Dreaming

Do you remember your dreams?  Do you want to remember most of your dreams?  Last night I had series of strange dreams, even to the point of having dreams within my dreams.  My undergraduate degree is in psychology, which means I remember we talked about dreams but I don't remember what the professor said!  I do believe Sigmund Freud gave us some great advice on interpreting our dreams – 'sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,' meaning some things in our dreams have no interpretation (just the result of spicy food too late at night).

Biblically, however, dreams are all over the place and many times they are the meeting place for God's revelation.  If have time in your lunch break, pull out your Bible or go online and look up Genesis 28:12 (Jacob's dream), Genesis 41:1 (Pharaoh's dream), I Kings 3:5 (Solomon's dream), Daniel 7:1 (Daniel's dream), Matthew 1:20 (Joseph's dream), and the book of Revelation (St John's dream).  These biblical characters were not suffering from spicy gumbo the night before - they were approached by God.

Why did God use dreams?  I don't know.  Maybe we are a captive audience in our sleep and are more willing to listen and see.  Maybe our guard is down when we dream.  In any case, I believe that we can learn a lot about where we are in life and what is going on in our lives based on the elements in our dreams.  Do you have a lot of airplanes, trains, or cars?  Maybe you are going through a transition in life.  Are you falling?  Maybe you feel as if you have no control over your situations.  Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but other times those strange elements in our dreams can clue us in to what is really going on inside.  And sometimes what is going on inside is a glimpse of God.

 

 

--
Fr. Steve Rice
Rector, St Timothy's Episcopal Church
Winston-Salem, NC
www.sttimothys.ws
www.sttims.blogspot.com
336.765.0294