I have been researching dream interpretation after reading posts on another forum's Sign Gifts forum, and what I saw there worried me. I went to the New Testament and could not find anywhere, other than the experience of Joseph, husband of Mary. There was nothing after the Day of Pentecost giving any support for people's dreams being interpreted. What I saw in the dreams that sJoseph got, they were not puzzles, but clear literal guidance about not being afraid to take the pregnant Mary for his wife, getting out of Bethlehem to save the life of the baby Jesus, and another dream telling him not to go back under Herod's son's jurisdiction.
So I did further research and found that the classic work involving it was Sigmund Freud's "The Interpretation of Dreams". I looked it up in Wikipedia and read the description of how Freud wrote about dream interpretation, and what do you know? It is no different to what I saw in the Sign Gifts forum! The interpretations of dreams under Freud where of the same dream puzzles and obscure images that were described in the "Christian" Sign Gift forum.
I also looked up a couple of New Age sites where there were people offering dream interpretations. and there is a psychology website that has a comprehensive list of all the different classifications of dream interpretation that anyone can look up and find one that fits their dream. And the interpretations were identical to the "Christian" interpretations on the Sign Gift thread about the dreams. Absolutely no difference at all!
What does that tell you? I know what it tells me - to keep right away from dream interpretation, avoiding it like the Corona Virus! It has its foundation in New Age occult, and can open up an unwary person to demonic interference in their Christian faith.
Hi Paul,
Interesting post!
I've been thinking about dream interpretations since it came up here a couple of months ago. Your post helps puts some things in focus.
As I'm thinking about the dreams in the Bible, God either spoke plainly to people, like Solomon, Moses, Abimelech, or expressed Himself in symbols that were plainly understood, like with Joseph's dreams of his family bowing down, and Jacob's ladder to heaven.
There are some exceptions I can think of. Pharaoh did not understand his dreams of the 7 years. This baker and cupbearer didn't understand their dreams. Joseph had to interpret them.
Nebuchadnezzar didn't understand his dreams, Daniel had to interpret. Naturally those interpretations came from God.
Here's an interesting verse:
Numbers 12:6 "And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream."
Gideon went to the camp of the Midianites, and overheard one man share a dream, and the other share it's interpretation.
Of Daniel, we're told he had understanding of all visions and dreams. I'm guessing somewhere someone has written a "Daniel's Dream Interpretation Manual". I don't question whether he had that understanding, I'm certain he did. Daniel, when he dreamed in ch. 7 needed to ask for understanding of what he himself saw. And that explanation was contained within the vision. Later, Daniel would be told to go away, the words were sealed.
It seems to me that for the most part, God's people didn't need their dreams interpretted, but others did. Daniel alone is said to "understand visions and dreams", and Daniel alone, of God's people, didn't understand his own dream. But it is also called a vision, so I think that has more to do with why. I think that dreams are one kind of thing, and visions another, but I wouldn't be dogmatic about that.
I'm wondering what place dream interpretation occupies.
It's not mentioned in the places that speak of spiritual gifts, though interpretation of tongues is.
I don't see any examples in the Bible, and particularly in those places that teach about the ministry in the church, of interpreting dreams.
Where do we get the idea that God speaks to us in ways we cannot understand? That is, excepting those that He has made known?
Shouldn't we expect to understand a dream in which God is telling us something?
Why do some people think that God is speaking in dreams of which they do not know the meaning?
For all my life I've routinely dreamed lucid dreams. I've dreamed all manner of dreams, I think. Some dreams have seemed decidedly supernatural in origin. I've always thought that the ones where God showed me something, and I understood, that these were more likely from God, and the others, random, wild, obsure, whatever, these were all . . . dreams.
Ecclesiastes 5
2 Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.
3 For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool's voice is known by multitude of words.
4 When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed.
5 Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.
6 Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hands?
7 For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities: but fear thou God.
Much love!