I had a powerful and vivid dream a couple of months ago. I woke up and wrote it down. The feelings from that dream remain vivid in my memory even now. The dream had two distinct parts, both set in an unnamed Islamic country.

In the first part of the dream I was a young, Islamic boy who was too immature to care about the lives or feelings of others. Another boy loaned me his most beloved possession, a pair of binoculars with plastic caps for the lenses and a nice leather case.

I was not very careful with the binoculars. After using them, I hurriedly put them back in their case without putting the covers on the lenses. Before climbing down an embankment of some sort, I lazily dropped the case and some books of mine to the bottom so that climbing down would be easier for me.

My books were fine, but the binoculars were ruined. They were the only thing of value the other boy owned, and he cried out, grieving for his loss.

Suddenly I was filled with remorse for my actions as I understood for the first time what it meant to hurt another person. I lost the friendship but grew in wisdom. After that I was able to laugh and play peacefully with other children in the village.

This part of the dream ended with a mysterious old woman praising me for my newfound ability to care for others.

In the second dream sequence, I was a Christian minister visiting in the same Islamic country. I went into a mosque that was almost empty of worshippers. I spoke with the Imam and a number of the elderly people. They were very sad and grieving the fact that their mosques were empty and the younger generation was drifting away from their historic faith.

I left the mosque and sat on the slope of a small hill with a group of Imams and their students. In this part of the dream I kept my Christianity hidden, trying to blend in with the others.

They were reading from an ancient book of scripture. Its pages were made of very thin sheets of stone carved with mysterious looking runes. The rune letters were exceedingly beautiful, so that it was wonderful for me just to gaze at them. When I confessed that I did not know the language of the book, they were shocked and filled with grief for me. They wondered how I could be in spiritual training if I didn’t know the sacred language.

I tried to follow along in the text as an old Imam read aloud, for some of the runes looked rather like Hebrew letters. But the real meaning of the words was contained in the pictures or symbols that the letters formed, as is true with Chinese. Slowly my understanding of the language grew until I could read a little of it. In that moment I was filled with a joy that is beyond any joy I have ever felt in real life. There is no way to describe the purity and delight that I felt. It was as if I was standing before the throne of eternal truth, my long journey over. I burst into tears and ran forward, weeping and telling everyone that I had learned to read.

Even though I was far behind the others, I had no shame. And even though they were far beyond me, they rejoiced in my small step forward. The happiness that filled me was a complete consummation. I was consumed by it.

The Imams and students and people of the village were so happy for me that they threw beautiful, colored pieces of paper that rained down upon me like confetti. I learned that this celebration was also a part of their spiritual tradition, and I was filled with love for such a people who would rejoice so passionately at a stranger’s first steps toward enlightenment.

I do not know what this dream means. I do not have to know what it means.

As myths are to humanity, so dreams are to the individual. No one knows where they come from or exactly what they mean. But we cannot live meaningful lives without them. Deprive an individual of his dreaming, and he becomes psychotic. Deprive a culture of its myths, and the people lose their identity. They begin to lose touch with the deep and old forces that created them. Without myth, society itself becomes psychotic.

I do not have to understand my dreams for them to move me and change me. I only have to receive them, take them seriously, enjoy them, think about them, delight in them, or in some cases be horrified by them. This is the way of dreaming. One receives a dream and is changed in subtle and even subconscious ways.

At night we lay ourselves down and are plugged into a source that we do not know. You may name this source if you wish. You may call it God or the collective unconscious. You may even deny the presence of an intelligence beyond your own and claim to be the source of your own dreams. But you will dream, and a part of you is receiving these messages. This is not something you can control.

Think of them however you will, but do not neglect your dreams. Listen to them. Hear them. Know them. Do not be afraid of them.

Dreaming is one of the ways that we learn what it means to be human.

rlp