Dreams as a message from God

The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him." Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt. He stayed there until the death of Herod, that what the Lord had said through the phophet might be fulfilled, "Out of Egypt I called my son." Matthew 2: 13-15

Dreams, as illustrated in the story above, are a profound vehicle through which God reveals truth to us. While few dreams are direct, literal instructions from God like the one received here by Joseph, our dreams are prophetic, nonetheless. Through modern-day psychology, we have rediscovered the value and importance of our dreams for revealing our deeper truth. As such, each dream we have provides a key to treasures that lay hidden within us. The trick is to be open to remembering these dreams and interpreting their often mysterious messages.

While attending a dream interpretation workshop, I learned one tool for approaching the interpretation of dreams that I have found to be especially helpful. This approach comes from the Existential school of psychology. As our reflection this week, I share with you this approach and invite you to take one dream and apply this method, looking for the deeper truth hidden in that dream.

The Method

1) Write down in narrative from one dream that you recall

2) Go through the narrative and circle every noun (person, place or thing)

3) Make a list of the nouns in one column, along the left side of a sheet of paper.

4) To the right of each recorded noun, write a description of that word....describing it as if to a person from another planet who has never had an experience with that person, place or thing.

5) Now go back to the narrative and insert the new descriptions in place of their original noun.

6) Reread the narrative with the new descriptions.

I had a profound experience with this method of dream interpretation when I had a dream of losing my purse in church. "Purse", I discovered represented "that which contained my identity." Now, most people would not have assigned this description to a purse, but this is what it meant to me due to a situation in the past when my purse was stolen, along with all my papers, etc. of identification - hence the association. This association provided a profound revelation for me. In the dream, I had lost that which contained my identity. HHMMM

Dreams are a powerful method through which God reveals truth to us. Enjoy this opportunity to rediscover the voice of God in your dreams....and have a HAPPY NEW YEAR! See you in 2010!