Dreams and the Spiritual Life: How Important Are Dreams in Your Relationship With God?

[Michie]

With COVID even impacting our dreams, Catholic scientists and clergy offer some analysis on how best to sift through our slumber.


A little over a year ago, COVID-related restrictions and lockdowns changed every aspect of life: Americans swapped heels for crocs, moved into Idaho and out of New Jersey, ate more cereal, and watched way more Netflix, among many other lifestyle changes.

It also changed how Americans slept — and dreamt — at least for a while. According to Scientific American, the pandemic kicked off a “dream event” at unprecedented levels. While traumatic events like 9/11 or mass shootings typically trigger upticks in disturbing dreams in the general population, “a surge of this magnitude had never been documented,” the scientists found.

Many of these dreams were stressful or disturbing, “marked by themes of insufficiently completing tasks (such as losing control of a vehicle) and being threatened by others,” a study cited in the article found.

Whether Catholics are having COVID-related dreams or other reveries, how much attention should they pay to their dreams in the context of their spiritual lives?

The answer is — like dreams themselves — complicated.



Why Do We Dream?

Continued below.
Dreams and the Spiritual Life: How Important Are Dreams in Your Relationship With God?

 

[Hanging by a Thread]

With COVID even impacting our dreams, Catholic scientists and clergy offer some analysis on how best to sift through our slumber.


A little over a year ago, COVID-related restrictions and lockdowns changed every aspect of life: Americans swapped heels for crocs, moved into Idaho and out of New Jersey, ate more cereal, and watched way more Netflix, among many other lifestyle changes.

It also changed how Americans slept — and dreamt — at least for a while. According to Scientific American, the pandemic kicked off a “dream event” at unprecedented levels. While traumatic events like 9/11 or mass shootings typically trigger upticks in disturbing dreams in the general population, “a surge of this magnitude had never been documented,” the scientists found.

Many of these dreams were stressful or disturbing, “marked by themes of insufficiently completing tasks (such as losing control of a vehicle) and being threatened by others,” a study cited in the article found.

Whether Catholics are having COVID-related dreams or other reveries, how much attention should they pay to their dreams in the context of their spiritual lives?

The answer is — like dreams themselves — complicated.



Why Do We Dream?

Continued below.
Dreams and the Spiritual Life: How Important Are Dreams in Your Relationship With God?

sheesh, talk about waffling. The priest in this article says God has and can talk to you in a dream. And demons, too. But this is rare and unlikely. So I guess this priests answer to someone reporting that God spoke to them through a dream would be "maybe, maybe not". A non-commital answer, essentially.
I pray that God would talk to me, even if it's via a dream. Of course It would have to be distinct and vivid enough to distinguish from just regular dreaming. But I'd take it as devine if such an instance occured.
I find dreams and what happens to consciousness when sleeping fascinating and from this article I gather that no one has completely figured them out yet. I have dreams of places I've never been before, some that occasionally recur. I've used vocabularly that I don't know the meaning to in a dream. Now I suppose I'm dreaming of things that I actually have seen before but forgotten in consious life, but still, the possiblilities are endless if this is not the case. Now to clarify that I'm not completely nuts (only partially), I'm not professing the following as a firm belief, but some supernatural things to consider may be:
1) we could be living a whole different life while sleeping and only remember pieces while dreaming.
2) Maybe while were sleeping we get to check in with God but don't fully remember when waking up.
Again, I realize these concepts are a bit bizarre, but not so much when you hold it next to our faith which involves parting seas and burning bushes.....