Divine Dream Time: The Hope and Hazard of Revelation

International Journal of Dream Research, 2021

The biblical narration of Jacob's dream is analyzed in the light of current significant issues of dream research, specifically: the usefulness of historical data for the study of dreaming; the continuity theory; the phenomenological relationship between the dream experience and its sources; the relationship between music and dreaming; the latent role of archetypes in the construction of dreams; the significance of dreams for the cognitive study of religions; and the multiple levels of analysis of historically important dreams. Dream-evocative features in the biblical narration are also described, which are given by word-root recurrences and by the use of a "hapax legomenon" to indicate Jacob's vision. This analysis based on current dream research provides insights into Jacob's dream. In addition, Jacob's dream in itself is useful for dream research, because it highlights basic universal aspects of the dreaming experience.

2015

Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 2004

TRADITION -A JOURNAL OF ORTHODOX JEWISH THOUGHT

The Bible and Critical Theory, 2013

In the following, we explore the interplay between the movies Inception (Nolan 2010) and eXistenZ and the biblical Apocalypse of John (Book of Revelation). In each of these, inescapable, labyrinthine, and finally unmanageable dreams or virtual realities both undercut the reader's sense of reality and challenge the dominant modernist epistemology, for which the fantastic must always be secondary to waking reality. This intertextuality -a widely noted characteristic of much postmodern art and narrative, but also an important feature in John's Apocalypse -profoundly unsettles ideology's certainties. The underlying fundamental problem [is] the relation between existential realms, and the role of the dream as a tissue of potential connectivity ... (Shulman and Strousma 1999: 13) Like a dream, revelation has no beginning . . . . Nevertheless, it still starts somehow. Christopher Nolan's film Inception begins near the end of its story as a man named Cobb awakens on a beach and is hauled before a powerful, aged Japanese businessman, Saito. Abruptly, the movie cuts from Cobb and the old Saito to Cobb and his associate Arthur trying to sell a much younger Saito their dream-security services. The audience only gradually learns that they themselves are two dream levels away from the primary cinematic reality (if there is one) at this point. This learning process unsettles the audience's epistemological certainties, as each viewer often finds him/herself in a dream unaware in Inception. Cobb leads a team that raids people's dreams using powerful sedatives and advanced computers in order to discover their secrets. People can intrude in or invade these previously personal "spaces", and dreams can merge. 1 International corporations and powerful individuals pay well for this service and also for training in self-defense against such raids. Cobb has a troubled past. He is wanted for the murder of his wife, Mal, and therefore he cannot go home again to be with his children. One great danger of the dream manipulation technology is that talented dream "architects", such as Cobb and Mal, can become lost in dreams within dreams and no longer distinguish dreams from reality. Thinking herself in a dream, Mal had believed that suicide was the only way "home", since if you die in a dream (so they believe) then you wake up in reality. However, Mal was not dreaming, and she jumped to her death, leaving evidence that Cobb murdered her. must enter a fourth dream-level, where Cobb and another team member, the appropriately-named Ariadne, meet Mal. That Mal reappears frequently in the movie is quite troubling epistemologically, and she and their two young children serve as ghost figures that haunt Cobb's dreams and reality. This dream world then falls apart catastrophically, but Cobb stays with Mal amid the crashing rubble in order to complete the inception and to rescue Saito who otherwise may be lost forever in a dream. This adventure returns Cobb (and the audience) to the beach of the opening scene and to Saito as a very old man. This return to the film's beginning adds to the sense of interlocking dreams and increases the epistemological confusions.

2019

This chapter compares dream visions and prophecies in mythic historiography with analogous stories in the gospels. Most of the visions and prophecies reveal the birth of a divine child. Fathers have dreams or oracles instructing them not to thwart the divine will. Older prophets play a role and have intimate conversations with mothers. The comparison of Simeon in Lukan myth and the Roman Nigidius Figulus is developed at length.

2011

It is generally agreed that the motif of dream-pairs is one of the unifying elements of the Joseph narrative. Each scene in question features not one dream but two. Different theories have been proposed regarding the contribution of these dream-pairs to the narrative, and regarding the relationship between the dreams of each pair. Joseph interprets the Pharaoh's two dreams as " one and the same, " but he presents a different interpretation for each of the ministers' dreams. The narrative does not explicitly indicate whether Joseph's own dreams share a meaning or have separate meanings; indeed, there are different scholarly approaches to this question. This article proposes that the relationship between Joseph's dreams is a fundamental question in the narrative, and the two models presented later in the story are two possible interpretations between which Joseph himself has the power to choose. It is generally agreed that the three pairs of dreams featured in the Joseph narrative (Joseph's dreams [ch. 37]; the ministers' dreams [ch. 40]; and Pharaoh's dreams [ch. 41]) testify not to a fusion of sources or traditions but to a unity of composition: " The relationship of the three pairs of dreams to each other in chapters 37; 40; and 41 is alone sufficient to show that the Joseph story is the composition of a single author; it reveals a well-thought-out plan. " 1 Many have noted that the connection between the different pairs of dreams is further reinforced by the phrase " I have dreamed a dream " (‫חלמתי‬ ‫,)חלום‬ which appears in all three instances. " The three dream-pairs seem to be tightly connected, " 2 and they play an important 1 Claus Westermann, Genesis 37–50: A Continental Commentary, trans. John J. Scullion

One of the most overlooked aspects concerning the subject of biblical prophecy is that some one-third of the prophecies in The Bible originated as a dream -- or as is sometimes the case, a vision, which is just another way of saying a waking dream. If that's true, then perhaps the domain of prophecy isn't restricted to just the prophets of old but is also open to all humans due to the fact that we all dream.