Biblical Dreams and Their Relevance
for Decoding Our Nightly Dreams
The Rev. Bob Haden is a
Priest, Spiritual Director, Pastoral Counselor, Diplomate of the
American Psychotherapy Association. He is Director of The Haden
Institute which offers certified training in dream group
leadership and spiritual direction in the Jungian, mystical,
Christian tradition. He is co-author of Soul's Labyrinth
and is writing a book on Biblical Dreams.
Abstract
As we know, all cultures and all
religions except for western culture and western religions, honor
the dream. Earlier in my life I discounted Biblical dreams. But,
after studying Jungian psychology, working on hundreds of my own
dreams and others dreams, I had a new appreciation for Biblical
dreams. I now knew, from my own dream experience, that dreams were
metaphorical, autonomous, and real. This experiential and didactic
learning about the dream world has given me a container in which
to better understand Biblical dreams.
As I
began to take a second look, I got excited about the metaphorical
meaning for the Biblical dreamer, could understand how he/she
understood this as “God’s forgotten language” and I realized that
each Biblical dream illustrated an aspect of dreamwork. So, in
this workshop, we will look at ten or more Biblical dreams putting
them into context, exploring the meaning for the dreamer (and us)
and giving and sharing contemporary dreams that illustrate the
dream method of the particular Biblical dream.
