Dreaming

Approximately one-third of a normal lifetime is spent sleeping, and much of that time is devoted to dreaming. Although sleep and dreams are commonplace facts of life, they remain mysteries, and each generation has tried to determine the cause and meaning of dreams. In this article we will explore the various theories about dreaming, the history of dreaming including dreams in the Bible, psychoanalytic interpretation of dreams, and an examination of what is actually happening when we dream. Finally, some practical suggestions will be offered.

Basic Facts on Dreaming

At the time of this writing, there is no generally accepted theory as to the meaning of dreams. All that is known for sure is that dreaming is a universal phenomenon in humans. In the mid-1930s scientists began to describe separate and distinct electroencephalographic (EEG) stages occurring during sleep. In the mid-1950s scientists reported that bursts of conjugate, rapid eye movements (REM) periodically appeared, and they linked these periods to dreaming.

Basically, there are two very different kinds of sleep: nonrapid eye movement (NREM), or orthodox, sleep and rapid eye movement (REM), or paradoxical, sleep. Within NREM sleep, three stages are usually recognized. Stage 1 is a transition stage between full wakefulness and clear sleep when thoughts begin to drift and thinking is no longer reality oriented. Though short dreams often develop, most people feel that they are awake during stage 1 sleep. Stage 2 is the first bona fide sleep stage, and mentation during this stage usually consists of short, mundane and fragmented thoughts. Stage 3, delta sleep, is when deep sleep occurs and it is hardest to awaken someone.

REM sleep alternates with NREM sleep at about ninety-minute intervals. The EEG pattern resembles that of stage 1 sleep. However, during REM sleep muscle tone is also extremely low, and heart rate and respiratory rate are relatively high and variable. More than 80 percent of people who are awakened during REM sleep are able to recall dreams. The first period of REM sleep occurs approximately seventy to ninety minutes after sleep onset and usually lasts about five minutes. REM sleep alternates with NREM sleep, with REM periods becoming more intense (both physiologically and psychologically) and longer toward morning. Many people therefore awaken in the morning while dreaming. The amount of dreaming changes with age. REM sleep drops from 50 percent of sleeping time at birth to about 20 percent by puberty. From that time on, REM remains reasonably constant throughout life, although there seems to be a slight percentage increase during young adulthood and a slight percentage decrease, at least in males, during old age.

The meaning of these changes in REM sleep is unknown, but they have given rise to many speculations concerning the need to dream and the function of REM sleep. It is clear that dreaming is needed for proper functioning. When volunteers are awakened each time they start an REM period, REM pressure seems to build up, and upon falling asleep again, they usually start to dream more quickly. They also make up the lost REM-time as soon as they are permitted to do so. REM sleep becomes more intensive, and upon the volunteers’ awakening certain behavioral changes occur. People who are REM-deprived seem to become more agitated, more impulsive and less able to control their actions, whereas people deprived of delta sleep do not show these signs. It should be noted that many drugs and substances affect REM sleep and therefore may affect mood and behavior.

History of Dreaming

In ancient and primitive societies, dreams were usually thought to be the work of gods or demons, appearing to mortals with messages of hope or despair. The ancient Egyptians and Babylonians attached great importance to dreams and to oneiromancy, or dream interpretation. Such interpretation was already an advanced technique by the time of the earliest records.

The oldest of the thousands of dream books is found in the Chester Beatty Papyrus, which comes from Thebes in Upper Egypt and incorporates material probably dating back to 2000 b.c. In these writings a distinction is made between “good” and “bad” dreams. Some two hundred dreams are preserved in that papyrus, and various interpretations are given. For example, it records that it was good to dream of sawing wood, for this foretold of the death of enemies. The Egyptians also had a strong belief in incubation, which meant that sick persons were brought to sleep in the temple, where they fasted, or took potions, to induce beneficial dreams. There are examples of incubation dreams given throughout the Old Testament. 1 Kings 3:4-9 describes how Solomon went to Gibeon to offer sacrifices, “for that was the most important high place.” There he had a dream in which God said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.” Samuel’s dream in the temple is another example of an incubation dream (1 Samuel 3:1-14).

Most of the symbolic dreams in the Old Testament happen to Gentiles. For the Jews there was only one God; God alone could be the source of divine revelations in dreams and was expected to speak clearly to them. Such messages, however, might seem garbled or unclear to a Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar. Pharaoh’s dreams were interpreted by Joseph (Genesis 41:25-32). Though Pharaoh may have been consciously or unconsciously aware of climatic factors that could lead to a seven-year period of rich harvest followed by seven years of famine, the awareness broke through dramatically only in the form of a dream allegory of seven fat and seven thin cows. Joseph himself had a dream regarding his brothers (Genesis 37:5-7) in which suddenly his sheaf stood upright, while their sheaves gathered around his and bowed down to it. This may have revealed his understanding of both his talents and the ambition that would carry him to great eminence.

The fact that several Jewish prophets gave warnings against false dreams and false interpreters suggests that there was a systematic effort to sharpen the distinction between divine and significant dreams and those that were either evil or without significance. In Jeremiah 23:25-28 (compare Deut. 13:1-5) God says,

I have heard what the prophets say who prophesy in my name. They say, “I had a dream! I had a dream!” How long will this continue in the hearts of these lying prophets, who prophesy the delusions of their own minds? They think the dreams they tell one another will make my people forget my name, just as their father’s forgot my name through Baal worship. Let the prophet who has a dream tell his dream, but let the one who has my word speak it faithfully. For what has straw to do with grain?

Some basic principles of the meaning of dreams can be seen in the Old Testament writings. In addition to being divine revelations, dreams provided a means for understanding one’s innermost thoughts and feelings as well as for working through problem areas in one’s life. For example, Daniel indicated that he would be interpreting Nebuchadnezzar’s dream so that the king “may understand what went through your [the king’s] mind” (Daniel 2:30). Job 33:14-18 describes how God may speak in a dream “to turn man from wrongdoing and keep him from pride.” In Psalm 16:7 it is written, “Even at night my heart instructs me.” However, dreams may not always carry special meaning or significance. As it says in Eccles. 5:7, “Much dreaming and many words are meaningless.”

In the Gospels there are only seven references to dreams or dreamers. All occur in Matthew, and none come from Jesus. The dreams are all prophetic. An angel tells Joseph in a dream to take Mary as his wife (Matthew 1:20), and the Magi are warned in a dream not to go back to Herod but to return to their country by another route (Matthew 2:12). Joseph also has other dreams (Matthew 2:13, 19-20). Pilate’s wife has a dream regarding Jesus and sends a message stating, “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him” (Matthew 27:19).

The only other reference to dreaming in the New Testament is a citation used for illustrative purposes in Acts 2:17. Words are quoted from the prophet Joel, who stated, “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophecy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.”

Something related to dreaming occurred during the missionary journeys of Paul. Acts 16:9-10 notes that Paul had a night vision of a man from Macedonia begging Paul to come and help. The exact content of the dream and the identity of the Macedonian man have been the subject of much conjecture. The incident, however, reveals some important principles of how dreams and visions may fit into a larger experience of guidance from God. John Stott notes that the dream was preceded by two negative prohibitions (not to go to Asia and Bithynia). So the experience was not only negative but positive, not only circumstantial but rational (Paul and his companions discussed the vision), not only personal but corporate (they came to a common mind about the direction in which they should move; Stott, p. 261). We must now ask how dreams have been understood.

Psychoanalytic Interpretation of Dreaming

In 1900, when Sigmund Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams, the book provoked hostile criticism. The subject itself, let alone Freud’s serious treatment of it, seemed ludicrous not only to other medical men but also to many intellectuals trained in a rationalist tradition. Dreams were seen by Freud as the royal road to the unconscious. Whereas modern philosophy really began when Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am,” modern psychology began when Freud said in effect, “I am, therefore I dream.”

Freud believed that dreams represented unfulfilled, and often unacceptable, wishes, most of which referred to instinctual impulses originating in the dreamer’s early childhood. He believed that repressed infantile sexual wishes provided the most frequent and strongest motivating forces for the construction of dreams. Such wishes did not appear directly in dreams but were disguised in various ways in order to make them acceptable to the dreamer. Hence, the dream required interpretation. What the dreamer recalled was only the manifest content; the latent content, or the true meaning of the dream, could only be discerned after a lengthy process in which the dreamer’s association to all the images in the dream had been subjected to trained analytical scrutiny.

Although dreams are under the control of the unconscious mind and are therefore not couched in language of everyday speech, there is certainly no evidence that all dreams are concealing unacceptable or unfulfilled wishes or urges. Freud himself recognized this when he considered the recurrent dreams of patients who had been subject to traumatic incidents in which the incidents occur in an undisguised form. This commonly occurs in persons who are suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder. Repetitive dreaming may be a way of working through feelings and coping with the trauma.

Carl Jung, as described by psychiatrist Anthony Storr, took a very different view of dreams from that given by Freud (Storr, p. 46). First of all, he did not consider dreams to be concealments. Rather, according to Jung, dreams were expressed in a symbolic language that may or may not be difficult to understand. Other similar forms of expression in which metaphors and symbolism occur include poetry and music. Second, Jung believed that dreams may possess all sorts of meanings, not merely the imaginary fulfillment of repressed wishes. Dreams may contain memories, wild fancies and goodness knows what else. Third, Jung described the human psyche as being a self-regulation system. The unconscious and conscious parts of the mind were conceived as operating in a reciprocal relationship. For example, a celibate person may have an overabundance of sexual-laden dreams. Jung cites instances in which men who had consciously overestimated their own powers had dreams indicating that their limits had actually been reached (Storr, p. 46).

What Are Dreams?

Scientists continue to provide different answers to the question “What are dreams?” One recently suggested that dreams may have no function at all! REM sleep seems to have functions, but dreaming and REM sleep are not the same thing. However, it seems clear that dreams have been used throughout the centuries by people to help understand various problems as well as to receive guidance and messages from God. We seem to dream mainly about issues that concern us at the present time, such as fears, wishes, plans, hopes and worries. Thus, dreaming that a friend is dead does not necessarily signify a latent death wish but might well mean that one is concerned for the friend’s health. Dreams often relate to unsettled business stirred up during the day. But the language of dreams is often symbolic and distorted. Disentangling the so-called real meaning of the dream often requires intimate knowledge of both the dreamer and dream mechanisms in general.

Storr describes four basic functions of dreaming (pp. 46-47). (1) Some dreams certainly can represent wishes, very often of a sexual or ambitious kind, just as do daydreams. An example of an ambitious dream would be the dream of Joseph described in Genesis 37:5-10. (2) Dreams often seem to serve as an outlet for impulses that have been impossible to express or that are partially unrecognized by the dreamer. Examples of these would include aggressive impulses towards employers, parents and other authority figures or sexual impulses towards people whom the dreamer desires but who, for social or religious reasons, are inaccessible. (3) Dreams often have a compensatory aspect. Dreams frequently bring out some feeling of affection towards people we thought we wholly disliked or, vice versa, some feeling of dislike towards those we thought we wholly liked. The atheist may discover a religious side to himself, or the scientist may discover that she is not as rational as she had supposed. (4) Dreams often relate to problems with which the dreamer is struggling but which he or she has not yet resolved. Dreams often seem to bring out problems of which the person may only be half aware. This problem-solving aspect of dreaming is illustrated by those dreams of scientists and other creative people in which solutions are found. One of the most significant of such discoveries was the dream that revealed the ring structure of benzene to the scientist F. A. Kekule. He had tried for years to find a graphic means of representing the molecular structure of trimethyl benzene. Eventually its ring structure was revealed when he dreamed of a snake with its tail in its mouth.

Practical Suggestions

Though dreams are not material that allows dogmatic interpretation, they are often valuable indicators pointing towards emotional preoccupations of which, perhaps, the person was not consciously aware. They are couched in the language of the unconscious, and their interpretation should not be taken literally any more than poetry. Interestingly, one of the greatest of English prose works, John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, is cast in dream form. Bunyan’s allegory is so much a spiritual and psychological pilgrimage that the dream form must have been deliberately chosen to express the inner experiences that had deeply changed the author.

Various symbols occur frequently in dreams and in poetry. For example, the image of the snake, which is never consciously associated with that of the phallus, is one of the most constant and invariable symbols in primitive religions. Another example is the image of teeth (see Song 4:2), which often is symbolically related to childbirth, a connection that is hardly ever made consciously. It was due to such recurrences that Jung, going far beyond Freud, developed his theory of the collective unconscious, from which he believed such fundamental symbols as the circle and the cross, the trinity, the hero, the wise old man and the dragonlike, devouring mother ultimately sprang. However not all symbols have a universal meaning. For example, dreaming of a fire may bring feelings of warmth and comfort to one person but feelings of terror to another who has suffered from a significant burn injury.

Dreams continue to fascinate us. Practical suggestions for understanding them are as follows: (1) It is important to record your dreams. It is best to write them down immediately upon awakening. Because dreams occur in the unconscious mind, we soon lose memory of them. You should also record what was occurring during the day prior to dreaming. Dreams often relate to unsettled business stirred up during the day. (2) Dreams are often symbolic and distorted. They frequently appear illogical and should not be interpreted in a literal manner. (3) Discuss your dreams with another person who has a close understanding of your personality, needs and conflicts and who has a good understanding of your spiritual life. It is difficult to be objective enough to interpret your own dreams completely. (4) Before deciding whether the dream is a message from God, try to understand whether the message agrees with Scripture and leads one to a closer relationship with God. It is also best to wait for other forms of confirmation before changing your life drastically.

In summary, dreams can be extremely useful for understanding ourselves and for providing an impetus for change. God may also communicate with us through our dreams. However, dreams only make sense against a person’s background and past, and most dreams require a detailed and intimate knowledge of the dreamer and his or her circumstances. Although a good deal of research has been carried out, especially about REM sleep, we are still far from knowing all there is to know about dreams. We do know that dogmatic interpretation of dreams is inappropriate and that, like works of art, dreams must often be allowed to speak for themselves. A quote from the seventeenth-century physician Sir Thomas Browne shows that our understanding of dreams has not changed significantly in over three hundred years:

However dreames may bee fallacious concerning outward events, yet may they bee truly significant at home, and whereby wee may more sensibly understand ourselves. Men act in sleepe with some conformity unto their awaked senses, and consolations or discouragements may bee drawne from dreames which intimately tell us ourselves.

» See also: Guidance

» See also: Sleeping

References and Resources

C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, ed. A. Jaffe (New York: Vintage Books, 1965); J. Opmeer, “Dreams and Visions: God’s Picture Language,” in Those Controversial Gifts, ed. G. Mallone (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1983) 51-78; A. Storr, The Art of Psychotherapy (2nd ed.; New York: Routledge, 1980) 43-55; J. R. W. Stott, The Spirit, the Church and the World: The Message of Acts (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1990).

—Stephen A. Anderson