TG Dreams 35 - Ether 9:3

"And the Lord warned Omer in a dream that he should depart out of the land; wherefore Omer departed out of the land with his family"

We know nothing about this dream except its function.  Here at the end of our study is a good time to turn back and consider dreams from another angle.  How the Lord uses them.  What are the purposes of divinely inspired dreams?

1. Some, like Omer's dream Contain a Warning.  Among those who were 'warned in a dream' were Lehi (1 Nephi 2:1-2), Pilate's wife (Matt. 27:19), The wise men at Jesus's birth (Matt. 2:12-13), Joseph the husband of Mary (Matt. 2:19-20), Abimelech, king of Gerar (Genesis 20:3-8), and Laban, Jacob's Father in Law (Genesis 31:24-29).

2. Similar to the Dream of Warning is the Dream of Instruction.  Again the recipient is told what to do, but with a little less urgency and less danger.  Lehi's instruction to send his sons to get the Brass Plates came in a dream (I Nephi 3:2).  Joseph was instructed to marry the mother of the Messiah rather than divorcing her in a dream (Matt. 1:23).  He was also told by dream when he should return with the mother and young child from Egypt to the land of Israel (Matt. 2:19-21). 

3. A dream can bring a revelatory answer to a question we make to the Lord.  King Saul's choices had brought him to a point of alienation with God.  And when he desired an answer (out of fear and not out of a change of heart) he found that he could not get an answer "neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets" (1 Samuel 28:6).

4. A dream of instruction can be for an individual or it can provide guidance for an entire people.  Numbers 12 and Deuteronomy 13 both indicate that dreams were a part of the means by which prophetic utterances might be reach Israel.

5. A certain number of dreams give us a knowledge of future events.  Joseph of Egypt was given early knowledge of his future role of viceroy (Genesis 37) which helped guide him away from vengeance and to blessing when his brothers who had sold him into slavery ended up kneeling before him.  Joseph was also given prophetic insight into the future of two of Pharaoh's servants in prison with him (Gen. 40).  Pharaoh was given a dream that foretold the coming of famine to the entire Middle East (Gen. 41).  A Midianite was given a dream foretelling Gideon's victory in the next day's battle (Judges 7).  Nebuchadnezzar had a dream that foretold the imperial history of the Western World (Daniel 2).  Daniel dreamed of end times (Daniel 7).  Lehi was given insight into future trajectories of his children (1 Nephi 8).  Dreams that foretell the future are usually highly symbolic and require a gift of interpretation.

6. Some dreams impart general knowledge of eternal truths.  Lehi's Dream (1 Nephi 8) is an example of such a dream.

7. Some dreams can contain experiences of divine communication so strong and direct that they form the basis of the creation of the relationship between that person and divinity from then on. Jacob (Genesis 28) and Solomon (I Kings 3) both had such dreams.

TG Dreams 34 - Alma 30

In Alma 30, Korihor takes up a position quite familiar to a modern reader.  But its like can be traced back before Lucretius.  Korihor, in contrast to Jacob, emphasizes the unreal, dreamlike character of spirituality and forcefully contrasts it with what he considers to be true reality - the cold, hard facts revealed by limiting our information to our senses. 

He paints religious tradition and religious experience with a very unforgiving brush.  His words attempt to portray it as

• "ignorance" (v. 23)
• "foolish and vain hope" (v. 13)
• "foolish traditions" (v. 14, 23), the "traditions of your fathers" (v. 16), or the even "silly traditions of their fathers" (v. 31).
• "the effects of a frenzied mind" or "this derangement of your minds" (v. 16)
• this frenzy and derangement specifically includes all spiritual experiences, from the sense of guilt attached to our moral sense, the experience of divine forgiveness, and any supposed revelation in the form of dreams and visions (v. 28)
• especially singled out for ridicule among spiritual experiences and traditions is the concept of "prophecies" (v. 6, 14), a belief that through God men could be shown the future.  And among prophecies, he is particularly critical of those that speak of the coming of a Messiah and an atonement.
• not content to style spiritual experiences as mental derangements, he suggests that some of them are deceptions - pretended mysteries and whims (v. 28) of those who want to control others.

From his point of view, this nonsensical approach to life gives believers the following characteristics:

• they end up with a belief in things they "cannot know" (v.15) and "which are not so" (v. 16)
• these are "foolish things" (v. 13), which "keep them in ignorance" (v. 23)
• they believe things about the future (which is really completely unknown)- specifically about the coming of a messiah or "Christ" (v. 6) who should "be slain for the sins of the world" (v. 26)
• they have a mistaken notion that mankind is "guilty and fallen" (v. 25),
• They thus believe in a need for a "remission of sins" (v. 16)
• these things they believe limit their freedom - they "yoke" them (v. 13), deceived people "bind themselves down under foolish ordinances and performances" (v. 23), in a position where they "durst not enjoy their rights and privileges" (v. 27), because they fear to "offend some unknown being, who they say is God" (v. 28)
• In fact religion is a tool of priests "to usurp power and authority over them" and to bring them down (v. 23).  Religious leaders purposefully keep people in ignorance (v. 23), to "keep them down, even as it were in bondage" (v. 27) that they "durst not look up with boldness"
• The motives of these leaders is to get "according to your own desires" and to "glut yourselves with the labors of their hands" (v. 27).

Reality, on the other hand, must be approached with the following assumptions:

• no man can know anything which is to come (v. 13)
• what you know is only what you perceive, what you see (v. 15)
• therefore God is out!  He is "a being who never has been seen or known" (v. 28)
• The only way a person might accept the existence of God would be the evidence of one's physical senses - the reception of some kind of a physical "sign" (v. 43).

The characteristics of the reality he perceives in this way are as follows:

• "Ye cannot know of things which ye do not see" (v. 15)
• "Therefore ye cannot know that there shall  be a Christ (v. 15)
• In fact, there will be no messiah, no "Christ" (v. 12)
• "there could no atonement be made for the sins of men" (v. 17)
• "when a man was dead, that was the end thereof" (v. 18)
• In the cold hard light of the senses it was obvious that life was structured in a Darwinian manner (v. 17)

                    "every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature"
                    "every man prospered according to his genius"
                    "every man conquered according to his strength"     
                    "whatsoever a man did was no crime"
                    you don't have to be ashamed of anything really,
                    men can "lift up their heads in their wickedness"
                    specifically in pursuing sexual desires - "committing whoredoms" (v. 18).

TG Dreams 33 - Jacob 7:26

Sometimes it is THIS life that assumes an unreal, dreamlike quality:

"...and also our lives passed away like as it were unto us a dream, we being a lonesome and a solemn people, wanderers, cast out from Jerusalem, born in tribulation, in a wilderness, and hated of our brethren, which caused wars and contentions; wherefore we did mourn out our days."

TG Dreams 32 - 2 Nephi 27

Second Nephi 28 is Nephi's Midrash on Isaiah 27.  Here a dream is first used as a metaphor for the emptiness of human aspirations and ambitions separated from (and even opposed to) God.  Those that "fight against Zion, and that distress her" will find it all to be as an illusion, like a hungry man waking up from a dream of a feast, or a thirsty man waking up from a dream of drinking (v. 3).  Other metaphors of the shock of contact with a true glimpse of their condition are drunkenness (v. 4) and sleep (v. 5).  A drunkenness so strong that one staggers, and a "deep sleep."

But he Book of Mormon itself is prefigured in dream like terms as well - "words of them which have slumbered" (v. 6), "hid from the eyes of the world" (v. 12), "words...as if it were from the dead" (v. 13), and a book that cannot be read.

But in the end, the vivid, violent and powerful struggle of the wicked will prove to be the empty illusion and the seemingly flimsy words from the dust will prove to be trustworthy and clear, enduring, revealing and powerful. 

TG Dreams 31 - 1 Nephi 10:2

Again Nephi blurs the line of Dream and Vision - "it came to pass after my father had made an end of speaking the words of his dream" (v.2), "I Nephi, having heard all the words of my father, concerning the things which he saw in a vision" (v. 17).

Nephi's reaction to his father's dream/vision is also very instructive:

"And it came to pass after I Nephi, having heard all the words of my father, concerning the things which he saw in a vision, and also the things which he spake by the power of the Holy Ghost...I, Nephi, was desirous also that I might see and hear, and know of these things, by the power of the Holy Ghost, which is the gift of God unto all those who diligently seek him, as well in times of old as in the time that he should manifest himself unto the children of men.

For he is the same yesterday, today and forever....

For he that diligently seeketh shall find; and the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto them, by the power of the Holy Ghost, as well in these times as in times of old, and as well in times of old as in times to come; wherefore the course of the Lord is one eternal round." 

I Nephi 10:17-19

It is interesting to note that the unchanging nature of God and his dealings with men ("from eternity to eternity he is the same") is again conflated with his willingness to share "the hidden mysteries of [his] kingdom," "the wonders of eternity," and "the secrets of [his] will" in the Lord's preface to Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon's vision of the eternities recorded in Doctrine and Covenants 76 (see verses 1-10).

TG Dreams 30 - 1 Nephi 8

Again, the line between dream and vision in the epoch of Daniel is a thin one.  Lehi says, "Behold I have dreamed a dream; or, in other words, I have seen a vision."  And Nephi, when he wants to see what his father saw, has a vision. 

The dream is solid type three, despite the appearance of a guide within the dream.  The images and happenings are symbolic and require an inspired interpreter to understand them.  The personage in Nephi's vision helps him work out the meaning of what his father saw, but Laman and Lemuel attempting to work out the meaning of the dream on their own were pointedly unsuccessful.

We are not given Lehi's understanding of his own dream, but we are given his reaction to it.  He awoke having been comforted about the eternal fate of two of his sons and fearful for the fate of two others. 

Nephi and his brothers approach this dream with a shared interpretive framework.  Individual objects in dreams have discrete meanings in an overall significance.  Nephi was shown the tree his father saw, and then desired to "know the interpretation thereof" (1 Nephi 11:11).  As he was shown more, he came to realize the "meaning of the tree" (11:20).  Similarly, the rod of iron "was the word of God," (11:25), and the waters of the fountain of living water were a "representation of the love of God" (11:25).  Laman and Lemuel likewise asked "what meaneth this thing which our father saw in a dream?  What meaneth the tree which he saw?" (15:21).  Similarly, "what meaneth the rod of iron" and "what meaneth the river of water?" (15:23, 26).  Nephi's responses were either expressions of identitity ("it was") or "it was a representation of" (15:22).

Joseph of Egypt speaks in terms of identity.  "The three branches are three days," "the three baskets are three days" (Genesis 40:12, 18), and "the seven good kine are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years" (Genesis 41:26-27).  Daniel also speaks in terms of identity - "thou art this head of Gold" or likeness - "another third kingdom of brass"- or metaphor - "the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly broken" (Daniel 2:38,39,42).

TG Dreams 29 - I Nephi 3

"Behold I have dreamed a dream, in the which the Lord hath commanded me that thou and thy brethren shall return to Jerusalem" (v. 2).

Interesting that Nephi's oft quoted determination to follow the commandments of God (v.7) is rooted in the context of a dream given to his father. 

TG Dreams 28 - I Nephi 2

Here we are not given the dream content, so we do not know which type of dream we are dealing with.  We do know that Lehi felt confident that the dream was a message from the Lord to take his family and flee Jerusalem into "the wilderness" (v.2).  The entire Book of Mormon, all of Nephite and Lamanite history pivot on a dream message.

"And it came to pass that he was obedient unto the word of the Lord, wherefore he did as the Lord commanded him" (v.3).  The phrasing my imply a Type 1 dream in which the Lord appears in his own character and delivers a clear and understandable message or command.

TG Dreams 27 - 1 Nephi 1

Lehi is a "visionary man" (1 Nephi 5:2,4).  He (like his contemporaries, Daniel and Nephi) move in world where symbols in dream and trance are full of meaning, message and direction.  Nephi notes that his father's personal record focuses on "many things which he saw in visions and in dreams" (v. 16) as well as on his prophecies and teachings passed on to his children.  The Book of Mormon really starts with Lehi's revelatory experiences - first his concentrated engagement with hearing prophets prophesy (v. 4, 5), then a vision which begins with a pillar of fire in which he "saw and heard much" (v. 6), then a vision seen while lying on his bed in a state of exhaustion (v. 7, 8) whose details we are given. 

TG Dreams - New Testament

From here the topical guide moves on to the Book of Mormon.  What can we make of the fact that other than the experiences of Joseph, the New Testament does not have a wealth of dream material?  Can it be that some people have a gift for receiving messages via dreams and some do not?  That dreams are one channel that the Lord may use to communicate, but that it is not a universal channel? 

TG Dreams 21 - Matthew 27:19

We do not know the content of this dream, but Pontius Pilate's wife is given a powerful warning.  The dream left her with no doubt that the prisoner in question was a "just man" and that her husband should have nothing to do with the travesty of justice that was being attempted. 

The tragedy of Pilate's situation is that the next verse starts with the word "but"....

TG Dreams 20 - Matthew 2:22

Joseph's last recorded revelation is again a dream.  The specifics are not given, just "warned of God in a dream."  The effect of obeying his guidance is twofold.  First (as with the other dreams in Matthew's infancy narrative), the Messiah and his family are safeguarded.  The dream is after all a "warning."  Second, the Savior arrives in the place he was meant to grow up in, Nazareth of Galilee - a fact that Matthew believes fulfills a centuries old prophecy.

TG Dreams 19 - Matthew 2:13-14 and 19-20

Joseph, who seem to have a gift of dreams, again has two type 1 dreams.  In both of them the angel of the Lord appears in his own person, and in his own voice speaks clearly and unequivocally the message that the young Messiah's guardian needs to receive. 

I find it striking that Joseph is  in all three instances so far reported as obeying as soon as "he arose."  He simply woke up and obeyed.

TG Dreams 18 - Matthew 2:12

We do not know the contents of the dream here, nor to whom it came.  We do know that the Wise Men followed its guidance, sparing themselves some trouble and helping to protect the child Jesus.  I wonder if (once again) the dream came to Joseph.

TG Dreams 18 - Matthew 1:20-21

Joseph's dream is classic Type I.  The Lord appears in person, speaks in his own voice, and delivers a clear and comprehensible message.  And what a message - The identity of the Messiah in Mary's womb, the announcement of the coming of the atonement, and the direction that Joseph should not fear to take Mary to wife.

TG Dreams 17 - Zechariah 10:2

Again an Old Testament Prophet inveighs against false revelation.  Here some of the very techniques used to seek an answer are improper.  Methods of divination here include the use of idolatrous images (תְּרָפִים teraphim), and fortune tellers (קֹּוסְמִים kosmim).  The Kosmim are never presented in a positive light in the bible.  Here they have visions and dreams, but they "have seen a lie" and "told false dreams."  The use of teraphim to cast a fortune has only "spoken vanity" (אָוֶן aven, nothingness, falsehood - a word often used as a synonym for idols themselves).

As in the other Old Testament prophetic passages decrying false dreams, the underlying cause is a desire to receive a pre-determined outcome.  They seek to comfort, not to understand truth.  They have an axe to grind, not a desire to truly know what God wants to say.  The implication is that these are professionals, divining for cash, and they KNOW what their customers want to hear.  That comfort is הֶבֶל hevel, a vanity, something as insubstantial and fleeting as a puff of air.

In our own search for divine answers, we have to be wary of the answer we want to receive.

TG Dreams 17 - Joel 2:28

Joel prophesies about a future day when the children of Zion will undergo a restoration of blessings.  The ultimate fulfillment of the prophecy is around the time of the Second Coming, the end of days, the great and terrible day of the Lord (v. 31).  But like most prophecies, this one is archetypal, and can be appropriately used to describe a variety of situations, including the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:17) and the flood of spiritual manifestations that marked the first generation of the Restoration (JS-H 1:41).

The gist of the prophecy is this, that the Spirit of God will be poured out in a broad based and universal way - sons and daughters, young men as well as old.  The Spirit will not discriminate by gender or by age.  The manifestations of the spirit will include visions, dreams and prophecy.

TG Dreams 16 - Daniel 7

The Old Testament here does what I Nephi does and makes little distinction between dream and vision - "Daniel had a dream and visions of his head" (v.1);  "I saw my vision by night" (v. 2); "I saw in the night vision" (v. 13); "the visions of my head troubled me" (v. 15);  Compare Lehi: "Behold, I have dreamed a dream; or, in other words, I have seen a vision" (I Nephi 8:2).

The dreams and visions of Lehi and Nephi have much more in common in content, style and feel with those of Daniel than with any of the other dreams we have encountered from earlier in the Old Testament.  And after Lehi and Nephi, the Book of Mormon leaves the Daniel-like dreamscape behind.  Daniel, like Nephi, takes care to record the vision/dream himself - "and then he wrote the dream" (v. 1).  Nephi, Lehi, and Daniel all record their emotional reactions: "I Daniel was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body, and the visions of my head troubled me" (v. 15); "my cogitations much troubled me, and my countenance changed in me; but I kept the matter in my heart" (v. 28); "because of the things which he saw and heard he did quake exceedingly" (I Nephi 1:6); "his soul did rejoice and his whole heart was filled, because of the things which he had seen, yea, which the Lord had shown unto him" (I Nephi 1:15); "because of the things which I have seen, I have reason to rejoice...but behold...I fear exceedingly..." (I Nephi 8:3-4); "he said unto us, because of these things which he saw, he exceedingly feared" (I Nephi 8:36); "I Nephi was grieved...because of the things which I had seen....and...I was overcome because of my afflictions (I Nephi 15:4-5).  Finally, the personage in Nephi's vision has a parallel with the "one of them that stood by" (v. 16) in Daniel's dream. Both of them receive questions and give interpretations.  The "interpretation of things" (v. 16) or "the interpretation thereof" (I Nephi 11:11) are concerns that Nephi and Daniel both voice during the course of their visions.

TG Dreams 15 - Daniel 2

King Nebuchadnezzar's dream is a solid type 3 - heavily symbolic and requiring inspired interpretation to unravel.

It is interesting how the dream presents itself - "his spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him" (v.1).  Some dreams we just know are significant.  "I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream" (v. 3).  He could not even remember the dream, but it arrived with such an impact that he knew that he need to know "the dream and the interpretation thereof" (v. 7).

The Chaldean Wise Men were baffled.  The task set for them - to recover the forgotten dream and to interpret it - was something requiring divine aid: "none other can shew it before the king but the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh" (v. 11).  This is exactly the realm Daniel had access to.  With the help of the prayers of his three companions (v. 17-8) Daniel is given a "night vision" (v.19). 

The subtext of the entire experience is the power of the God of Israel as a Revelator, specifically, in this case, by means of dreams and their interpretations.

"...he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding:
He revealeth the deep and secret things:" (v. 21-22).

"But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known..." (v. 28).

"He that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to pass..." (v. 29).

"...your God is a God of gods and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets..." (v. 47).

Another interesting fact is that the dream and interpretation are given to Daniel as a result of group prayer.  He and his companions "desire mercy of the God of heaven concerning this secret" (v. 18).  When the answer comes Daniel is grateful that God "made known unto me now what we desired of thee" (v. 23).  Unlike many of the revelations we have met in our study of dream, the initiative here was on the mortal side (at least for Daniel and company, though not for Nebuchadnezzar).

TG Dreams 14 - Jeremiah 29:

Again Jeremiah takes up the theme of false revelation, among which dreams have a place. 

"Let not your prophets and your diviners, that be in the midst of you, deceive you, neither hearken to your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed. 
For they prophesy falsely unto you in my name: I have not sent them, saith the Lord."

The Lord sends dreams, but we can also cause ourselves to dream dreams.  How can we tell?  No short term answer is given, but the long term answer is again alluded to - fruits.  Those engaged in false revelation ("spoken lying words in my name, which I have not commanded them") have "committed villainy in Israel, and have committed adultery with their neighbor's wives and have spoken lying words" (v. 21). 

אֲשֶׁר אַתֶּם מַחְלְמִים 

"Which you (pl.) cause to be dreamed"

The Hebrew implies we can cause/create dreams.