Does that dream sound familiar to you? Perhaps so, for it contains the essential elements of common dreams: an unpleasant experience, unusual dress, a rapid change of scene, inability to run, with part of the action stimulated by a sound in the bedroom. Happily, we wake up in time to escape!
Study of Sleep and Dreams
Using electronic gadgetry of the space age, researchers have studied changes in brain waves and the activity in certain brain cells during the dreaming process. Science is still a long way from a comprehensive understanding of dreams, but some conclusions are now quite universally accepted. For example, it has been shown that everyone dreams, even those who vigorously deny it. Infants spend up to 70 percent of their sleeping time in the dream state, whereas adults spend only about 24 percent. Cats and many other mammals show brain activity during sleep, and it is believed that they also dream. Surely the sleeping dog is dreaming when it whines and barks as its paws twitch.
Experiments on human subjects indicate that sleep can be divided into stages. Beginning with a light sleep, we gradually pass through progressively deeper sleep until we reach the profound Stage IV. Then, after a lighter stage, we enter the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. As its name indicates, this stage is accompanied by darting movements of the eyes, as though the eyes were following rapid movements on a screen. Even though the eyes are closed, this movement is clearly visible to an observer. (European researchers call this stage “paradoxical sleep,” since a study of the brain waves reveals that the brain is functioning as if the body were awake.) REM sleep is generally a period of dreaming.
In this research the procedure is for the observer to awaken the sleeper when the period of REM sleep ends and have him relate his dream. It is found that it usually takes about 90 minutes for the sleeper to pass through all the stages of sleep, from Stage I through the REM period, after which the cycle begins again. One writer said: “The nightly pattern is as regular as the motions of the planetary bodies.” The initial period of REM sleep lasts for only five to ten minutes, but this gradually lengthens until the final period, which lasts about 50 minutes. In a normal night’s sleep, there is a total of 90 to 120 minutes of REM sleep, or dreaming. So you generally have a total of dreaming time equal to that of an ordinary movie. Not a bad way to pass the night, you say?
Why We Dream
Research indicates that some dreams are a product of our daily activities, sensations and thoughts. In What Your Dreams Mean, Ann Faraday states that “the majority of dreams in some way reflect what has preoccupied our minds during the previous day or two.”
Interestingly, some experiments show that “all of us seem to need our dreams, and the younger we are, the more necessary they appear to be. . . .
By using drugs that selectively eliminate only REM sleep, researchers have proven that adults can survive long stretches without their dreams.
At the same time, though, these dream-starved persons undergo subtle personality changes: They become increasingly abrasive and anxious, often unable to concentrate as well.” Confirming that dreams do play an essential part in our lives, another researcher stated: “REM periods (and hence dreams) are there for a reason, or reasons, and judging by the degree to which the body is involved, almost certainly an important one.”
Interpretation of Dreams
In view of all the factors involved in dreaming, it becomes increasingly clear why it is unwise to attach special significance to our dreams. Since everyone dreams nearly every night, should we feel that our dreams are unusual and have a special meaning?
Rather than attempt to interpret dreams for others, the tendency among some investigators today is to teach persons how to interpret their own dreams. Since each person is acquainted with his own experiences and problems, it is felt that he is in the best position to deduce the meaning of his dreams.
Interpretation of Dreams
In view of all the factors involved in dreaming, it becomes increasingly clear why it is unwise to attach special significance to our dreams. Since everyone dreams nearly every night, should we feel that our dreams are unusual and have a special meaning?
Rather than attempt to interpret dreams for others, the tendency among some investigators today is to teach persons how to interpret their own dreams. Since each person is acquainted with his own experiences and problems, it is felt that he is in the best position to deduce the meaning of his dreams.
But have you ever tried to figure out what a surrealistic painter had in mind when he painted a certain picture? How many persons in a group would give the same meaning? That is just how varied dream interpretation can be, according to Dr. Calvin Hall.
On the other hand, if your sleep is often disturbed by nightmares, rather than looking for any meaning in them, it might be better to look for possible causes of them in your way of life. How true what the Bible says: “For because of abundance of occupation there are dreams”!—Eccl. 5:7.
Dreams of Divine Origin
Those who search for meaning in their dreams often point to divinely inspired dreams recorded in the Bible and ask, ‘Could not some dreams today also be inspired of God?’ It is true that in Bible times God did use dreams to communicate with his servants, as in the well-known dream of Joseph when he was warned to flee to Egypt with his wife, Mary, and their child, Jesus. God also sent dreams to men not devoted to him, as when he gave the prophetic dreams to Egypt’s Pharaoh announcing seven years of famine in the land.—Matt. 2:13; Gen. 41:1-7.
All such divinely sent dreams were given so as to protect or guide God’s servants, or to influence the successful outworking of his will and purpose. However, the apostle Paul wrote: “God, who long ago spoke on many occasions and in many ways [including dreams] to our forefathers by means of the prophets, has at the end of these days spoken to us by means of a Son.” (Heb. 1:1, 2) We have in the Bible a record of what God ‘spoke to us by his Son.’ So there is no need for Jehovah God to use dreams to speak to us.
Therefore, if you are wondering what the future has in store for you, or if you are searching for a solution to your problems, you can find the answer, not in an interpretation of your dreams, but in God’s Word, the Bible.
On the other hand, if your sleep is often disturbed by nightmares, rather than looking for any meaning in them, it might be better to look for possible causes of them in your way of life. How true what the Bible says: “For because of abundance of occupation there are dreams”!—Eccl. 5:7.
Dreams of Divine Origin
Those who search for meaning in their dreams often point to divinely inspired dreams recorded in the Bible and ask, ‘Could not some dreams today also be inspired of God?’ It is true that in Bible times God did use dreams to communicate with his servants, as in the well-known dream of Joseph when he was warned to flee to Egypt with his wife, Mary, and their child, Jesus. God also sent dreams to men not devoted to him, as when he gave the prophetic dreams to Egypt’s Pharaoh announcing seven years of famine in the land.—Matt. 2:13; Gen. 41:1-7.
All such divinely sent dreams were given so as to protect or guide God’s servants, or to influence the successful outworking of his will and purpose. However, the apostle Paul wrote: “God, who long ago spoke on many occasions and in many ways [including dreams] to our forefathers by means of the prophets, has at the end of these days spoken to us by means of a Son.” (Heb. 1:1, 2) We have in the Bible a record of what God ‘spoke to us by his Son.’ So there is no need for Jehovah God to use dreams to speak to us.
Therefore, if you are wondering what the future has in store for you, or if you are searching for a solution to your problems, you can find the answer, not in an interpretation of your dreams, but in God’s Word, the Bible.
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