Dreams and the Search for Spiritual Life

Bonnelle Lewis Strickling, Ph.D.

When we enter into psychological and spiritual work, one of the most important attitudes is one of welcoming acceptance and respect toward what might be called the "involuntary"; that is, things occurring in consciousness without effort on our part, such as emotions, or dreams. I do not mean just the content of an emotion or dream, but also giving up the power of will, and simply allowing what may come to come.

Many people are so frightened of the involuntary that it interferes with their therapy or spiritual direction. In our culture, we seem to be very nearly addicted to acts of will; our emphasis is on conscious life, productive activities, hard work and achievement. However, to live this way is to live in one-dimension. If we can accept the involuntary, we may also be on our way to solving the problem of our relationship with the Divine. It has been my experience as a therapist and spiritual director that for many searching people, working on dreams can become a way of befriending the involuntary and can be a path to the sacred.

We are losing our old spiritual contexts. However, dreams and dreamwork can provide a way in and allow us to experience our own deeply personal ways of connecting to the Divine. To pay attention to one's dreams is to contact the depths of the psyche and help cultivate the relation between conscious and unconscious that facilitates genuine religious experience.

Dreams: A Spiritual Tool

Peggy Nako, R.N.

For the past seven years, dreams have been guiding my life and my work. I have followed the guidance in my dreams to heal myself and grow in faith. I have learned to put my faith first and allow my life to be guided by a higher power, God, or whatever name one calls it. The initial experience that began this path for me was in 1989, while I volunteered with Hospice in a housing complex for AIDS patients.

There were 14 men in varying stages of AIDS living there, including Joe, who was mentally confused and needed full time care. I felt there was something very special about this guy. There was little verbal communication, but I sensed we were communicating at some deep level. He was teaching me another way of healing, beyond physical, into spiritual.

As I started to get to know the other men who lived there, they began to open up. Many started helping with the hands-on care of Joe. Joe's family also got involved. I felt at times like I was watching a movie. In addition to all the grief and pain, I was also seeing something else. I saw the healing that was happening--a spiritual healing-- for all involved. As I sat with Joe, I continued to feel this wonderful energy from him; I can only describe it as love. Shortly before he died, five volunteers showed up at the same time. We stood silently together at his bedside, all races, ages, religions, sexual orientations, and we were all connected at a spiritual level where there are no differences. Joe died the following day.

After his death, he came to me in a dream. In the dream he is standing beside a horse. I go up to him and ask if he will teach me to ride. He tells me he will, but I will fall off many times. It was at this time I was introduced to working with dreams. They have become my connection to spirit in the same way, that Joe showed me in his dying process. I now use dreams when I work with the terminally ill. My two loves, working with dreams and working with the terminally ill, have merged. Both come from the same space, spirit.

Dreamwork in the Jewish Mystical Tradition

Edward Hoffman, Ph.D.

Throughout its major writings, Jewish mysticism insists dreams offer a key avenue for self-exploration and a path to greater wisdom concerning the cosmos. Jewish mystics take dreams seriously. We are told to confront our dreams honestly, rather than ignore them or dismiss them as irrelevant. Throughout the Kabbalah, this teaching echoes: we are to heed most closely the messages of our dreams.

In the eyes of the Kabbalists, this task requires definite techniques. They have always insisted that dreams be interpreted according to certain well-defined rules. Once every element in a dream is correctly unraveled following these rules, the meaning of the dream will become clear. The dream may then serve as a springboard for action.

The Kabbalistic belief in the importance of dreams as an inner path is mirrored in the technique known as the dreamfast. This technique calls for fasting and self-reflection after a foreboding dream. Another dreamwork practice is that of soliciting guidance from our dreams for our daily lives. Before going to bed, dreamers write down a question about their current life situation, place the message under their pillow, and meditate for several minutes on the question, asking the dream self for an answer. Today, this method is called dream incubation and it is known in various cultures around the world. Almost invariably a vivid dream will follow that clearly offers a helpful answer to the question.

Dreams and Spiritual Energy

Louis M. Savary, Ph.D.

Dreams are about energy, the energy of our psyches. Dreamwork is about identifying that energy, releasing it, and putting it to work in our daily lives. The symbols in our dreams are containers of mental, emotional, and especially spiritual energy available for spiritual growth.

Dreams are incomplete without dreamwork. When we do dreamwork for spiritual growth, we establish a relationship between the waking ego and the deepest self. Part of the dream's purpose is to put us in touch with our ultimate values and get us involved in our own spiritual development and growth. On one level, most dreams metaphorically reveal what is going on in a person's life and portray a current situation in a fresh light, a light from which we can grow spiritually, or holistically.

It is possible to bring a dream=s insights into waking life and integrate them into our conscious choices. In dreamwork we learn to use the energy contained in dream symbols on a daily basis in order to live our lives more fully, enjoyably, and holistically. The dream can provide guidance for healing and wholeness.

Dreams and Spirituality: An Historical Perspective

Bruce Wollmering, OSB, Ph.D.

Dreams and spirituality have been allied since the beginning of recorded history. From ancient times, dreams have been seen as messages from supernatural beings and as a way to connect with the divine realm. There are 98 specific references to dreams and dreaming in the Old Testament. And many Christians have viewed dreams as God's natural way of revealing himself over the last 1500 years. Cross-cultural studies provide additional evidence of the universality of dream use for spiritual purposes in cultures such as Babylonian, Muslim, native North American, Egyptian, and African. In fact, religion was the original field of dream study. Now, both religion and psychology recognize the value of dreams as avenues for greater self-knowledge and for furthering spiritual development. With a 5000 year tradition to build upon, we are fortunate to benefit from the work of our many predecessors, irrespective of clan, culture, or country.

Symbols of Death and New Life in Dreams

Joseph Sedley

Understanding the symbolism and story line of one's dreams is not so much a matter of analysis but of relating to dreams, of listening contemplatively to them with the heart, and then to a lesser degree, of analyzing them intellectually. For example, I worked with a clergyman on his dream about an emotionally and affectively needy woman. The dream ends with the woman being on the wall opposite the dreamer in a crucifix. She gazes down on the dreamer with hope, tenderness, and agony on her face and says, "Lift me up." I worked to help the reverend focus on the energy level of the symbols in the dream and hear what the dream was telling him. He sensed the dream reflected back to him a part of his own psyche that was crying out for new life. In time he came to see this as his feminine side, which he denied, rejected, or ignored. He spent time relating to the image of the woman in his dream, and after several years of working with his dreams, he is more centered and balanced emotionally and spiritually. He has been "lifted up."

Angelic Encounters in Dreams

Robert Van de Castle, Ph.D.

Recently, there has been widespread interest about the possible existence of angels. In dream research, there has also been more interest in dreams which might be labelled "archetypal"-- dreams that display qualities of awe and include encounters with mythological spiritual beings.

A logical extension of this interest in archetypal dreams, was to explore whether angelic figures were being reported in dreams and what kinds of interactions that occurred. After requesting accounts from several sources, nearly 100 dreams about angels were collected. Some characteristics of these dreams were angels that were not "vitalized", such as a dream of an angel statue. Here it seems the dreamer is capable of perceiving the form of an angel, but has not yet made contact with the angelic spirit. There were other dreams where there was contact between the dreamer and the angel, such as a hug by an angel that was described as "the most beautiful experience I've ever had in my life." The presence of support by wings, and extraordinary light or music was also reported.

Is Dream Interpretation a Sin?

Kelly Bulkeley, Ph.D.

We may all know people who are skeptical or hostile toward the subject of dreams because they believe dreams violate the teachings of Judaism or Christianity and that dream interpretation is a sinful practice.

This hostility is primarily rooted in three groups of biblical passages: passages that cite dreams to be fleeting and insubstantial; passages that attack false prophets who proudly boast of their dream revelations and lead people away from true faith; and passages that assert dreams are an inferior way to communicate with God.

To address these concerns directly: yes, many dreams are ephemeral but at certain points in our lives we may not have dreams with a special clarity and intensity. Secondly, yes, dreams are potentially deceptive, but the Bible suggests that if you have a deep and true faith in God, you will have a reliable guide in discerning the meaning of dreams. Thirdly, the Bible does show dreams to be an inferior form of communication between humans and the divine, but God uses many different means of communicating with humans in the Bible, and dreams are unquestionably one of these.

If there is a general message about dreams to be drawn from the Bible, it is this: Dreams are one of the ways God's spirit enters people's lives. Although a dream may initially appear strange or frightening, a person who has faith and a discerning judgment can eventually grasp its meaning.