Curious Christian

One altered state of consciousness I haven’t written much about yet is dream states.

The Jewish and Christian scriptures both affirm dreams as a modality of divine revelation. In the Old Testament, the figures of Joseph and Daniel loom large. In the New Testament, the book of Acts is a rich source of dream based revelations. There is a consistent biblical witness that we should take dreams seriously. So why is teaching on dreams so neglected in mainstream Christianity?

It’s not completely neglected of course. There are strands of Charismatic and Contemplative Christianity that have delved into this subject. But it is largely at the level of folk practice and you’d be hard put to find a serious theological treatise on the subject in your local Christian book store.

Why do I raise this? For two reasons. Firstly, I have been delving into the arena of creative visualization / visionary meditation in recent weeks to stretch my meditative experience and this is a related field of study. And secondly, because I find the Spirit is drawing an increasing number of people my way for dream and vision interpretation.

For reasons of confidentiality I will not disclose the specifics, but I must say I’ve been stretched in new directions by seeing how the Spirit of God is working in the lives of the people who’ve shared their search with me. You cannot predict the movement of the wind.