Does God Speak Through Dreams?

English: Joseph made ruler in Egypt (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For God does speak—now one way, now another—
    though no one perceives it.
¹⁵ In a dream, in a vision of the night,
    when deep sleep falls on people
    as they slumber in their beds,
¹⁶ he may speak in their ears
    and terrify them with warnings,
¹⁷ to turn them from wrongdoing
    and keep them from pride,
¹⁸ to preserve them from the pit,
    their lives from perishing by the sword.

Job 33:14-18

New International Version (NIV)

         If you are familiar with the Bible, you can probably recall many references to dreams and dream interpretations.   There are significant stories about Jacob, Joseph, Daniel, and many others who had dreams or interpreted the dreams of others.  Most believers would acknowledge that God does speak to some in dreams and perhaps has even spoken to them.  

       While I have had dreams that were very spiritual and others from which I awoke feeling as though I might have been given a spiritual message, I cannot say for certain that I have ever had a dream where God or any spirit has communicated to me through my subconscious mind.  Therefore lacking that experience, I will submit this to the readers.

        Have you ever had a dream where you believe God or some spiritual entity has spoken to you?   Do you know of anyone who claims to have had this experience?   What are your opinions on this matter?  

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Dream Communication: A Call from a Past Girlfriend

Knoxville, TN, as seen from the top edge of Neyland Stadium (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

             A couple of recent guest posts (here and here) by Stephen T McCarthy of Ferret-Faced Fascist Friends gave me a dream memory jog that took me back to one of my own possible dream communication experiences.  Perhaps not quite as dramatic as the experiences recounted by Stephen, my dream is curious to me nonetheless and left me strongly wondering about it for a few weeks after having the dream and even to this day I wonder.  

The Dream about a Past Girlfriend

          This occurred probably about five years ago or more.  I recall that I was still employed at the time so the time frame would be correct.  The dream itself I don't even remember much about, but the impact of that dream had a big effect upon me.

           In the dream I believe I was at some event like a picnic or something that was occurring outdoors where people were eating.   Faye, a woman with whom I had gone to high school and college was at this event.  The dream presence of this woman was very powerful and I felt like there was a very strong psychic connection between us even though I had not seen or thought of her in many years.  In the dream setting we were having a conversation, but I don't remember what we were talking about.

          When I awoke I felt as though I had actually communicated in some way with Faye.  The last time I had spoken to Faye would have been nearly thirty years previous to having the dream.  She was living in Tennessee at that time and I presumed that she may still be living there.  But after having the dream I sensed that she was somewhere near to where I was living in the Los Angeles area.

           I felt compelled to find Faye because I was convinced that she was thinking of me and trying to find me.  I began searching for her on the internet.  I made phone calls to old friends to see if anyone knew what had happened to her. 

           My search turned out to be in vain and I eventually stopped looking so intently.  Now and then I would check the internet to see if her name showed up anywhere.  I figured she was probably married now and no longer used her maiden name.  The intensity of my interest in contacting Faye waned, though now and then I do wonder about her and that dream.

Who Is Faye?

          In reality Faye was never an actual girlfriend of mine.  She was a year behind me in high school--in the same grade as my younger sister.  My sister and Faye were somewhat friends, but not particularly close.  I was in a few clubs with Faye so we did know each other.

          Later, when I was in college, I discovered that Faye was living in an apartment near campus.  She had also began attending the college where I was.  One of my friends had been hanging out with her and we started going over to her apartment to visit.  I was very interested in getting closer to her, but I didn't think she was interested in me so no relationship ever developed.

         After I stopped attending the university I lost contact with Faye.  Then about five years later I somehow got her phone number--possibly from my sister.  Faye was now teaching ballroom dancing at an Arthur Murray studio in Knoxville.  This seemed rather odd to me since Faye always seemed so quiet and shy.  The years must have changed her.  I called her and we had a brief phone conversation.   We said that we would have to make arrangements to meet up sometime, but we never did and soon after that I left East Tennessee for many years.  I never thought much about Faye after that.

A Surprising Revelation

        Several years later my sister and I were talking about old times and people we had known and Faye's name popped up in the conversation.  My sister told me that in high school Faye had a big crush on me.  I chastised her for not having told me then as I would have liked to have known that.  I realized that Faye could really have been my girlfriend if I had only taken action in that direction.

          Still another several years went by and I had the dream.   Suddenly Faye was back on my mind but in a different way.  I felt like she was communicating with me for some reason.   I had been happily married for a number of years at the time of the dream.   Why that dream at that time I don't know.  There seemed to be an urgency to the dream but it was never addressed as my inquiries to locate Faye were unsuccessful.

         A year or two ago my sister told me that she had made contact with Faye and had her phone number. She said that Faye was now married and she didn't know that much else about her.  Apparently my sister didn't pursue any further encounters with Faye.

          Now with Faye's phone number in hand, I could contact her to see if she remembered having had any strange dream experiences involving me.  Instead I chose not to.   Since I was married and she was married I didn't want to become involved in any awkward circumstances.  

           Perhaps someday we'll run into one another and the topic can be brought up.  The sense of connection was so powerful in the dream I feel like it could have been a situation of dream communication.  Then again it might just be dreamer's nonsense.   I may never know, but I'm still a bit curious.

           Have you had a powerful sense about a dream that made you seek out old friends?   To what would you most likely attribute dreams that seem like communications?     Do you think it best that I did not contact Faye?

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CAN WE COMMUNICATE WITH OTHER SOULS WHILE WE DREAM? -- Claire’s Connection

           In this post Stephen T McCarthy continues with his explorations of dream communication between souls.  See the previous post for the beginning of the series.

CLAIRE’S CONNECTION

DREAM: MARCH 9, 1997

On Monday night or early Tuesday morning (March 3^rd or 4^th ), I had a dream in which I saw Claire H., from the Tuesday night ‘A Search For God’ study group at the church. In the dream, she said to me, “I’m making a connection with you” or “I’m making contact with you”, or words to that effect. She also said, “I’m too hard for you”, and I replied with something like, “You could gain a little weight and become softer.” She balked at that suggestion.

"A Search For God" Textbook

The dream was so vivid, and left such a strong impression on me that I couldn’t get it out of my mind, and I reflected on it over and over again during the course of the day. Although my attendance at the Tuesday night ‘A Search For God’ group meetings had been sporadic at best over the last couple months, I decided that I would go to the meeting that evening in hope that Claire would be there; I wanted to approach her during the break and ask if she had recently had a dream about me, or had been recently thinking of me for any reason.

I got to the church a little late on Tuesday night, so when I walked in the door, all eyes immediately turned to me. I had barely taken a couple of steps into the room, and hadn’t even reached a chair yet when Claire said, “Stephen! Stephen! I’ve got to talk to you! I was hoping you’d show up tonight.”

The Church

I later learned that during Claire’s meditation session at 9:30 or 10:00 A.M. that morning, she had been unable to meditate very well because the image of my face kept reappearing to her for some unknown reason. She doggedly attempted to meditate but repeatedly saw my image until she finally gave up. Then she told me that she kept thinking of me during the day and was hoping I’d come to that night’s meeting because she had been missing my participation in the Tuesday night group lately.

I told Claire about my dream that night/morning and we were both surprised by the sudden and insistent thoughts we’d had of each other. Neither of us understood the references to “hardness” and “weight”. 

Interestingly, Claire had a dream about me approximately 7 or 8 months earlier in which she drove up to a house and parked her car. She tried walking up the path to the house but because of deep snow, and the fact that she was bundled up in some ridiculously oversized snowsuit, she was unable to make it up the walk. Just then, I came out of the house, walked down to her, took her by the arm and helped her up the pathway to the house.

Claire and I seem to have some sort of mutual goal or some sort of spiritual connection.

        Do you think this dream experience signifies some sort of deeper connection besides the acquaintance within the study group?   Have you had a dream communication of this type that you'd like to relate?

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Shared Dreams and Telepathy

telepathy (Photo credit: jox.)

           In our previous post our guest Stephen T McCarthy related a fascinating dream experience that seemed to involve telepathic communication between him and a friend in another city.  This story would suggest telepathy or perhaps even messaging from a supernatural source.  It seems highly unlikely that this was just something that happened out of the blue.

           Shared dreaming or communication among dreamers or between a dreamer and someone else is a theme that has been explored in movies as diverse as Inception, the Freddy Krueger films, Dreamscape, and many others.   These dream concepts have fired the imaginations of the authors of fiction as much as practitioners of true and pseudo scientific dream research.

             Many people have given accounts of telepathic and shared dream experiences, including some of those who commented on Stephen T McCarthy's post. Evidence suggests that there may be real substance to these dream communications.

             We'll save dream messages from those who have passed, spirits, and God for another post.  In this current post I would like to only think about dream communication between individuals whether both are sleeping, one sleeps while one is awake, dreamers in the same room, and dreamers in different locales.

              After I had entered my twenties, my father became more spiritual than he had ever been before.  My sister who is a year younger than I and I had moved away from home.  She was living on one side of town and I was living with some friends in the mountains about fifteen miles from my parents.

              One night I was experiencing a very deep traumatic depressive state that caused me to think strong suicidal thoughts.   Fortunately I did not follow through in any way, but the thoughts were powerful.  The next day my worried mother drove up to check on me (we did not have a phone in our cabin).  She told me that during the night my father had dreamed that I was in trouble.   Had he heard my anguish in his dream or was it a divine message?   I do not know, but I was very impacted by this.

               On another occasion my father awoke from a similar dream concerning my sister.  He and my mother got up in the wee hours and drove to my sister's house.  I don't recall what the exact problem was, but I do recall that it was serious enough to warrant attention that night.  After I was told the story days later I was once again amazed by this uncanny ability my father had acquired.  It was an ability that he demonstrated on other times in later years according to my mother.

                I never asked my father about any of this and I haven't discussed it with my mother since her initial recountings of the stories.   I can't determine exactly what the communication was, but it caught my attention and has been something for me to wonder about.

                I cannot recall ever having personally experienced dream sharing or telepathy that I could verify, but I have had many instances where I suspected it could have been a possibility.  There have been dreams in which my connection with a dream character was so vivid and palpable that I had an acute sense that a communication was occurring.  I only wish I had been able or made a better effort to see if this had occurred.

                In fact, since having started blogging, I have had several occasions where I have dreamed of other bloggers--people I have never met.  The dreams seemed very real and the characters seemed very credible.  I wonder.  Have any of you ever dreamed of me?   Perhaps we have had a telepathic dream experience.

               Have you ever shared  the same dream simultaneously with someone else?   Have you ever inexplicably dreamed about the same topic as someone else at about the same time?   Do you have any telepathic or shared dream stories to tell?

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