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not only does God, at times, still communicate Dream work examining both the emotional
in dreams, He may communicate to clients in patterns and life events that are sources of the
dreams and so it is important that the Christi- emotions may be beneficial for the client. Chri-
an therapist develop skills that will help clients stian pastoral counselors and spiritual directors
interpret their dreams, particularly if the dream are discovering that dreams can be a valuable
is from God. resource in the counseling process (Bulkeley,
2009).
While God may use dreams to communicate
with a person, most dreams are not communi- While some Christian psychologist use dream
cations from God. They appear to fall into the interpretation in their counseling, many do not.
second category of dreams that were described The reasons vary. Some simply have not been
in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament trained to do dream work coming from a cogni-
as transient and meaningless. If the Bible states tive-behavioral perspective. Others may avoid
that these dreams are meaningless then it seems dream work associating it with new age philo-
that a Christian psychology should not use sophies. However, it is clear from scripture that
dream interpretation as a techniques in coun- God uses dreams to communicate to humanity
seling. Before that conclusion can be drawn, and that God created people with the ability to
it is important to examine scripture carefully. dream. Dreams need to be interpreted based on
Fee and Stuart (2003) caution against looking Christian principles. Dreams from God will not
at small parts of a passage in wisdom literature go against truths that have already been presen-
and missing the overall message. Ecclesiastes 5: ted in the Bible. While examination of dreams
3 and 7 are part of a larger passage (5: 1-7) in may give one insight regarding thoughts, emo-
which the main message is to stand in awe of tions and desires, it is important to remember
God and listen instead of dreaming and talking. that dreams are influenced by humanities fallen
The point of the passage is not to define the pur- nature. Before a person takes action as a result
pose of dreams, but the writer does recognize of a dream, the action must be evaluated ac-
that in some situations dreams are meaningless. cording to God’s principles. To develop a com-
This passage does not rule out the possibility prehensive understanding of people, Christian
that ordinary dreams can be meaningful. Just psychologist need to continue to research the
as psychology and neuroscience are questio- function of dreams and realize dreams can be a
ning whether dreams are unimportant or have useful resource in the counseling process.
a function, this is an appropriate question for
Christian Psychology. There is still much deba-
te over the purpose of dreams. While Hobson References
theorizes that dreams are simply an attempt of Bulkeley, K. (2009). The religious content of dreams: A
the brain to synthesize automatic brain activi- new scientific foundation. Pastoral psychology, 58, 93-
ty, others argue against this theory pointing out 106, DOI 10.1007/s11089-008-0180-8.
that even though dreams may have some bi- Elwell, W. A., & Comfort, P. W. (2001). Tyndale Bible dic-
tionary. Tyndale reference library. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale
zarre qualities most dreams accurately portray House Publishers.
daily life. One theory sees dreams as reproces- Fee, G. & Stuart, D. How to read the Bible for all its worth.
sing memories and emotions (Stickgold, Hob- Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
son, R. Fosse and M. Fosse, 2001). Research has Nielsen, T., & Stenstrom, P. (2005). What are the me-
demonstrated that the content of sleep is influ- mory sources of dreaming ? Nature, 437, 1286-1289,
enced by fragments of waking life events and Doi:10.1038/nature04288.
Ripken, Nik, (2013). The insanity of God. Nashville, TN:
emotional patterns (Nielsen and Stenstrom, B &H Publishing
2008). In addition, Wegner, Wenzlaff and Stickgold, R., Hobson, J.A., Fosse, R., & Fosse, M. (2001,
Kozak (2004) provide evidence that suppressed November 2). Sleep, learning, and dreams: Offline me-
thoughts may rebound in dreams. Clients are mory reprocessing. Science, 294, 1052-1057.
not always aware of the life events that are the Wegner, D., Wenzlaff, M., & Kozak, M. (2004). Dream
rebound: The return of suppressed thoughts in dreams.
source of emotional patterns during dreaming. Psychological Science, 15(4), 232-236.

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