Does anyone here have the gift of....

[Discoteque]

...dream interpretation?

I had a strange dream night before last. It was the first really disturbing dream I've had in a loooong time.

I dreamed that it was my birthday, and my mom, dad and grandmother were going to take me out to lunch. It is oddly significant that it was those three relatives, because they are all very strong Christian role models in my life. However, no matter how much I tried, I could not seem to get away from my office....work kept piling up, and tho I wanted to get out, I couldn't. I also remember trying to call them on my cellphone, then getting frustrated because I realized none of them have a cellphone!

I was VERY upset about not getting together with them, and spent a lot of time sobbing and crying (even to the point of waking up with a wet pillow). At one point I DID get out, and was running around all over this unfamiliar town, looking/asking in every restaurant, desperately trying to find them, all to no avail.

I woke up very sad and unnerved, and it bothered me all day. Then, on the way to work, I got into my car, turned on my fave Christian radio station, and heard a message about....Nebucadnezzer's dreams and Joseph interpreting their meaning!! What's up with THAT?!

So.....can anyone interpret this for me, or do you think is this something I shouldn't take so seriously???

 

[adamswildhoney]

maybe your stressed out about something

 

[BVS]

I don't think you should take it that seriously. A lot of psychology studies believe that dreams are often your sub conscious "taking care of unfinished business." If you went to sleep feeling guilty about not spending enough time with your family, or worried about something at work. Your dreams would reflect that is some fashion or another.

But if you want to look at it in an "interpretation" standpoint, it looks like it can be a struggle you're having between the earthly and the spiritual. Work and modern technology (cell phones) being the earthly and your family members being the spiritual. The spiritual didn't have the burdens of the earthly. They weren't affected by their work, they didn't have cell phones, but you were being strongly influenced or pulled away by these things.

Just a thought.

 

[nbcrusader]

A couple of things:

First, there are only a few recorded instances of dream interpretation in Scripture. Daniel helping King Nebuchadnezzar, Joseph helping Pharaoh, and Gideon overhearing the interpretation of a dream predicting victory over the Mideanites are three examples. I don?t know of any more. All these occurrences are prior to the gift of the Holy Spirit. God worked through His people in different ways pre-Holy Spirit than He does today.

Second, Jeremiah 27:9 seems to put dream interpretation in the same category as divination and sorcery. Bad stuff ? stay away.

Third, I am not sure dream interpretation is a Spiritual gift or is something that God gives to believers today. Gifts are given so that God may be glorified. I?d venture a guess that most who claim the ability to interpret dreams do so for their own glory, not God?s glory.

May you be overwhelmed with God?s peace and comfort.

 

[foray]

If I'm not mistaken, Jacob dreamed of a stairway/ladder to heaven, Joseph (Jesus' "dad") dreamed about the immaculate conception and Pilate's wife had a nightmare/premonition before Jesus' trial.


foray

 

[dizzy]

Second, Jeremiah 27:9 seems to put dream interpretation in the same category as divination and sorcery. Bad stuff ? stay away.

I think I have read or heard about this too, but I'm kinda confused.

Over the last two years, something would happen that was related to several of my dreams. They were very trivial, but they would kinda bother me.

 

[nbcrusader]

Over the last two years, something would happen that was related to several of my dreams. They were very trivial, but they would kinda bother me.

Dizzy, I think this is a testament to the way our minds are created. Humans have the wonderful ability to draw connections and relations between sets of facts.

You may be drawing a connection between what you remember from a dream and a particular incident occurring later. Dreams, by no means, predict our future.

Go in God?s peace knowing He is in control.

 

[nbcrusader]

If I'm not mistaken, Jacob dreamed of a stairway/ladder to heaven, Joseph (Jesus' "dad") dreamed about the immaculate conception and Pilate's wife had a nightmare/premonition before Jesus' trial.


foray

Thank you foray - there are many other instances where God mad a revelation through a dream. Again, before the giving of the Holy Spirit, this was one way for God to communicate to people. Instances where someone else interprets the dream is much more limited.

God bless.

 

[oliveu2cm]

Actually I am a firm believer in dream interpretaiton, but you must find a "true" interpretation book, or what have you. (Some insist every dream is about sex. ) I believe the subconscious speaks to us at night, and either vents our frustrations, exposes our fears, lets us know if we are unhealthy (Dreaming of a sick/dying animal usually indicates you yourself are sick- go to the doctors!), lets us know we are stressed, where we seek refuge, if we are happy..etc. Some may say people can know this on their own, well..

My most trusted dream interpretation site is Swoon I've accurately interpreted many dreams there. It's amazing.


Here Disco, I've picked out some symbols and looked them up for you (of course only you will really see how they apply to your life).


Tears
A dream of total emotional release can be a rare and refreshing event. As tears blur your vision, they cleanse your eyes and prepare you for something new. If you can taste the salty wetness of the tears, you have probably not extinguished the wellspring from which the sorrow came.

Confusion

Birthday

Grandparents

Parents
You already had a good pick up on the representation of your parents and grandmother.

Restaurant

Office

Sorrow

Emptiness

I just looked up words that came to my mind after reading your interpretation- again, only you can decide if "empty" is a true description of how you felt during the dream.


So, lol, hope that helps, I know I just wrote a lot.

Olive

 

[oliveu2cm]

sorry, my computer was messing up-- but i wanted to add, disco, to search for "busy" or "work" as well, I couldn't get to it anymore on this computer.

Olive

 

[cell]

Dreams, by no means, predict our future.

I have a hard time understanding what you mean whether you think dreams dont predict our futures or the other way around. I have had several dreams come true. Some of them were deaths of family members, and other things that are pretty significant to my life.

I have recurring dreams all the time. I know what they mean, but I don't know if doing something about it, to make some kind of peace, or put closure to the whole thing will actually do anything to stop the dreams from recurring. But I do believe that dreams can predict the future. That I firmly believe.

 

[nbcrusader]

I have a hard time understanding what you mean whether you think dreams dont predict our futures or the other way around. I have had several dreams come true. Some of them were deaths of family members, and other things that are pretty significant to my life.

I have recurring dreams all the time. I know what they mean, but I don't know if doing something about it, to make some kind of peace, or put closure to the whole thing will actually do anything to stop the dreams from recurring. But I do believe that dreams can predict the future. That I firmly believe.

I think we are saying a couple of different things here. As we sleep, our brain goes through a daily cleaning function. Dreams may be unresolved thoughts, burdens or stress in our life. That being said, a dream may prompt future action, such as resolving a conflict with a family member or a friend. On this point, we are in agreement.

But to say a dream is a vision of something that will happen in the future is entirely false. We may be able to relate future events to our fleeting memories of dreams, but there is no cause-effect relationship between a dream and a future event.

To analyze dreams as a gauge of what will happen tomorrow is at the same level as reading the daily horoscope. The analyzer will make broad, general statements. The statements have enough different facts that one or more may occur. Our wonderful brain, however, simply draws the connections between the statements and the future events.

I put my faith in Christ Himself instead of a dream analysis.

 

[melon]

Second, Jeremiah 27:9 seems to put dream interpretation in the same category as divination and sorcery. Bad stuff ? stay away.

The Bible also looks disdainfully at most science. Creationism, anyone?

Your dream, to me, shows that you feel overworked. The constant in your dream was that you were in the office, and, as you attempted to pull away from work to spend time with your family, your work drew you in more and pulled you away from your family. You have a feeling of physical detachment that your mind wishes wasn't there. What the dream says, to me, is that you need to reevaluate what is important in your life, and try and find a balance between work--which is a necessity to a point, but, for most Americans, turns into an obsession--and your personal life.

Melon

 

[cell]

But to say a dream is a vision of something that will happen in the future is entirely false.

Well, its been my experience.

 

[nbcrusader]

The Bible also looks disdainfully at most science. Creationism, anyone?

Actually, God's Word makes no comment on science. In most cases, science makes an investigation while purposefully excluding God. Regarding ?creationism?, I am unaware of a principle that allows us to pick and choose which parts of Scripture are ?true? and which we want to deem ?false?.

 

[melon]

Actually, God's Word makes no comment on science. In most cases, science makes an investigation while purposefully excluding God. Regarding ?creationism?, I am unaware of a principle that allows us to pick and choose which parts of Scripture are ?true? and which we want to deem ?false?.

Galatians 4:22-26: "For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the freeborn woman. The son of the slave woman was born naturally, the son of the freeborn through a promise. Now this is an allegory. These women represent two covenants. One was from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; this is Hagar. Hagar represents Sinai, a mountain in Arabia; it corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery along with her children. But the Jerusalem above is freeborn, and she is our mother."

I think that our attitude on the Bible is often in complete defiance of human nature, which the Bible is *not* immune to. The natural inclination to shut one's brain off and take "everything literally" in an inclination that not even St. Paul took; just read the above quote.

Secondly, Genesis is not the purveyor of chronology. In a world where people live to be 900 years old and where Cain is cast from the garden only to marry someone who shouldn't even exist, I don't tend to believe that the writers of Genesis cared too much about attention to detail, let alone fact, as much as writing down oral tradition before it was forgotten in the annals of time. As such, the importance of the creation myths, to me, is the fact that God was the creator of everything. "Seven days" could easily be "allegory," representing the greater scheme of things, perhaps extending as much as 15 billion years of (pre)history.

Third, it is a misnomer to assume that all believers of science exclude God. In contrast, I believe that, through the explorations of science, we are only scratching the surface to the complexity of God's creation. The intricacy of the "void" of the universe itself is mindblowing, and, to me, creationism is just a slap in the face to this complexity.

Melon

 

[oliveu2cm]

Well, its been my experience.

I agree with you nellie. I haven't had a dream like this but know friends who have. Our brain and subconscious are incredibly complicated and shouldn't be sold short or dismissed.

Time is relative to God, what's to say we can't have a dream predicting the future events if God (and perhaps our subconscious?) exist on a different plane than we do?

I'm not saying all dreams are telling the future or to only believe in mysticism, but there is definitely something to what your subconsious is telling you- and to say "a dream is a vision of something that will happen in the future is entirely false" is erroneous. Entirely false?

 

[nbcrusader]

The natural inclination to shut one's brain off and take "everything literally" in an inclination that not even St. Paul took; just read the above quote.

An understanding of Scripture is certainly not endeavor that can be achieved by shutting one's brain off. It also cannot be achieved by shutting out the Holy Spirit. I think it would be foolhardy to believe that one can dismiss Scripture based on the power of their own human intellect.

Your example from Galatians is just of six examples in Chapters 3 & 4 where Paul explains that salvation is by faith, not works. This does not mean that God?s selection of Isaac over Ishmael was figurative.

Secondly, Genesis is not the purveyor of chronology. In a world where people live to be 900 years old and where Cain is cast from the garden only to marry someone who shouldn't even exist, I don't tend to believe that the writers of Genesis cared too much about attention to detail, let alone fact, as much as writing down oral tradition before it was forgotten in the annals of time. As such, the importance of the creation myths, to me, is the fact that God was the creator of everything. "Seven days" could easily be "allegory," representing the greater scheme of things, perhaps extending as much as 15 billion years of (pre)history.

God never promised to give us every detail we want in Scripture. We are given all we need to know to live by faith. As for the account of creation, ?do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.? 2 Peter 3:8. God exists outside of time.

Third, it is a misnomer to assume that all believers of science exclude God. In contrast, I believe that, through the explorations of science, we are only scratching the surface to the complexity of God's creation. The intricacy of the "void" of the universe itself is mindblowing, and, to me, creationism is just a slap in the face to this complexity.

Melon

I agree with you here. I was careful to say that "in most cases" science excludes God. There are a number of brilliant physicists who have found that science supports the Genesis account of creation. Dr. Hugh Ross is the first name that comes to mind.

All that creationism does is give credit to an all-powerful, all-knowing God for the intricate complexity of our universe.

Peace.

 

[melon]

I actually do not wish to fight with you. I want to say that I respect your right to disagree with me, and I no longer wish to sound combattative in merely presenting my own beliefs.

I am Catholic in background, where they, for my entire life, have not had a problem reconciling evolution and God. The argument here is that "seven days" is a figurative amount of time, not a literal set of seven, 24 hour periods of time. The Bible, as well, promotes the idea of time symbolism, as you even brought up yourself.

"Do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.? -- 2 Peter 3:8

Who is to say that these "seven days" really weren't our concept of 15 billion years? I am a firm believer in evolution, but in an evolution created by God. I also tend to believe that, when push comes to shove, most Christians are like this anyway. To assume automatically, though, that a conventional believer in science is rejecting God is a fallacy.

Melon

 

[nbcrusader]

Melon,

I think we share more in our background than a series of forum posts reflect. I look forward to the day when we could sit down and discuss how God has worked in our lives.

Peace brother.

 

[Dreadsox]

Melon,

I think we share more in our background than a series of forum posts reflect. I look forward to the day when we could sit down and discuss how God has worked in our lives.

Peace brother.

I for one would love to be a FLY ON THE WALL for that conversation. The two of you make me think.

Peace to you all.....