The Science Behind Dreaming (Sander van der Linden, Scientific American, July 2011)
Dreams seem to help us process emotions by encoding and constructing memories of them. What we see and experience in our dreams might not necessarily be real, but the emotions attached to these experiences certainly are. Our dream stories essentially try to strip the emotion out of a certain experience by creating a memory of it. This way, the emotion itself is no longer active. This mechanism fulfills an important role because when we don't process our emotions, especially negative ones, this increases personal worry and anxiety... In short, dreams help regulate traffic on that fragile bridge which connects our experiences with our emotions and memories.
Genesis 41:15-16
(15) And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I have had a dream, but no one can interpret it. Now I have heard it said of you that for you to hear a dream is to tell its meaning.” (16) Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, “Not I! God will see to Pharaoh’s welfare.”
Genesis 41:25-28
(25) And Joseph said to Pharaoh, “Pharaoh’s dreams are one and the same: God has told Pharaoh what God is about to do. (26) The seven healthy cows are seven years, and the seven healthy ears are seven years; it is the same dream. (27) The seven lean and ugly cows that followed are seven years, as are also the seven empty ears scorched by the east wind; they are seven years of famine. (28) It is just as I have told Pharaoh: God has revealed to Pharaoh what God is about to do.
There are five matters in our world which are one-sixtieth of their most extreme manifestations. They are: Fire, honey, Shabbat, sleep, and a dream. The Gemara elaborates: Our fire is one-sixtieth of the fire of Gehenna; honey is one-sixtieth of manna; Shabbat is one-sixtieth of the World-to-Come; sleep is one-sixtieth of death; and a dream is one-sixtieth of prophecy.
In a long chain of those transmitting this statement, it is said that Rabbi Bizna bar Zavda said that Rabbi Akiva said that Rabbi Panda said that Rav Naḥum said that Rabbi Birayim said in the name of one elder, and who is he, Rabbi Bena’a: There were twenty-four interpreters of dreams in Jerusalem. One time, I dreamed a dream and went to each of them to interpret it. What one interpreted for me the other did not interpret for me, and, nevertheless, all of the interpretations were realized in me, to fulfill that which is stated: All dreams follow the mouth of the interpreter.
Quotes About Dreams and Dreaming
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“If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.”
– Marcel Proust (Remembrance of Things Past)
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“A dream is a wish your heart makes when you’re fast asleep.”
– Mack David, Al Hoffman and Jerry Livingston (Cinderella)
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“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”
– Harriet Tubman
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Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.
– Gloria Steinem
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“If you but will it, it is no fairy tale. If you will it, it is no dream (im tirtzu ein zo aggadah).”
– Theodore Herzl (Old New Land)
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“Don’t dream it, be it.”
– Dr. Frank N. Furter (Richard O’Brien, The Rocky Horror Picture Show)
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“Dreams are where we visit the many lands and landscapes of human possibility and discover the one where we feel at home.”
– Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
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“Dream lofty dreams and as you dream so shall you become; your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be.”
– James Allen (As a Man Thinketh)