Dreams: Are They Important?

Throughout history, people have wondered about their dreams. The earliest recorded dreams were written by the Sumerians in about 2000 BC The Old Testament, which included many examples of dreams and their influence on the dreamer, dates back to at least 1800 BC.

The early Christian church and the writers of the Old and New Testament viewed the dream as one of the most significant and most important ways in which God revealed His will to an individual. Nearly every major world religion and practically all other cultures, past and present, view dreams as highly significant and meaningful also. It wasn’t until the end of the Middle Ages that the leaders of the Christian church took the position that dreams no longer contained messages from God and were to be ignored.

In America, the negative attitude toward dreams is slowly changing. As more and more people become aware of the writing of psychologists Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung, the interest in dreams is increasing. Jung believes there is information in the unconscious that our waking selves need to know and this information comes to us through dreams.

Not all dreams are of equal importance. There are “little” dreams which comment on events in our daily lives. These dreams sort out the day’s events and prepare us for the next day. There are “bigger” dreams which deal with a crisis in our lives or signal a major personal development. For example, there are reports that show that children are continuing to experience nightmares with images of the destruction of the World Trade Center, or as both Jung and Freud report there are cases where dreams have been used for a diagnosis of physical illnesses. Then there are “big” dreams which are spiritual dreams that nourish the soul.

The attitudes toward dreams seem to be coming full circle. At the beginning of recorded history, dreams were considered to be very significant and many dreams were thought to be messages from a higher power. As the church leaders of the Western culture emerged from the Middle Ages, they decided that dreams were meaningless and were to be ignored. New knowledge of psychology and the impact of dreams on the dreamer has brought about a change in attitude. There are now people who understand that dreams can be significant and can be spiritual.