Is dream interpretation a sin or occult?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Stylus
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
S

Stylus

Guest
I saw a site where people post their dreams and others comment on why they thought the person had those dreams. I thought it looked very interesting and wanted to post a few dreams of my own but had doubts as to whether or not it was moral or even occult.
I’m not trying to find out what my life has in store for me based on my dreams, I don’t believe in that, but rather what the psychological explanation is. I think there is a lot of phsychology behind dreams and that is my only interest. Is that wrong?

Thanks 🙂
 
Your dreams give you insight into what you have on your mind, consciously or unconsciously. I don’t see anything occult or otherwise harmful about increasing your understanding of yourself.

Some think that the things you see in dreams are some kind of mystical symbol that foretells the future. Each particular thing in your dream has a defined meaning that does not vary from person to person. That’s just bunk and should be avoided.

One approach to dream interpretation that I have found interesting is to see each character in your dream as yourself or an aspect of yourself. Sometimes this clarifies a lot of things; sometimes not.

When I was planning to arrange all the flowers and bouquets for my DD’s wedding, I often had dreams of appearing for a school exam without having been to class for the entire term. When I thought it through, I realized that I felt unqualified and unprepared to do the flowers. BTW, they turned out fine, and the dreams stopped immediately after the wedding. There was nothing demonic or dangerous about seeking understanding of these dreams, and you are certainly able to do the same kind of introspection with the help of your dreams.

Betsy
 
I saw a site where people post their dreams and others comment on why they thought the person had those dreams. I thought it looked very interesting and wanted to post a few dreams of my own but had doubts as to whether or not it was moral or even occult.
I’m not trying to find out what my life has in store for me based on my dreams, I don’t believe in that, but rather what the psychological explanation is. I think there is a lot of phsychology behind dreams and that is my only interest. Is that wrong?

Thanks 🙂
No. Many Saints in both the Old and the New Testaments received messages from God in dreams, and interpreted other people’s dreams, as well.

I believe that we need to be very discerning about how we interpret dreams - most people are not receiving messages from God in their dreams, and even those who do, don’t do so most of the time - but there is nothing wrong with trying to figure out the meaning of your dreams.
 
Myself I would be cautious on how much weight you give your dreams and thier meanings. Dream interpretation is a big deal in Jungian psychology, in which dream interpretation is used to unlock “secrets” of the past.
Since Jungians tend to be syncretists (believing all religions are reconcilable with one another), they also look to Native American, Eastern and Wiccan traditions. Since divine revelation is understood as the living experieces of the universe through all religions, peoples, animals and plants, **Jungians rely on dream interpretation, **the enneagram (personality typing), I Ching, tarot cards, and other methods of divination. Since the Jungian is busy mapping out his subconscious, he needs such methods to navigate on his journey. The typical Jungian will receive many visions, dreams, revelations and omens to illuminate his way. Full article on Jung
 
A very good book on the subject is The Secret of Dreams by Pedro Meseguer, S.J. (An old book with a nihil obstat)

I personally have found dreams to be very useful. As another poster said, the bible is full of people being warned, directed or counselled in dreams. I have also gotten messages in a timely fashion from dreams about things that were to happen, or people to contact.

Dreams must be approached very carefully and prayerfully. But it’s not always occult to use them.
 
We used to do a dream interpretation section in my Spirituality class in Catholic high school. It was intriguing…we had a very intuitive Sister as a teacher for that class.
 
When I was planning to arrange all the flowers and bouquets for my DD’s wedding, I often had dreams of appearing for a school exam without having been to class for the entire term. When I thought it through, I realized that I felt unqualified and unprepared to do the flowers.
Betsy
This is a dream that I have often had over the years. There is usually some variation in subject matter, but mostly a mathematics courses. Panic trying to figure out when and where the class meets or location of the exam sometimes.

I have never been able to attach any particular events to these dreams, but was once told by a psychologist that it is a common theme in many peoples dreams. Actually math and physics were probably my weakest subjects in college so…
 
The exam/class dream is very common. I’ve had variations on not being able to find the classroom, realizing on the way that I hadn’t even attended the class all year, not having the notebook for the class to study…

This dream is really about feeling unprepared for a task in life, or not up to the challenge, or lacking the knowlege one needs for something important.

I think everyone I have ever spoken about dreams with has had the exam dream… usually many years after classes were attended, and usually during times of great stress.
 
The exam/class dream is very common. I’ve had variations on not being able to find the classroom, realizing on the way that I hadn’t even attended the class all year, not having the notebook for the class to study…

This dream is really about feeling unprepared for a task in life, or not up to the challenge, or lacking the knowlege one needs for something important.

I think everyone I have ever spoken about dreams with has had the exam dream… usually many years after classes were attended, and usually during times of great stress.
Any comments on shark dreams (I *always barely *escape) or being chased by “Jack Torrence” from The Shining (not the new version, but the one with Jack as portrayed by Jack Nic.) And again, *barely *escaping? These dreams are the only ones in which I actually fear, the shark dreams less than the ones with Jack.
 
I"m not a professional at this by any means, but the same talent for reading meaning into literature and a little bit of insight into human nature makes me guess some things:

You always barely escape: In some area of your life you are living on the edge. So far you’ve gotten away with it. But you are afraid you are “swimming with sharks” somehow, or locked in with people who are a danger somehow. They have not corrupted you or damaged you yet, but maybe you want to reevaluate the people in your life. Maybe they’re incompatible with your faith journey? Someone in your world is not quite right and you have to constantly watch them? You don’t trust them?

Your fear response (instead of being an impassioned observer as most dreamers are) to them indicates there is something big at stake with this situation. Whether it’s a job that’s not good for you morally, or a relationship, or associations you have… there is a fear of discovery or of things happening that will spin out of your narrow control. And it could bite you.

Just a guess…

I’m probably way off. Like I said, I’m no professional at this…
 
I"m not a professional at this by any means, but the same talent for reading meaning into literature and a little bit of insight into human nature makes me guess some things:

You always barely escape: In some area of your life you are living on the edge. So far you’ve gotten away with it. But you are afraid you are “swimming with sharks” somehow, or locked in with people who are a danger somehow. They have not corrupted you or damaged you yet, but maybe you want to reevaluate the people in your life. Maybe they’re incompatible with your faith journey? Someone in your world is not quite right and you have to constantly watch them? You don’t trust them?

Your fear response (instead of being an impassioned observer as most dreamers are) to them indicates there is something big at stake with this situation. Whether it’s a job that’s not good for you morally, or a relationship, or associations you have… there is a fear of discovery or of things happening that will spin out of your narrow control. And it could bite you.

Just a guess…

I’m probably way off. Like I said, I’m no professional at this…
Never looked at it quite that way, but it makes a lot of sense now that I think about it. Thanks for the (name removed by moderator)ut.🙂
 
This is just my personal oppinion, but I don’t think we should just dismiss dreams as either the product of our subconscious or else as something mystical. I think they should be approached keeping both views in mind. I used to think that they were merely a manifestation of what goes on in one’s subconscious but as years have passed I have had some very quite strange premonitory dreams that I find it hard to explain. To give a few examples:
  • I dreamt my ex came knocking on my door, telling me that she had a problem. Two days later she e-mailed me saying she was going to be operated, that she had a tumor.
  • When we started dating I had a dream that I met a woman who seemd to speak to me only with her sight and told me to look after her daughter. The next day, by chance, my ex showed me her mother’s photo and, lo and hehold, the woman in my dream was her mother.
  • Many years ago, when I thought I had severed all ties with religion, I dreamt of a dead relative, whom I never met, who told me that when I was near an abyss that prayer would help me get past it without falling in. This turned out to be prophetic when I converted.
Of course I have also had many dreams that reflect my subconscious fears/worries/anxieties as well, as I also have hed dreams that are just simply bizzare (like dreaming I was on LOST). My adivce is to approach them carefully.
 
This is just my personal oppinion, but I don’t think we should just dismiss dreams as either the product of our subconscious or else as something mystical. I think they should be approached keeping both views in mind. I used to think that they were merely a manifestation of what goes on in one’s subconscious but as years have passed I have had some very quite strange premonitory dreams that I find it hard to explain. To give a few examples:
  • I dreamt my ex came knocking on my door, telling me that she had a problem. Two days later she e-mailed me saying she was going to be operated, that she had a tumor.
  • When we started dating I had a dream that I met a woman who seemd to speak to me only with her sight and told me to look after her daughter. The next day, by chance, my ex showed me her mother’s photo and, lo and hehold, the woman in my dream was her mother.
  • Many years ago, when I thought I had severed all ties with religion, I dreamt of a dead relative, whom I never met, who told me that when I was near an abyss that prayer would help me get past it without falling in. This turned out to be prophetic when I converted.
Of course I have also had many dreams that reflect my subconscious fears/worries/anxieties as well, as I also have hed dreams that are just simply bizzare (like dreaming I was on LOST). My adivce is to approach them carefully.
Fascinating examples, Ora… I’ve had a few déja vu dreams, one involving a side-altar in an English church. The difference was that in the dream, I was with my family, whereas in reality, I was an a school tour trip. But when I went into the London church (for those wondering - I’m sorry, I can’t remember the name at all!), I saw the same side-altar as the one in the dream. Conincidence? Okay, maybe…I presume there are many Gothic side altars in RC churches in England. 😉

On a more serious note, I agree that it is prudent to be cautious in how one “interprets” dreams.
 
I have to agree with everyone here, just be careful with it. I’ve had dreams that warn me of things, but I’ve also found that sometimes there’s deeper meaning in dreams than we know. I usually can’t figure out what my dreams mean until after they happen though lol. I’m just bad at interpretting them, thought lately there’s been these two dreams that keep coming to mind, especially when I’m praying or writing letters to God.

(not violent, but is gorey)
In the first dream… I dream that I lay down in a bathtub that had a small layer of blood in it. After I laid down in it, the blood kept rising until after it reached just under the bathroom’s doorknob. For some reason, I was floating on it, I wasn’t in it, but ontop of it, like it was solid. There was a few people looking for me outside, one boy in particular. He opened the door and all the blood dissapeared and I suddenly was standing. He said something, but I don’t know what he said, then I tell him, “I know how to fix the problem.” I run from him, he’s chasing after me, he’s maybe 11 or 12, and then I jump off of what looks like an endless line of a pool edge… and sink into the deepest part of the ocean. I remember hoping to be eaten… I let out all of my breath and plugged my nose… I sank until the water started getting to be too much pressure, then I swam around for a bit and eventually took in a breath of water and drowned. My spirit came to the surface of the ocean and the boys were running around the town, finding people and they were all celebrating. Then a voice from nowhere said, “…and from that day onward the people celebrated on October 10th.” I have no idea what year it was that this happened in though, just the date of October 10th… I’m not really sure what to make of it.

The night after that dream I had a dream where there was 6 boys in this fence-like pen… they couldn’t get out of it and they were all acting like wild animals. There was these parchments too, and from the parchments people could call these strange creatures, depending on who called them, they were either harmless or they were monsters. Someone stole the box of parchment with these creatures, I remember it being there one moment and gone the next, then I sit down on the bleachers (I have no idea why there were bleachers, they were just there) and watched the boys who were acting like savages. They would try to get out, even with the gate wide open, but they couldn’t get their bodies past the fence. After that people started shouting and the creatures from the parchments, as monsters, were attacking people. Someone convinced the boys in the pen-like thing to help and they shortly after they acted like normal human beings. People ran and scattered, then there was this girl with long blond hair, and this strange, brown V-like object that she wore around her head with a circle in the center of it. I grabbed it and stepped on it - somehow it was like a non-fluffy cake, and stepped on it, destroying it. Shortly after she dissapeared and someone hit me on the head from behind with a fire estinguisher, or a container like it, and I blacked out in the dream. The next thing I know is I’m stepping out of a car. All of the boys who were in the pen-like thing were there and were having fun. I was taking pictures of them with a digital camera, and then I saw a cliff. I moved the camera along it and noticed dark streaks along the side of it. I zoom out and there’s a very rough-sculpted face of Jesus in the side of the cliff, and the face is crying tears of blood. I tell a girl there, Christia, about it and she pretty much blows it off, and somehow because of that it brought more attention to the college I’m going to, which, is a catholic university for media and business students.

Any thoughts on these?
 
No. Many Saints in both the Old and the New Testaments received messages from God in dreams, and interpreted other people’s dreams, as well.

I believe that we need to be very discerning about how we interpret dreams - most people are not receiving messages from God in their dreams, and even those who do, don’t do so most of the time - but there is nothing wrong with trying to figure out the meaning of your dreams.
Well said my friend. That sums it up perfectly.
 
I may be the odd person out… in that I VERY rarely dream (and/or remember my dreams). The odd time I can remember my dreams at all they are usually VERY vivid dreams, to the point that when I wake I have a difficult time discerning what happened in reality and what was just the dream. What’s strange about this is that I’m never in my dreams. 🙂

HAHA. My last dream was fuzzy, all I remember from it is that I had a deep man voice(I don’t remember what I was saying only that I was speaking). It was VERY masculine, more so then any voice I’ve heard before. I was so amused that I told a few people about it. When I shared this dream with friends I got all kinds of interpretations. The two funniest ones were; You’re going to get married soon and you’re a man trapped in a woman’s body. HAHAHAHA.

This is a new thing though(not dreaming that is). As a child I’d dream every night - and not only did I dream but I had full control of my dreams. It was kind of fun. Whenever something scary would start to happen I could remove the ‘character’ who was causing fear, and/or build a wall around myself that saved me from the ‘scary’ thing. Or if something happened in the dream that I didn’t like I could ‘rewind’ the dream and start that particular ‘scene’ again. It was kind of fun, and neat. At one point I was so good at it that I had the same dream every night for over a week because I wanted to see the ‘whole story’ and kept waking up before a conclusion could be reache.d… so I’d just ‘dream’ the rest of the story every night.

Personally I would never share my dreams with someone who was interested in interpreting them. I know that there were saints who interpreted dreams but it just feels like a slippery slope to step onto to me, especially with all this ‘new age’ **** floating about.

I’d be interested to know what (and IF) the church teaches anything about dream interpretation.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top