Dreams

Fairly recently, I posted a response on the GCTS website for my theology class on the issue of dreams. I think after reading that I have considered more deeply the impact of dreams and the use of dreams. If we look at dreams in the Scriptures, they are used as warnings or prophecies or lessons. It is clear that God used dreams to communicate to the people, and not always through His people. So what does that mean for us? Does it mean anything? Are dreams just as Freud said, some expression of the subconscious? Or are they memories pieced together, sometimes in logical or illogical ways? I consider all these things as I battle my own dreamscapes.

Can you remember your dreams? Are they ever so vivid that you can remember every detail, every emotion, every thought? Have you ever woken up in the middle of the emotion you were experiencing in that dream? Do you ever have to seriously think and figure out whether or not what you dreamed was reality or not? I’m sure most people have been there at least one time in their life. I myself have always been a detailed dreamer, I have quite the imagination. Shame I didn’t write more of them down, I probably could have had an interesting book by now.

So what do dreams mean, if anything? I know that there have been hundreds of books written on the topic with people trying to find explanations for why they dream the things they do. Most of it I would imagine is absolute nonsense. I suppose a better question is how to make the dreams stop. Lately I feel like I’m living in two realities, like Thomas Hunter in Ted Dekker’s Circle Trilogy. When I’m awake I’m in one reality, and when I’m asleep I enter another confusing reality. The problem is that when I wake up I’m left with all of the concerns and thoughts and emotions from the dream. As a psychology person, this is driving me crazy…no pun intended. Thoughts? Ideas?