early CE Dream-World

[MrMacSon]

What role did dreams play in the development of the Christian story?

Dreams have an important role in many cultures. Historically, most of the world’s cultures including Egyptian,
Greek and Christian have believed that dreams come from an outside source and are visits from their gods.

In the first place, when human beings developed a written language, they began to set down interpretations of their dreams.

The Egyptians believed their gods showed themselves in dreams and visions. They even had temples were dream-incubation occurred and they would pray before going inside to assure dreams with gods. Egyptians would just lay in “dream beds” and hope to have a dream of advice, comfort or healing. Also, the Papyrus, Egyptian Dream Book, was found in 2000 B.C. and contains dream examples and dream interpretations. In the Papyrus, all dreams were listed as good or bad and the bad dreams were written in red as it was the colour of the bad omen. It is pretty clear that dreams were very important for this people and it is a sacred part of the Egyptian culture.

In the other hand, the Greeks adopted whatever seemed useful or interesting from the people with whom war or trade brought them into contact.
(N Machenzie, 1965). The Greeks adopted the Egyptian belief of good and bad dreams as well as the idea of incubating dreams. The difference between them was that the Greeks perform very specific pre-sleep rituals in order to purify themselves. Two days before entering the shrine (shrine of Apolloat Delphi), they abstained from sex, ate no meat, fish and drank only water. The different methods of incubation varied from place to place. Sometimes sacrifices were expected and in others gifting money or food as gift to the God they wish to evoke in a dream. (B. Wolman, 1979).

As the new religion of Christianity developed, they adopted some of the European and Greek heritage. Early Christians had to accept the idea that at least some dreams had a divine inspiration. The bible mentions a lot about dreams and God communicated through them. The dreams of the New Testament were seen as straightforward messages from God, the disciples and other founders of Christianity. In the old testament, God declared that he would speak through dreams and visions and he said

• “hear now my words: if there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision,
  and will speak unto him in a dream” (Num. 12:6).

Christians find [found?] dream important because they believed that God chose to communicate through them.

In dreams, they would see visions of the bible and God would grant them gifts and provide them with guidance.
Dreams are reliable messengers. They reveal the condition of one’s heart (Dan.2:30) as well as the voice of
God within one’s heart. (Acts 2:17) The bible says that when people wake up from their dreams, they act upon them.

http://www.academia.edu/3100958/Ancient ... out_Dreams

During the Hellenistic era (the first three centuries of the Common Era), the practice took place in dream incubation temples that were staffed by priest-physicians.

In fact, dream temples made up the single most popular spiritual healing institution in the Mediterranean world. These restful sanctuaries were designed to produce dreams that provided healing wisdom —and also instant cures— if we are to believe the boasts of ancient graffiti.

The divine figure associated with these dream temples is Aesclepius, the Greek god of healing. When doctors take the Hippocratic oath today, they still give thanks to Aesclepius and his daughters.

http://dreamstudies.org/2011/12/04/5-as ... -dreaming/

[Tenorikuma]

I'm no anthropologist, but I just assume that most of that kind of thing is nonsense sold to gullible followers, like various charismatic sects do today. (It's not hard to find televangelists, for example, who falsely claim access to divine knowledge through dreams and visions.)

[MrMacSon]

I get the impression it was a serious pursuit in those days.

[DCHindley]

I get the impression it was a serious pursuit in those days.

There are suggestions that some mystics, even in the 1st century CE, may have had "ascent" visions in which they would rise through the various heavens (or between defensive perimeters of a super sized castle encased by wall after wall). The gates through these heavens, or the gates in the walls of the castle, are guarded by angels whose job is to keep you out.

You have to know the password, which sometimes requires you to try numerous combinations of passages from scripture, until you get the right one, and suddenly the guard angel says "You, you can go in!" and waves you through, like the bouncer of a nightclub. There were generally seven heavenly gates, or walls, to navigate through. The goal was to sing praises to God with the other angels in the 7th heaven or palace.

As you get closer to the throne of God, you might get punished by the angel for a wrong password, which would result in having a ton of iron bars dumped on you. I you mistake the highly polished marble floor tiles for water, you receive a punishment (I forget what at the moment), but it was like you were drowning for real. It's a lot like a game of Dungeons & Dragons. Now sometimes God sends an angel to bring you over for tea, and he will help you navigate the gates and observe proper etiquette, like Ellen Page had to do with Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie Inception. If your friends who monitor your physical body as you mentally soar around feel you are having a "bad trip," such as the water trap, they might touch you with the hair of a menstruating woman and BAM! you are back to reality.

Some do not think that this kind of throne mysticism was practiced as early as this, but I think there was some kinds of practice of mystical ascents. The Heavenly Castle theme is present in the book 1 Enoch in a section usually dated 3rd century BCE. Of course, by the 2nd century CE, besides Jews, EVERYONE was ascending: Gnostics, Magicians, you name it.

I suppose you could call these ascents "dreams" but I think they are better described as trance-like states.

DCH

[Tenorikuma]

Or they are as fictional as Alice's dream-visit to Wonderland.

[DCHindley]

Or they are as fictional as Alice's dream-visit to Wonderland.

Oh, I think they were very real to those who were "into" it.

Were they REALLY traveling through the heavens or the heavenly palaces? No. Were they fiction? No. Were they the product of religious imagination? Sure. I think we have to make this kind of distinction.

Ask the Branch Davidians who ran back into the burning compound when they ran out and realized they were acting contrary to God's will (as explained by David Koresh).

Ask a suicide bomber or terrorist who knows he will die but is absolutely confident that, as a martyr, he will awaken after it is all over in the paradise of heaven.

DCH

[MrMacSon]

.
Platt V (2011) Facing the Gods: Epiphany and Representation in Graeco-Roman Art, Literature and Religion, Cambridge University Press; p 260-1.

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[MrMacSon]

Platt V (2011) Facing the Gods: Epiphany and Representation in Graeco-Roman Art, Literature and Religion, Cambridge University Press; p 265

Platt Facing the Gods 4.JPG (82.98 KiB) Viewed 6691 times

[robert j]

There are suggestions that some mystics, even in the 1st century CE, may have had "ascent" visions in which they would rise through the various heavens

Other than Paul’s questionable claim in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 that he “knew a man” that had made such a journey or had such a vision, and the vague allusions in 2nd-3rd C. rabbinic traditions of such journeys/visions in the context of a 1st C. Johanan ben Zakkai, are there other “suggestions” of such journeys/visions by humans in the 1st C. CE in a Jewish or Christian setting?

[Clive]

Jungian psychotherapy sounds similar. I was brought up in a sect whose core text was

"'In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.

A detailed study of xianity and this dream world might be very fruitful!