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Beliefs LIFE AFTERLIFE PRAYER
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DREAMS  To
our western, rationalist mind, it is amazing how many books of the Bible
include dreams. Some are dreams that need to be interpreted, like in
Genesis: 41 where the Pharaoh dreamed of cows that were both fat and
skinny. Joseph interpreted it as the fat cows meaning the present time
of plenty, and the skinny ones meaning a famine that was to come. Because of his interpretation, the pharaoh stored up grain and many people were saved from starvation during the famine that ensued. The chapters on Daniel have several dreams and visions in them. In one the king, Nebuchadnezzar, was so frightened of his dream that he actually forgot what it was (Dan 2). Then Daniel had to both tell the king what his dream was AND interpret it for him. Two chapters later, the king was troubled by another dream and said, These were the visions of my head while on my bed (Dan 4:19). Daniel interpreted it, saying the king would be driven from men, and forced to live as a beast in the field, eating grass. Scary. In the next chapter the king’s son, Belshazzar, is troubled so terribly by visions that his …the joints of his hips were loosened, and his knees knocked against each other. (Dan 5:6) Belshazzar was desperate for someone to interpret it, and his wife told him: Inasmuch as an excellent spirit, knowledge, understanding (of) interpreting dreams, solving riddles and explaining enigmas was found in this Daniel, now let Daniel be called, and he will give the interpretation. (Dan 5:12) Not all the dreams in the Bible are portents of terrible things, there are some that have a highly mystical quality, like in Genesis where Jacob: …dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. (Gen 28) Again in Genesis where Jacob, as an old man has learned that his son, Joseph, is still alive; he undertakes the journey to go down to Egypt and see him. During this time God spoke to him in a dream, calling, Jacob! Jacob!” And Jacob said, “Here I am! (Gen 46) Then God said: …Do not fear to go down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there. Other dreams from the Bible have conveyed important messages. In fact, Jesus was protected when He was an infant by the use of dreams. In a dream an angel told Mary’s betrothed, Joseph, that God wanted him to take Mary for his wife (Matt 1:20); then again in a dream Joseph was instructed to take the infant, Jesus, and flee to Egypt (Matt 2:13). He had the time to do this because the wrath of Herod was forestalled when an angel told the three wise men not to return to Herod, but to travel home by a different route (Matt 2:12). They all had the same dream. There are so many dreams in the Bible that Abraham Lincoln once said, “It seems strange how much there is in the Bible about dreams… some 15 or 16 chapters in the Old Testament and 4 or 5 in the New. If we believe the Bible, we must accept the fact that, in the old days, God and His angels came to men in their sleep and made themselves known in dreams. (Dreams & Healing, John A. Sanford p. 6) In fact, Ancient man’s belief in dreams gave him a connection to the sources of his spiritual life, but our culture is greatly impoverished in this respect, and a wide gulf has emerged between our conscious life and the life of our souls…(for all our material well-being, we are a culturally-deprived people) (Ibid p. 7) To the best knowledge, there is no ancient culture in which dreams were not exceedingly important. Ancient people believed dreams to be an important way in which the soul received guidance from the spiritual world (Ibid p. 6). Anthropologist William Merrill writes of the Raramuri of Mexico: …dreams are real events. On numerous occasions, people would describe to me quite incredible personal experiences, but fail to mention that the events had taken place in dreams until I asked. This does not mean that they do not distinguish between their waking and dreaming lives, but that they attribute comparable reality to both.” (Healing Dreams, p. 316) I’ve gone to the library and onto the internet to learn about the cerebellum. Medical science knows precious little about it and the best use they ascribe to it is having to do with the function of the muscles and with walking. Paul Whitfield in the Human Body Explained says, Nestled at the lower rear of the brain is the cerebellum. It coordinates movements, especially the fine, rapid, accurate movements of skilled actions such as writing or playing a sport. The cerebellum receives motor signals from the motor cortex, as well as sensory signals from the muscles, joints and skin about how a movement is progressing. (p. 50) The book Minds Behind Brains, by Stanley Finger, says, Today we know that the cerebellum plays an important role in allowing us to walk without thinking about how to move one leg in front of the other, and in allowing us to drink from a cup without consciously plotting how far to tip it as it approaches our lips. (p. 96) This shows how the cerebellum controls the unconscious functions — even in our body. Of the cerebellum, the theologian and scientist, Emanuel Swedenborg, said it is the part of the our mind that the spiritual flows more directly into — which would explain why medical science knows so little about it. Swedenborg said the cerebellum is important to our understanding of dreams because: At night-time man is in spontaneous things, and the cerebellum is the source of what is spontaneous. (Spiritual Diary, paragraph 4518) He also says the cerebellum functions during the daytime, too: The influx from the cerebellum insinuates itself into the face, as is evident from the fact that the disposition is inscribed on the face, and affections appear in it, for the most part without the man’s will, as fear, reverence, shame, etc. These come from the cerebellum by means of its fibres when there is no dissimulation within…………. And …The cerebellum perceives everything the cerebrum does, but does not publish it, or is unable to think or speak in the way that is peculiar to the cerebrum. [It] has an exquisite perception of all thoughts… The cerebrum is comparatively in a turmoil, but the cerebellum is in quiet. (Arcana Caelestia, paragraph 4326:2) Now we can get some understanding as to why the cerebellum doesn’t communicate in words. And it also ties in with psychologist Carl Jung’s belief that we continually dream even while awake but that: Consciousness makes such a noise that we do not hear it. (The Innocence of Dreams, Charles Rycroft) When it’s ready for its nightly romp, the cerebellum gears up to communicate with us through dreams. The deeper we are asleep, the more we dream. But dreams are confusing, and most people want to make sense out of what is confusing. But we can allow things to become more confusing until they make sense out of themselves. What is confusing, at times, is the spirit trying to communicate with us, but the conscious mind doesn’t yet know what it is saying. Some would think dreams can’t design outer circumstances. But on closer acquaintance one finds that they can. (Wilson Van Dusen, Swedenborg’s. Journal of Dreams p. 122) Swedenborg had been lodging with a Moravian man and apparently attending that church every Sunday. But after a series of dreams he didn’t join the Moravian church, though he respected their simple piety, but followed his own individual path. Van Dusen explains that what we see here is the inner world shaping Swedenborg’s religious life. He left behind a very well documented book called the Journal of Dreams that traces his transition from being a well known scientist to being a visionary and revelator. However dreams work, for me on a personal level, the key to a dream is the feeling I have when I am waking up. That is what I need to pay attention to. Swedenborg says that: …when a man dreams his natural understanding is laid asleep and his spiritual sight is opened, which draws its all from affection. (AE 706:3) In his amazing explorations of the world of spirits, Swedenborg says that at times his dreams coincided with what angels were saying: I once had quite an ordinary dream, and having woken up I related it all from start to finish. The angels said that it coincided exactly with what they had been discussing; not that the things they were discussing appeared in the dream, but instead things completely different, into which the thoughts in their discussion were transformed. (AC 1981) Swedenborg says that dreams from angels are beautiful, delightful, instructive and predictive. (SD 8 – index) Those in whom …dreams originate are angelic spirits at the entrance to the paradise gardens. They are commissioned also to keep watch over certain people who are asleep, to prevent them being molested during that time by evil spirits. They perform their task with very great delight, so much so that they vie with one another to be there, and they love to fill man with joys and delights such as they see within his affection and disposition. Those who have become angelic spirits are drawn from those who during their lifetime took delight in and loved in every way to make other people’s lives delightful. (AC 1977:2) How do these angelic spirits know how to do this? When a person is sleeping and his or her inner hearing is opened far enough, he hears something sweet and rhythmic like singing coming from these spirits. The angelic spirits don’t know where this sound comes from, but then they said: …representatives so beautiful and delightful, came to them all in a moment; …they were told that they came form heaven. They belong to the province of the cerebellum, for the cerebellum, as I have learned, remains awake even during periods of sleep when the cerebrum is sleeping. (AC 1977) In AC 1976 states what the different types of dreams are: 1. The first type comes from the Lord immediately by way of heaven; such were the prophetical dreams spoken of in the Word. 2. The second type comes by way of angelic spirits, especially those who are situated…over towards the right where the paradise gardens are. This was the source of the dreams that members of the Most Ancient Church had, dreams that were instructive. 3. The third type comes by way of the spirits who are close to a person when he is asleep. These too carry spiritual meanings. 4. Delusory dreams however come from a different source. By this I believe he’s talking about dreams that come from a directly spiritual origin, not the ones that many scientists and other dream researchers think are a rearranging of the events of the day. Those dreams occur earlier in the night, while ones that are very different in content and imagery occur later in the night and towards the end of the dream cycle. Swedenborg distinguishes between a prophet and a dreamer: - Prophet: one who teaches truths (They were instructed by a living voice from the Lord) - Dreamer: one who stirs up to doing, [or the stirring up from which a thing is done] Being a woman, I know about being stirred up by my feelings to do something long before I understand what needs to be done. This is called perception. This kind of unconscious function is very important, even in very literal types of things. The history of science can produce many examples of dreams reflecting the Day’s work, with the dream illuminating and directing the scholar’s work in progress. (Swedenborg: Visionary Savant in The Age of Reason by Ernst Benz p. 153) It is good to understand this before we go consigning dreams to a certain time of the night. Dreams helped Swedenborg many times as can be seen in his Journal of Dreams. Not so well known is that they actually helped in his scientific research and writing of his pre-theological books. On p. 153, Ernst Benz writes of his work on The Animal Kingdom: …A dream of 11/12 April (1744) gave him particulars of the thymus gland and its connection to the adrenal glands, which he was discussing in The Animal Kingdom. A dream of 14/15 April 1744 relates to his researches on muscles. Another of 3/4 July is connected with the conclusion of a chapter in his work dealing with the senses and with the beginning of the next part on the brain. He understood a dream of 8/9 August as an indication that a particular medical discussion in the third part of The Animal Kingdom was incomplete, while a dream of 1/2 September confirmed that the conclusion of his first chapter on the sense of taste was “correct and satisfactory”. In a dream of 29/30 September, he similarly finds corroboration of his explanations of organic forms in general and of his concluding chapter in particular. In more recent times, the leading 20th century scientist Albert Einstein imagined he was riding on a beam of light from one star to another. Though not a dream, that vision was central to developing his theory of Relativity. Einstein has said that: The imagination is more important than knowledge Even peoples who do not have our type of modern science attribute help in developing their specific form of science to dreams. In the book, Healing Dreams, Marc Barasch says that: Many a tribal shaman claims to have learned medicinal use of specific plants through Dreams. (p. 75) How do we know what a dream is saying to us, or if it is saying anything at all to us? Marc Barasch writes: …the most reasonable-seeming answer is often the wrong one. Dreams play by rules that confound the waking mind. But at the heart of healing dreams are certain consistent, if challenging attitudes. (Healing Dreams p. 28) Are we too far removed to get anything from our dreams—that is, the ones sent to us by the Lord through the agency of His angels? In our society we have not lost our dreams, but our organic connection to them, and thus our ability to act upon them. If we fail to give our dreams a place in our life, our existence may become a wraithlike affair. Healing dreams are not career counsellors, telling us how to repackage our assets for success. They speak for the innermost when no one else will. They do not calculate the shortest distance between two points but suggest that we take the long way home. Though we often content ourselves with having to maintain different faces — one for the job, one with our families; one for society, one for the heart — healing dreams want to make visible the pattern that connects; they tempt us to bring forth what is most passionate and profound within us. (Healing Dreams Marc Ian Barasch p. 118) There is much that can be said for dreams, but why bother with them? The book, The Inner Child In Dreams says: A dream unnoticed is like a letter left unopened. Where does this letter come from? From what is deep within us? Psychologist and mystic, Wilson Van Dusen, says: If one is to know heaven, it has to be through developing the unconscious functions (Sw Journal of Dreams p. 141) And Swedenborg says: Angelic thought, or man’s interior thought…may almost be likened to living dreams and the living thought he has in them. (SD 1309) The Lord guards people with most especial care during their sleep. (Arcana Caelestia, paragraph 959)
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