Dreaming
in Christianity and Islam
Kelly Bulkeley, PhD, is a Visiting Scholar at the Graduate
Theological Union and teaches in JFKU’s Dream Studies Program in
the San Francisco Bay Area. He earned his doctorate from the
University of Chicago, is a Past President of IASD, and is the
author of The Wilderness of Dreams and The Wondering
Brain, co-author of Dreaming Beyond Death, and editor
of Soul, Psyche, Brain.
Dr. Bart J. Koet
teaches Biblical Studies at the Catholic Theological University
Utrecht (the Netherlands) and Religion and Pedagogy at the
Hogeschool Leiden. He writes on dream stories from the Bible, the
Talmud and other classical literature. He also serves as a prison
chaplain, working with inmates on their dreams.
Patricia M. Davis received her MA in Religion and Psychology
and is now in the PhD program at the Graduate Theological Union in
Berkeley, California. Her research focus is dreams in Christian
conversions and metaphoric religious language. Dreaming has
published two recent articles on her research into dreams in early
Christianity.
Kate Adams, PhD, is a
senior lecturer in Education Studies in England. Her doctorate
explored the divine dreams of a multi-faith sample of children
aged 9-12. Her other research interests include children’s
memorable dreams and how educators can use dreams in educational
settings.
Abstracts
Presentation 1: Divine Dream
Dilemmas: Biblical visions on dreams
It is often argued that in
ancient times dreams were seen as coming from (the) God(s). Homer
argued that dreams are coming from God and also it seems clearcut
that in the Bible dreams are seen as divine messages. But is that
always true? In the Greek realm Aristotle did not accept it. And
does the Bible take it as understood that all dreams are from a
divine origin? And if not, why not? And if some of them are seen
as coming from the divine realm, which dreams are authentic? In
this paper I want to deal with, what I call, the Divine Dream
Dilemma: Are dreams in Scripture coming from the divine realm? I
will sketch some different visions on dreams in the Bible and try
to show how the divine dream dillemma emerged.
Dreams were valued variously during the different periods of
Israel's history. In some earlier texts of the OT dreams are
presented as communication with the divine, while in other texts
one is warned against dreams. Dreams could be a way of conveying
messages of God as is explicitly said in Num 12:6-8. Dreams and
visions are the usual if enigmatic way in which the divine speaks
to prophets, but with Moses God speaks face to face. In Scripture
time and again there are stories in which God speaks through
dreams and visions (see Gen 15:1-6; 20:3-8; 28:11-15; 37.40. 41).
We
find very critical remarks in chapter 34 of Ben Sira. Although
34:1-7 is a long tirade against dreams, “scribe” Ben Sira’s
critique on dreams is used to reinforce the position of the Law.
The opposition between the Law of God and dreams is not as cut and
dried as it seems. Sirach places the revelation of the Law far
above prophetic ways of divine communication such as dreams. This
is a prime example of the dream dillema: which dreams are divine
and which are not? And another dillema: which revelation is more
true: Scriptures or dreams? In this paper I will try to sketch the
wider picture on the biblical views on dreams and visions.
Presentation 2: Discerning the
Voice of God: Case Studies in Christian History
This paper presents three case
studies of auditory message dreams from Christian history and
explores the discernment methodology used in each case to
determine that the experience was from a divine source.
We
first consider the dream typologies of early Christianity and
criteria for discernment. The distinction between visual symbolic
dreams and auditory message dreams is then introduced. To
facilitate comparison, the case studies were chosen as potential
auditory message dreams.
We
consider dreams of: Perpetua, the 3rd century martyr of Carthage,
Caedmon, the 7th century hymn writer of Anglo-Saxon England and
Martin Luther King, the 20th century American civil rights leader.
In each case we follow the chain of discernment through religious
hierarchy, scriptural conformity and “fruits”.
Perpetua was already acknowledged by her religious community for
her ability to communicate with God thorough dreams. We consider
the first dream she recorded in her prison diary and its possible
meanings. She reported the dream and its intent to her fellow
prisoner immediately upon awakening. Her authority was not
questioned and the religious hierarchy embraced her dream diary.
The “fruits” were the integrity of her leadership in martyrdom and
the converts to Christianity this inspired.
Caedmon had no previous religious authority. He reported his
dream/song the morning of occurrence. Discernment of his dream
required layers of hierarchy. The “fruits” were the song and
future songs in the Anglo-Saxon language consistent with Christian
scriptures and theology, and the converts to Christianity the
songs inspired.
Martin Luther King was an acknowledged leader within the
African-American religious community, but in conflict over civil
rights. He did not report his dream for a year and subsequently
moderated his reporting to avoid controversy. He only fully
explicated the dream at the end of his life. Even now, it is not
well known he truly meant a dream source. The possible source of
the dream as a divine message requires further exploration.
However, we may hypothesize the “fruits” as the integrity of his
leadership to martyrdom and the conversion of society to a vision
of race neutral fellowship he inspired.
Presentation 3: Coming
together: dreams and reflections of Christian and Muslim children
Both Christianity and Islam, in
their respective scriptures and traditions, record the belief that
God/Allah sends dreams to people. In these dreams, God/Allah often
sends a message to the dreamer. Whilst there has been considerable
literature on the dreams in these religious traditions (see
Sanford 1989, Kelsey 1991, Azam 1992, Gnuse 1996, Philips 1996,
Bulkeley 2002), a lesser amount has been written on the dreams of
contemporary believers. Contemporary dream research which has
explored the dreams of Christians and believers has tended to
focus on those of adults (see Charsley 1973, 1992, Curley 1992,
Ewing 1990). This paper offers a comparative study of the dreams
of Christian (n=37) and Muslim (n=29) children aged 9-12: a study
of their dreams which they believe have a divine connection. This
data is drawn from a larger, multi-faith study of 107 divine
dreams of children living in England and Scotland. Data were
gathered by means of questionnaires and follow up interviews.
The
paper explores the points of convergence and divergence of these
children’s dreams (n=66). This is approached by considering themes
in the dream content and particularly focusing on how the children
understood their dream to have a divine connection. What was it
that made this dream a ‘divine dream’, whilst others were not?
The
children’s reasons (n= 62) for attributing a divine connection to
their dream fell into seven categories. The largest group of
answers (Christian n=14, Muslim n=10) was that the dream carried a
message from God/Allah. For Christians, this was the most frequent
reason given, although for Muslims, the most frequent reason was
that the content of the dream (n=15) gave an indication of a
divine connection. Aspects of these dreams are considered, in a
way that gives voice to the children’s own narratives.
The
paper concludes that whilst the content of the dreams in the two
samples, and the ways of perceiving the divine connection, had
differences, there were also major points of convergence between
the two. Whilst the children in the sample came from different
parts of Britain and attended different schools, nevertheless they
were joined by their belief in, and experience of, a divine dream.
The implications of this shared experience for educators and all
others working in religious contexts are considered, giving hope
to the ideal that tensions between the two faiths can be reduced
once the shared experience of contemporary believers is more
widely acknowledged.
References
Azam, Umar (1992) Dreams in
Islam, Pennsylvania: Dorrance Publishing Co, Inc.
Bulkeley, Kelly (2002)
‘Reflections on the dream traditions of Islam’, in Sleep and
Hypnosis, Vol.4, no. 1, pp. 4–14.
Charsley, Simon (1992) ‘Dreams in
African churches’, in Jedrej, M. C. and Shaw, Rosalind (eds.)
Dreaming, Religion and Society in Africa, pp. 133–176, Leiden: E J
Brill.
Charsley, Simon (1973) ‘Dreams in
an independent African church’, in Africa, Vol. 43, pp. 244–257.
Curley, Richard (1992) ‘Private
Dreams and Public Knowledge in A Camerounian Independent Church’,
in Jedrej, M. C. and Shaw, Rosalind (eds.) Dreaming, Religion and
Society in Africa, pp. 135–152, Leiden: E J Brill.
Ewing, Katherine (1990) ‘The
dreams of spiritual initiation and the organisation of self
representations among Pakistani Sufis’, in American Ethnologist,
Vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 56–74.
Gnuse, Robert, K. (1996) Dreams
and Dream Reports in the Writings of Josephus— A traditio–historical
analysis, Leiden: E. J. Brill.
Kelsey, Morton (1991) God, Dreams
and Revelation: A Christian Interpretation of Dreams, Minneapolis:
Augsberg.
Philips, Abu Ameenah Bilal (1996)
Dream Interpretation According to the Qur’an and Sunnah, Sharjah:
Dar al–Fatah.
Sanford, John (1989) Dreams:
God’s Forgotten Language, San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers.
Symposium (2 hours)
