeremiah tried to warn the Israelites that prophets weren't supposed to be the main stage act, they were supposed to be the sound equipment that God spoke through. If we think we've got a word from God, we need to be prepared to answer for it humbly.

Important thing #3:

Now, some other interesting things about dreams -

1. There is indeed such a thing as lucid dreaming (that is, the ability to dream "consciously", so to speak, even when you are awake). People able to do this are called "oneironauts", coming from the Greek word oneiro, "to dream."

2. Common Themes

- something related to school

- being chased/attacked

- running slowly in place

- falling

- arriving too late

- someone alive in reality being dead in the dream (and vice versa)

- teeth falling out

- flying

- falling in love

- future significant events (i.e. birthday) with different scenarios playing out.

- suddenly finding yourself naked

- going to the bathroom

In other words, if you've had a strange dream, it's nearly guaranteed that someone else has had a similar one.

3. Kant, Schopenhauer, Freud, and Jung all drew similarities between sleep and psychosis. Schopenhauer wrote: "A dream is a short-lasting psychosis, and a psychosis is a long lasting dream." Both states involve being at some level of dissonance with reality.

4. Certain animals definitely dream. You cannot die from a dream. You're more likely to remember your dream if you wake up in the middle of it.