Christianity and Dreams: From Visions to Temptations

In many parts of the English-speaking world, Christianity is known for not valuing dreams. The fear is diffuse, the stuff of legends, vaguely suggesting that paying attention to dreams is somehow pagan or consorting with the devil. In the past, however, Christianity considered dreams to be a viable way to receive visions from God, as well as prophesies. So why is dreaming so disparaged today?

In my essay on lucid dreaming history, I reported that, in the Middle Ages, Thomas Acquinas played a role in the transformation from a dream-loving Christendom to dream-fearing one. However, I attended a lecture last month by religion scholar Bart Koet who added another layer to this unfortunate transformation.

Read more

Track Dreams with the Moon

Everytime the moon is full, I get dozens of visitors who are looking for information on the connection between the full moon and dreams. It’s like clock-work. Oh, it is clock-work.

So, here’s a great way to research how the moon’s cycles effect our dreams. Check out Erin Langley’s site: dream-people.net. This is a database that is open to the public once you register. The site allows you to code your dreams into certain categories, mostly “ancient” categories that have been arguably constant for humans for thousands of years. Examples include: dreams of ancestors, of rocks, plants, the moon, magical objects, certain animals, etc. The information is then cross-referenced against the date of the dream and, of course, the moon calender.

Not only can you input your own dreams here and track changes throughout the months and seasons, but you can search the categories and get raw data for how many dream reports in the entire database included that particular element, the associated moon position, as well as the astrological chart.

Read more

PsiberDreaming: the Future of Dreaming

This is a great dream studies even hosted online by the International Association for the Study of Dreams. September 21 through October 5, 2008. Two weeks of online presentations about some of the more fringe aspects of dream research, including psi research, lucid dreaming, ancestor dreams, dreaming & archaeology, and dreaming & the afterlife.

Read more

Dreams of Trauma Survivors – a Clinical Perspective

On the topic of the dreams of trauma survivors, I saw another great talk in Montreal by Ann Goelitz, a clinical social worker from New York. In a nutshell, Goelitz’s work compares the emotional content of dreams of trauma survivors to the general population.

Goelitz found that trauma survivors” dreams are empirically more emotional, and they also have more intense emotions. Further, she found that human-made trauma stirs more emotion in dreams than non-human trauma. For example, family abuse or exposure to war results in more emotional dreams than natural disasters like floods and earthquakes.

Read more

An Evolutionary Theory of Dreaming

Thinking about thinking is hard, and thinking about dreaming is harder. Believe it or not, there is only one evolutionary theory of dreaming seriously at work these days in academia. Indeed, a theory supporting the biological function of dreams has a steep hill to climb, as we don’t really have a complete theory for the biological function of sleep. So dreaming is still an unknown within an unknown.

But that hasn’t stopped Antti Revonsuo, a Finnish philosopher who teaches at the University of Turku. At the 2008 IASD conference last month, researcher Katja Valli discussed the newest findings of the Revonsuo’s team in regards to their Threat Simulation Theory for dreams.

Read more