Someone asked me recently whether I believe God speaks through dreams today like He did in the time of Pharaoh and Joseph.  I said yes.  She wasn’t so sure about that.  “I know why I dreamed what I dreamt last night,” she mused.  “It’s because I’m stressed about it.”

Maybe.  And maybe not.  The happenings of each day offer your psyche a million things to dream about.  Why did you dream about the specific thing you dreamt about last night, rather than one of the other million things you could have dreamed about?

Most of us apply our day-life to our night-dreams in an attempt to understand our dreams.  We say, “Last night I dreamt about homeless people because yesterday I got harassed by a homeless person.”  End of story.

What if you turned that viewpoint on its head and asked what your night-dream is saying about your day-life?  Perhaps your psyche picked up on yesterday’s incident with a homeless person because there’s a part of yourself that doesn't feel at home in your life. 

Think of words associated with “homeless”: rejected, outcast, lazy, avoided, not wanted, beggar, unloved, without a home.  What part(s) of yourself have you rejected, avoided, cast out?  What about yourself do you shrink away from?  Is there a side of yourself that you never indulge because it’s been labeled “lazy”? 

All parts of ourselves have a wisdom of their own.  When we reject some part because it is seen as undesirable by the rest of society—or by our parents, partner, boss or friends—the wisdom of that part of ourselves remains untapped.  In order to access the wisdom, which we need at some point in our lives, we have to give the inner homeless person money, or energy.  We do that by paying attention to the dream image—by asking the questions that open us to forgotten parts of ourselves.

Fortunately for Egypt, Pharaoh paid attention to his dreams.  After dreaming about seven fat ears of corn and seven skinny ears of corn, he didn’t wake up and say, “Oh, I dreamt that because the Minister of Corn bored me to tears with his report yesterday.”  When he dreamt about seven thin cows eating seven plump cows, he didn’t blow off his dream with the excuse that he had a bit much to drink the night before.  (If you want the full scoop, this story is found in Genesis 41.)

Pharaoh pondered his dreams.  After a series of dreams that puzzled him, he called in a dreamworker named Joseph.  Turned out his dreams were warning him that lean times were coming and he needed to prepare himself and his country for a famine.  The drought was seven years away, but Pharaoh trusted his dreams through seven fruitful years.  He stockpiled grain for the seven years of scarcity that followed.  He believed God could speak to him through his dreams.  He trusted his dreams enough to act on them once he understood their message.

Understanding your own dreams takes dedication and work; sometimes it requires outside help.  One place to find a professional dreamworker is to google “Jungian analyst + your city”.   A couple of books that have been useful to me are:

• A Little Course in Dreams by Robert Bosnak,
• Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth by Robert A. Johnson,
• Dream Coaching: Achieve the Life You Were Meant to Lead by Understanding Your Dreams by David C. Lohff,
• and the chapter on dreams in Unexpected Miracles: The Gift of Synchronicity and How to Open It by David Richo.

Godspeed as you wake up to the potential revealed in your night-dreams.

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