Benjamin:
Wow! Thanks for sharing these experiences. Is the post about God and or the Devil using your dreams in line with Catholic teaching?
I had never thought of dreams as messages. My mind may be to full of modern psychology. Looking back at some of my dreams as messages puts a whole new perspective on things. How would one characterize people in my dreams either shooting at me or in desperate need of assistance. I once had a dream that included my then best friend in sixth grade. We were literally having a duel with pistols. Only my gun would not fire. He kept shooting me and hitting me and there was nothing that I could do about it. Soon after the seventh grade we were no longer friends. Many of my dreams are like that; no matter how hard I am trying to do something in my dream I can’t do it. What ever this adds to the post I have no idea. I just thought of that dream and decided to share it.
Benjamin
Hi Benjamin,
About dreams…well, its a huge topic both spiritually and also in the secular world where so much of research has happened.
The Bible has a lot to say about dreams…
read Job 33:15; Daniel 2:28,Job 20:8; Isaiah 29:8,Numbers 12:6; Job 33:15…there are lots more;
In order to interpret dreams you need to understand that first of all dreams are HIGHLY symbolic.
2. They are very personal - they will usually be in symbols which mean something to you; hence even if you and I were to receive the same messages like say, the dream might be vastly different depending on the way I relate to things and people and who means what to me and you and so on.
Most of the time, the dreams are a personal message to you - its not meant for others,though sometimes it could be for others also; in the sense that, say you see your father giving you some instruction in a dream - its not so much as your father giving you some instruction as is the father figure in your life - maybe this is God whom you relate to as father,giving you the necessary instruction for your state in life.
Here are some more…
you see yourself in a new state - possible interpretation: what state of mind are you in right now?
you see yourself in a new country - are you entering new territory be it in business, life etc…?
you see snakes around you …could mean presence of evil or even the need for wisdom - “gentle as doves and wise/prudent as serpents”
gray hair - “gray hair is the crown of old age(wisdom)”…proverbs
those are a few i mentioned to illustrate biblical imagery…
the ones you mentioned seem to be more concerned with personal images as i mentioned before…something you need to work out…but heres soemthign that could be helpful…
you mentioned a friend - a close friend possibly i assume; more than just the literal meaning of he and you fighting, could it be more to do with two parts of you - the other part being shown as the friend, who is so close to you…fighting? this could characterize a state of confusion perhaps…you get what i mean?
like for example lets say you see an important public figure being hurt; thats not for you to immediately rush and warn him/her; but it could be meant in a way like “what does that person mean to you?”, “what do they represent?”, “what comes to your mind when you see them?” and so on…
Recently my dad had a dream; someone shot him three or four times and the bullets lodged in his kidney and in the dream he thought to himself, “there are bullets inside my kidney, i have to take them out”…a doctors check revealed 3 stones in the kidney!!
and they were pretty small so they hadnt yet started causing problems…
Well hope that helps…theres a lot more i could write, but dont have the time. About catholic teaching: well, Ive not found explicit catholic teaching on dreams as much as ive found with certain evangelicals .There is one evangelical, a phd and a brilliant person whom i got a lot of info from; and it was actually while listening to his series on dreams that a whole new chapter in my life opened up! As he says, we spend 1/3rd of our life sleeping…and several times missing out on a lot of what God has to say during that time!
Even now I have a lot of respect and admiration for him because of the way Ive been blessed through his ministry. I myself am a staunch catholic and I always check against catholic teaching if the things i receive are valid and didnt find anything wrong.
Also,from practical experience I was able to confirm a lot of that…I dont think its allowed to post any teachings of non catholics on this forum so I wont mention anything of his name and so on.Hope this helps!
Blessings,
Leo