What is the purpose of dreams?
Question:
What is the purpose of dreaming? I know in the Bible, especially the Old Testament, there are prophets or people there that have dreams and some needs to be interpreted. At least they have meanings, but can we still compare them with the modern world? Some people I have asked said they are in control of their dream. Maybe they must be half asleep or something.
Take Joseph, the Pharaoh in Egypt or others in the Bible. Dreams have meanings, don't they? What about today? Do our dreams have a meaning or a message as well? For some people, they take the meanings of their dreams what it is. For example, I dreamt of what happened yesterday, like I was in school, doing my businesses and studying, and then sometimes, something different will come up in my dream just like my case: there was this part that I was slashed in the back with a knife while I was walking along with a friend, of course, and it took a little while before I felt the pain. There were also times when I was having nightmares too or sometimes my dreams aren't straight. Sceneries that suddenly change for some reason; People I knew were in a place I do not know and vice versa; people I never saw for a long time would suddenly appear in my dream; there are some tragic or sad moments too and also some strange ones
Here is another example, this time it was my sister's. She dreamt that all her relatives including herself were in a mall looking at their interests like our father, who loves music was in a music shop. Our mother, who loves clothes, was shopping for clothes with her sisters. There are others too if you get my point. Fortunately for her, she does not need to "know" her dream. Same goes for my younger sister since she is still a child, dreams of let's say, movies we have seen in the past, or games she had been playing, funny moments and seldom sad moments.
I think dreams are somehow connected to our feelings. Or maybe something else, I am not sure, but hopefully, I can be somehow guided and be given any information about dreams.
I hope you understand my point of view, for me it's really hard to explain, thank you very much.
Answer:
Scientists tell us that dreams come as our brains organize the experiences that we have had during the day, categorizing the various elements for easier retrieval. Since connections are made, odd things are seemingly associated with one another in our dreams. Solomon said, "For a dream comes through much activity" (Ecclesiastes 5:3).
Most of our dreams are not very memorial, but that is because they aren't real but odd associations. This too is mentioned in the Bible. Zophar used the fleetingness of dreams to illustrate a point, "He will fly away like a dream, and not be found; yes, he will be chased away like a vision of the night" (Job 20:8).
God has made use of dreams in the past to announce His will, such as the dreams Joseph had in Genesis 37:8. But these dreams were not always clear. Pharaoh had to find Joseph to interpret the meaning of his dream (Genesis 41:15-16). Later Nebuchadnezzar had Daniel interpret his dreams (Daniel 1:17). In other words, God at times used clear meaning in dreams, but in other dreams, He made it so obtuse that it required a prophet of God to make sense of it.
As you go through the Old Testament, it is also very evident that dreams from God were rarities. Every dream did not have meaning. There were false prophets in Jeremiah's day who used their personal dreams to make up false statements, which they attributed to God. "For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you, nor listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed. For they prophesy falsely to you in My name; I have not sent them, says the LORD" (Jeremiah 29:8-9).
Dreams were not the only means in which God communicated to His people in the Old Testament. Prophets received words from God, they had visions, they had visitations by angels, etc. But all this has changed in the current era. "God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son" (Hebrews 1:1-2). The time for dreams from God has ended. The Lord Jesus Christ has spoken, and it is his will that we must obey. "Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3).
