early CE Dream-World
Posted: Sun May 17, 2015 7:20 pm
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
Christians find [found?] dream important because they believed that God chose to communicate through them.
- “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).
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/