4 Incredible Reasonings For Dream Interpretation Across Cultures
The quest for ‘Why’ behind the dreams is a persistent human fascination existing between life and death.
Jean Lecomte du Nouÿ, A Eunuch’s Dream, 1874. Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Dreaming is a natural human phenomenon that has existed since the beginning of time. Humans have always closed their eyes to the harsh realities of this plane to open into a realm of changing shapes, strange faces, and timeless times. While scientists struggle to determine exactly how dreams form using the laws of the conscious and subconscious mind, humans as a species have always inclined towards more romantic explanations of how and why we dream.
1- Egyptians Dreams
The ancient Egyptians believed dreams to be a window into the future, a glimpse of the fortunes and misfortunes that awaited someone. If large felines inhabited your realm of dreams, you were fortunate and prosperity was your fate as cats were a symbol of good fortune.
The crops would thrive and your fields would prove to be exceptionally fertile. However if in your dreams you found yourself in a deep well, it meant you would soon be imprisoned.
2- Australians
Ancient Australians had a different outlook on dreams, they said that dreams were not just creations of the mind, but a memory of some sort. Dreams were how the deities and ancestors had created the world, and through dreaming, they had created the reality the dreamer resided in.
So through dreaming, the creation of the planet could be witnessed. Since newer realities were always being created, the process of dreaming and thus creation was an ongoing one.
This meant that there could be no universal interpretation of a dream, allowing the conversation surrounding the topic to be more open and welcome to different views and cultures.
Nations were not the only ones to try to unravel the mystery of dreams, several religions offer their own set of explanations to their followers on the meaning and importance of dreams.
3- Biblical and Christianity
The Bible mentions dreams quite often such as in Genesis 41:15 “Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘I have had a dream, but no one can interpret it, and I have heard about you, that when you hear a dream you can interpret it.’
This verse in itself implies that dream interpretation is a skill that one can learn and master. Oftentimes in the Bible, God is said to have communicated with his servants using dreams that would be symbolic or literal and it was seen as a legitimate source of communication. However, the Bible does dismiss several methods of dream interpretation as flukes and does not legitimize them.
Some recurring dreams were granted a set meaning, such as dreaming of a beach was said to be spiritually rewarding as beaches represented a place where “man meets God.” If you dreamt of a mountain it could be interpreted as the strength of either the believer or God.
Many Christian nations stayed true to the Bible when it came to the topic of dreams, and to this day religion plays an important role in how one interprets them.
4- Islamic References
Christianity wasn’t the only religion to dabble with the topic of dreams, Islam also offered an insight into this world. With huge Islamic empires like that of the Ottomans and of the Mughals, dreams were given immense weightage in courts and even in the determination of important royal decisions such as executions.
In Islam, dreams are said to be important messages from Allah and it is the Muslim’s duty to decipher and pay attention to the dream. There is a Quranic verse that refers to this saying, “And among His signs is your sleep by night and by day and your seeking of His bounty, verily in that are signs for those who hearken” (Surah: 30 Verse: 23).
However, it is also said that not all dreams are holy messages, only a few select are signs from Allah. Dreams are said to be classified into three types, true dreams that are divine messages from Allah.
These often repeat and are usually experienced after the believer makes dua for Allah to guide him on a matter. The second is a person’s reflection of the day he has had, of the thoughts occupying his mind at the time. And the last category includes nightmares and vicious dreams sent by Shaytan to upset the believer or turn them to sin.
In Closing
The realm of dreams has long fascinated humans, and although the explanations have varied across time and culture, the belief that dreams are more than random arrays of images and sounds produced by our brains has persisted.
I think there is nothing more human than wanting the reality that exists as an extension of our own to be magic, and if you were to ask me the meaning of dreams, I would simply say our dreams are what our souls are made of. They are an emulsion of our strongest emotions featuring the people we love, the things we want, and the things we fear.
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