Dream Interpretation

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johnb
Posts: 34
Joined: Sun Sep 07, 2008 9:58 pm
Location: K.C. MO.

Dream Interpretation

Post by johnb » Mon Mar 18, 2013 3:54 pm

Anyone know of any quality books or teachings on dreams and/or dream interpretation?
Just curious.
“The Underground Church is a poor and suffering church, but it has few lukewarm members.” - Richard Wurmbrand

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steve
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Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2008 9:45 pm

Re: Dream Interpretation

Post by steve » Mon Mar 18, 2013 5:08 pm

There are secular and Christian books on dream interpretation—often based on Freudian or Jungian psychological theories. I don't recommend them. Biblically, some (but probably not most) dreams are prophetic. In scripture, whenever a prophetic dream required interpretation, it was given through a prophetically gifted interpreter. I believe such dreams and such interpretations are inspired, and could not be properly understood through psychological rules learned from books. Those who get into dream interpretation are likely to be looking for clues into someone's "subconscious" through analyzing dreams which are not in the class of those prophetic dreams in scripture.

johnb
Posts: 34
Joined: Sun Sep 07, 2008 9:58 pm
Location: K.C. MO.

Re: Dream Interpretation

Post by johnb » Tue Mar 19, 2013 8:41 am

Thanks Steve,

I’m with you on those points. Additionally, I’m not of the persuasion that you can teach someone a gift/grace of the Spirit in order to ‘learn how to do it’. It seems that if you could teach it then it wouldn’t be a gift that you receive from the Lord at that point, but rather a technique that anyone can learn at anytime whether the Lord is in it or not.

Interestingly, I have some family that is listening to some ‘teachings’ of John Paul Jackson on dreams and dream interpretation. To be clear, I am usually not a very big fan of Jackson, however I have sat in on a few ‘lessons’ and he compared the Freudian aspects of psychology and how they have influenced how we think about dreams and dream interpretation vs a biblical model. Although there was a bit of subjectivism, I have to say it was pretty interesting. If I remember correctly (I was in & out of the room), one of his points was the comparison of the ‘conscience, subconscious, & id’ vs the ‘body, soul, & spirit’. I appreciated how he was exposing false Freudian understandings, something I hope Christians continue to become aware of in general.

Again, I’m not usually very receptive to that particular teacher but he brought up some interesting points and I was hoping there were some quality (key word) understandings in this area of dreams and dream interpretation, especially if the Lord is still speaking through dreams.
“The Underground Church is a poor and suffering church, but it has few lukewarm members.” - Richard Wurmbrand

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