“Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly” - Langston Hughes. Dreams play a large part in every humans life. From the very first breath, babies see colors and shapes while they sleep, children have nightmares that jolt them out of their slumber, and adults have stress dreams about work and their children running across the road. Dreams appear in every person's life at some point, as does a connection with the so-called powers at be, or the divine. Even if a connection is not felt with the divine, the influences are still greatly felt throughout the world. Dreams appear in global religions, from Judaism to Hinduism. Most of the philosophy surrounding dreams in religion stems from ancient times, showing …show more content…
According to the Talmud, which is the the body of Jewish law and legend which includes the texts of the Mishnah and the Gemara, God attached importance to dreams and blessed those who could interpret them. God was known to communicate with the Jews through prophets or ordinary citizens, many of them through dreams. In Judaism, prophets were greatly impacted by the role they held in society at that time; if they had power, wealth, influence, etc. Prophecies given to society by prophets would be interpreted differently based on what the society thought about prophets at that particular time. Some of the people who were gifted with the ability to interpret dreams received visions from God that directed them on their way in life. God appeared to many Jews through dreams, including what many believed was a dream induced by God, Moses and the burning bush. In the Torah, Moses is herding sheep when he comes across a bush that seems to be on fire but it isn’t burning up. He has a conversation with God through this bush (Exodus 3:3-8). Historians believe that this vision of the burning bush was implnted by God in Moses’ mind because he was, in fact, dreaming during this conversation. (Prophecy: Biblical …show more content…
It is believed in Hinduism that the soul can leave “the "house of flesh" during sleep and to travel wherever it desires” (Dreams, The Gale Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained). It is also thought that the passing from life to death is a similar sensation as the transition of dreaming to waking, meaning that the soul travels out of the physical form in both phenomenons. The relationship between the soul leaving the body during dreaming and the soul leaving the body after death is continued, “dreaming is but another form of waking, for what a man experiences while awake he experiences again in his dreams.…As a man passes from dream to wakefulness, so does he pass at death from this life to the next" (Dreams, The Gale Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained). The dreaming sensation, according to Hindu texts, is caused by the soul leaving the body. Astral projection, or the conscious act of pushing the soul out of the body, is also seen in Hinduism. According to Meher Baba, an Indian and Hindu spiritual master, once a person prepares for the soul to leave the body, “He may then undertake astral journeys in his astral body, leaving the physical body in sleep or wakefulness [...] This implies conscious use of the astral body. Conscious separation of the astral body from the outer vehicle of the gross body has its own value in making the soul feel its distinction from the gross body and in
Dreams are not just empty ideas, they give people ambition, and it is the pursuit of that ambition, which shapes a person. However, society instils an illusion about what can be achieved. Dreams can be tied to identity, but they can be good or bad. The Great Gatsby [F. Scott Fitzgerald] and Shattered Glass [Teresa Toten] share the similes in which both main characters dream of finding themselves and reach their end goals, through pressure and love. Both authors imply that dreams should be verified that they are possible before you start following them, otherwise they can ended up deadly.
Dreams can be used to that person advantage by lucid dreaming and create many stories so they will be able to write books about them like the famous author Stephen King. He wrote many of his stories by his dreams. Whenever he has trouble finishing a story or doesn't know where it should go next he will dream it and incorporate it in his stories. Some dreams may be show a glimpse of a person's future and give important information to them. King’s says, “Precognitive dreams are a staple of our supernatural folklore”(39). Every story and film that has come out has eventually started out from a person's mind and they must of gotten that vision from a dream. Turning that dream into something that everyone can see whether it's a book or film. “ Creative imaging and dreaming are just so similar that they've got to be related” (King 42). It must be, it all comes from the mind and just like daydreaming seeing a vision in the mind when the individual is conscious and is able to have control over
According to Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, dreams are a gateway to the unconscious mind and an individual’s deepest desires (scientificamerican.com 1). The American Dream is about gaining a large success through hard work. Deep down every individual wants to strive to achieve the best at what they acquire. However, not everyone will attain their life long goals. This is evident in The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and There Will Be Blood written by Paul Thomas Anderson. Between these two texts the destruction of hopes and dreams can derive from smaller issues such as the lack of money, the anger and jealousy of others and the disappointment of impossibly high goals.
Oprah Winfrey once said, “The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment, when you are between asleep and awake, when you don't know the difference between reality and fantasy, when for just that one moment you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality, and it really happened.” But, what actually is a dream and what do dreams really have to do with one’s everyday life? In essence, a dream is a series of mental images and emotions occurring during a slumber. Dreams can also deal with one’s personal aspirations, goals, ambitions, and even one’s emotions, such as love and hardship. However, dreams can also give rise to uneasy and terrible emotions; these dreams are essentially known as nightmares.
Dreams occur when the individual is completely drawn into sleep, but their mind is still in a waking state which pulls them into a dream (differencebetween.info/). While visions happen when they are fully awake, they all have a strong purpose unlike dreams that are normally random and queer. Dreams are a constant reoccurrence of a variety of images that could replay past events, connections to recent thoughts, people and so on (quora.com). God can use dreams to communicate and send messages to push the person to try to interpret and fully realize what it is about (patheos.com). Although, it is also said that dreams can be sent by the Devil just like nightmares (quora.com). The Devil can be manipulative and let others believe in something that is false. For example, Eliphaz from the Bible had a dream where he was deceived by the Devil, as he was posing as God leading Eliphaz thinking it was him (heritagebbc.com/). Visions on the other hand are all sent by God, holding lots of meaning, and for the individuals to commit and fulfill their
During prescientific days, dreams were interpreted as ‘manifestations’ of a ‘higher power’. Since the introduction of psychology, dreams have had 4 distinct interpretations. The first interprets dreams as a “liberation of the spirit from the pressure of external nature”. The second interprets dreams as “accidental disturbances from ‘internal organs’. The third interprets dreams as a foretelling of the future. The last interpretation is Freud’s. He interprets dream as an expression of subconscious desires.
All over the world different people, scientists, and civilizations have different dream theories. For instance, the Senoi tribe in Malaysia has a fascinating tradition of dream telling. Every morning the people of the tribe begin their day by discussing and interpreting their dreams with each other. The children, as they grow older, actually learn to control their dreams by simply wishing bad dreams into positive ones. It is observed that, by paying tribute their dreams, the people of the Senoi tribe learn to have faith in themselves. Also, they have very few, if any, mental problems “could working constructively with dreams be part of the answer” to mental issues? (Peirce)
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, dream is defined by a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring involuntarily in a person’s mind during certain stages of sleep. Dreams have fascinated humans since the beginning of time. The recorded history of dream interpretation dates back to 3000-4000 B.C. with the Sumerians in Mesopotamia. They documented their dreams on clay tablets. People back then saw the dream world as an extension of reality, but that it was a more powerful realm. Furthermore, they believed that when they dream, their souls would leave their body during sleep and travel to the dream world.
Freud also discusses the beliefs of early man, as dreams were connected to demons, gods and mythical deities. Dreams were perceived to be of a supernatural nature in primitive times and dreams were believed to portend the future.
The Ancient Greeks had surprise dream encounters with their gods. Native Americans turned to their dreams for guidance in life. Shamans dreamed in order to gather information from the spirits. Sleep and dreams define eras, cultures, and individuals. Sigmund Freud’s interpretation of dreams revolutionized twentieth-century thought.
The Bible is full of classical cases of dreams and interpreters of dreams/ visions whose ministries imparted on government policies humanity, nations and individual alike – Joseph, Daniel, Gideon, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar to mention but
All in all, whether we dream to talk to our ancestors, or just to deal with problems we can’t fix in our waking state one thing is certain; dreams are an important part of our lives. Without dreams the mind and body would surely suffer. Dreams allow a necessary outlet of our darkest fears and frustrations as well as our greatest hopes and wishes. In dreams you can be anything or anyone and if you can interpret your dream correctly you can have in insightful view of your soul. “Dreams unify the body, mind and spirit and provide you with insights about yourself and are a means for self exploration. When you understand your dreams you will have the ability to further understand and discover the true you.”(4)
According to Michael Swartz in his volume titled, The Signifying Creator: Nontextual Sources of Meaning in Ancient Judaism; he made an interesting claim regarding the genre of dream interpretation, based on the context of divination traditions. First of all, he proposes two basic types of divination traditions in general: We can also distinguish two basic types. Some diviners work through a fairly technical procedure using manuals
Dreaming has always been more of a controlled thing. In a way, dreams can determine what he want to eat, what they want to wear, or even who he may be marrying one day. An Australian doctor has found that dreams are not messages from the spirits but dreams are messages from ourselves (Andre-Clark). In most cases dreams do reflect reality, because dreams are communications from yourself rather trying to contact a person through their dreams, and tell them something that may happen in the future. Dreams may or can reflect things that have happened to anyone. Dreams do not say anything about the future nor predict anything. Dreams may comfort someone or help them understand something that has happened to them in the past.
What is a dream? Why do we have dreams? Do dreams have deeper meaning in our lives? The answers to these questions have eluded and intrigued many psychologists throughout history and have sparked my interest as well. As an avid and vivid dreamer I have often found myself wondering what the true meanings to my dreams were. So what are dreams? “Strictly speaking, dreams are images and imagery, thoughts, sounds and voices, and subjective sensations experienced when we sleep.”1 Even after thousands of years of research, psychologists have still not come to an agreed answer on why we dream. There are as many opinions out there as there are individual dreams. Some psychologists believe dreaming is simply the minds way of distracting itself from outside information during sleep to allow people to get deep rest. Others such as Dr. Eric Hartman suggest dreams serve almost as a psychotherapy in which the brain can make connections between different emotions and thoughts in a safe protected environment. Do dreams have any direct correlation to everyday events and experiences? Are they meant to aid individuals in understanding and interpreting their world around them?