The Inspirational Power of Dreams
I don't think those of us who live in the modern world quite understand the the power of dreams in the pre-scientific ancient world. Our brains need to dream while we sleep, and they do so as the imaginative side runs wild with our current thoughts. Some of our dreams seem very real and sometimes they're bizarre. You know what I'm talking about. But can you imagine a world where no one had a clue why they dreamed? That's why we find dreams figuring prominently in the Bible, from Pharaoh, to the dreams of the prophets, Nebuchadnezzar, and Pilate's wife. It was a mixed up superstitious world where they concluded dreams were sent from the gods as divine messages. This is something we can no longer accept and just one more reason why I reject the Bible as inspired by God since dreams were a major source of its inspiration. Even today people consider dreams as evidence of a spiritual world. Poppycock!
2 comments:
I have read scholars who claim (I don't recall who at the moment) that the "appearances" of Jesus after his death might well have been in dreams.
For years after my father died I dreamt about him. If I had been raised in a culture that expected such experiences to be true and meaningful, I'm sure I would have believed that he had "appeared" to me to bring me some kind of message.
On a related note:
Many children 'hear voices'; most aren't bothered
Kind of like, "Come play with us, Danny," I suppose.
I suspect that the people in prescientific societies who continued to experience this phenomenon as they matured probably became tribal shamans or other religious authority figures.
Post a Comment