Adam Small
In the beginning of a new year, one dreams. You dream of a future better than the year just past (even if it had not been all that bad). And you dream this not only for yourself, but also for all around you: family, friends and acquaintances. If you are truly caring, you dream of betterment for the poor, who knock on your door from day to day, begging.
This is one meaning of “dreaming” – a kind of hoping and wishing. There is the other, more “technical” definition of dreams, touching on the psychological intent of it: the sense of dreaming with which Joseph of the Bible, Jacob’s son, was involved, and which Egypt’s Pharaoh called him to “interpret”. This is dreaming in the sense of what Die Afrikaanse Woordeboek (WAT) calls ’n onwillekeurige werksaamheid van die bewussyn(“an involuntary activity of consciousness”), which happens “ofttimes during sleep”; and there is also daydreaming: consider Jan Vermeer’s Girl asleep.
Nightmares are a special category of dreams.
It would be unwarranted to think dismissively of dreaming, as if it weren’t a serious subject. Religious texts make ample mention of dreams, and great philosophers – Aristotle for one – take dreaming to be an important matter of enquiry, and so do key psychologists and psychiatrists: Freud, Adler, Jung...
All their concepts were self-made, signalling great creativity. And we must not omit the prophets and poets.
As far as poets are concerned, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is to the point; and, thinking of prophets, every so often God is around in their dreams, and of course angels. Jacob, journeying from Beersheba to Haran, when the sun sets, lay down and slept. He took stones beside the road for pillows. Then he dreamt that he saw a ladder set up on the ground. “And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep.
And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending it.
And behold the Lord stood above it, and said, “I am the Lord God of Abraham, thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed...”
The idea of God is wrapped up with dreams, as if dreams are gifts of God. This idea is put beautifully in the Book of Joel, where in Chapter 2 we read: “And it shall come to pass that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions...”
There is also a shadow side to dreams (albeit not a dark side). We are deep into this kind of dream territory when we enter the world of the Oracle of Delphi, the old woman Pythia. Again, a god is involved, this time Apollo, whose representative she apparently was. She lived on a volcanic mountain, inhaling the uprising vapours, and conjured prophecies in a frenzy, which the temple priests would interpret. She had words even for Socrates, whom she praised greatly. But he did not take her praise for granted. He went testing her words that he was the wisest man in Athens! He himself believed that he “knew how little he knew”. He discovered ultimately, though, that the Oracle was right.
This shadow aspect of dreams is not one of evil, but merely the haze from which, often, wisdom is born – a reality of life that surrounds great souls (which we cannot understand neatly, and simply must accept).
It is true, it seems, that “in most dreams the dreamer cannot control what is happening”, and that, by and large, “people see (and) also hear, smell, touch and taste in their dreams”; and that “dreams occur in colour”. However, where persons were born without a specific sense faculty, this faculty would not come aright in their dreams.
My own experience (unlike that mentioned by some sources) is that a dream is not necessarily related to “events of the day before the dream”. Surely, ever so many dreams concern events in a person’s life long, long ago. How often have I not dreamt of my childhood doings of more than seventy years ago! It does seem true, however (which is a further view), that dreams often relate to “strong wishes of the dreamer”.
Some of the nastiest dreams are about things one dislikes, and people who are irksome in life: nightmares (that special category of dreams) often being the result.
There are also greatly uplifting dreams. I recall dreaming more than once (and, indeed, look forward, every time, to a repeat of it) of standing in front of and gazing at a Vincent van Gogh painting in some gallery (like the National Gallery of Art in London, or the Rijksmuseum), being emotional about the work to the point of tears, and wondering at the artist’s bold and passionate brush strokes! (Interestingly: does this say something about the cognation of souls?)
Another artist I relate to in the same way is Michelangelo – which is why an image of one of his Pietàs appears on the front cover of my newest play Maria, Moeder van God(Mary, Mother of God).
Often I find myself also the (rather incompetent and at-a-loss) interpreter of my own dreams. But the Pharaoh in ancient Egypt did no better – he had to engage Joseph as interpreter. The story of the seven fat and seven lean years comes to mind. Did Joseph take a long chance interpreting the Pharaoh’s dream? He was in any case a good hand at dreaming to his own advantage, and interpreting his own dreams: “And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren, and they hated him... And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed: for, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. And his brethren said to him, ‘Shalt thou indeed reign over us? Or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us?’ And they hated him yet the more for his dreams and for his words.” But Joseph had not finished dreaming. He dreamt another dream, to wit that “... the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me”.
“And he told it to his father (who) rebuked him, and said unto him, ‘What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed bow down ourselves to thee...?”
Where he lies buried in Shechem, Joseph alone will know whether he just guessed it all! (It does not seem so.)
What is the truth about dreams, then? Neither Freud nor Jung, nor Aristotle, themselves would know. But it certainly is a worthwhile theme to ponder.