Chapter 8 - The prophetic nature of dreams

Abstract

Prophetic dreams are replete in literature, both fictional and nonfictional. This chapter reviews five likely possibilities for prophetic from the mundane (coincidence and probabilistic) to the divine and beyond (synchronicity). First, it is possible that prophetic dreams are merely coincidental. Out of thousands of our dreams, one comes true: It is a matter of simple probability, that is, eventually a low probability event will occur. Second, prophetic dreams may be explained by Aristotle's notion that waking thoughts continue into sleep, and sleeping thoughts may carry over into wakefulness. Prodromal dreams may be a specific subtype of this category of dreams consistent with Aristotle's proposal that “the beginnings of all events are small,” especially in diseases. A third cause of prophetic dreams might be that our dreams may serve as probability estimators, that is, we dream of many possible outcomes for our future courses of action, and sometimes we follow one of these courses. A fourth possibility for prophetic dreams is that they may be divinely inspired. Theists would have a very tough time rejecting the notion that God could speak through dreams because the typical notion of a god is that God is all-powerful, and who could purport to know the mind or will of God? Atheists would simply dismiss the possibility of divinely inspired dreams. A fifth possibility for prophetic dreams comes from both Jung and Aristotle. The Jungian hypothesis is known as synchronicity or a meaningful coincidence. According to Jung, dreams may sometimes portend the future because events can be related beyond simple cause and effect. Aristotle also proposed that dreams may indeed contain tokens that may portend future events.