Power of dreams

Wherever there is power there is age. This means that power is enhanced by age because of experience. Now dreams depend on quality with experience of life. Dreams depend on wakefulness and awaking from sleep. For we are near awaking when we dream that we dream.

In fact for seconds, sometimes even minutes after seemingly awake, the dream continues to take shape even though the inner mind becomes conscious of near wakefulness. This is because during the day, and not necessarily immediately before going to sleep, the dreamer becomes worried or preoccupied by some fact that does not seem easy to reconcile with what is material for the solution of the knotty problem.

Practically everyone turns one's dreams into realities as far as one can. One is normally as cold as ice to the truth and as fire to falsehood. This is the opinion of Lafontaine. In effect a dream constitutes one's own patent, or as the French put it, brevet d'invention.

The New Testament gives instances of the dreams of St Joseph the putative father of Jesus. Learning that his wife Mary was pregnant, Joseph, being a just man, had made up his mind to divorce her informally to spare her disgrace.

But the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in his dream and persuaded him that there was nothing wrong with Mary as she had conceived what was in her by the Holy Spirit. Mary was to give birth to a son who was to save his people from their sins. Joseph did not hesitate any longer. He was convinced that he was being divinely inspired. It was thus proved that the Holy Family was well-knit. When Mary gave birth to a son, Joseph named him Jesus.

Three Wise Men went to Herod asking where was the infant king of the Jews. When they found the baby Jesus they offered him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. But they were given warning in a dream not to go back to Herod. They returned to their own country by a different way.

After they had left, suddenly the Angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother with you, and escape into Egypt and stay there until I tell you, because Herod intends to search for the child and do away with him."

So Joseph did as he was instructed to do and left that night for Egypt. Where he stayed until Herod was dead. This was to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet: I called my son out of Egypt. All this was told by St Matthew the Evangelist.

The story of Joseph in Genesis

There is narration of dreams in the Old Testament. We find a series of dreams in the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis. Jacob loved Joseph more than all his other sons, for he was the son of his old age. So the brothers came to hate him so much that they could not say a civil word to him. Now Joseph had a dream and he repeated it to his brothers who then hated him more than ever. "Listen", he said, "to the dream I had". He told them of their sheaves of corn bowing down to his own sheaf which was upright.

They retorted: "So you want to be king and lord it over us". So they hated him even more, on account of his dream and of what he said. His father scolded him for his second dream. This was more fantastic than the first. Joseph said that he had dreamt there was the sun, the moon and eleven stars bowing down to me. His father told him: "A fine dream you had. Are all of us, myself, your mother and your brothers to come and bow to the ground before you?" His brothers held it against him, but his father pondered the matter.

His brothers kidnapped him and sold him into slavery. His master Potiphar, the Egyptian, seeing the capabilities and honesty of Joseph, trusted him with the charge of his household and all his effects,

Joseph repulsed the amorous advances of his master's wife. She later accused him wrongly of trying to seduce her. Joseph was imprisoned in Pharaoh's prison. Imprisoned with him were the chief baker and Pharaoh's cup-bearer. Both of them had dreams on the same night, each with its own meaning, one for the cup-bearer and the other for the baker. They complained that there was no one to explain their dreams. They asked for Joseph's help.

The cup-bearer told him that in his dream there was a vine in front of him. There were three branches on the wine. These immediately blossomed and its clusters became ripe grapes. The cup-bearer squeezed the grapes in Pharaoh's cup. He put the cup into Pharaoh's hand.

Joseph interpreted the dream as meaning that in three days Pharaoh will pardon him and restore him to his former position. Joseph told him: "When you hand Pharaoh his cup, remember me to him to pardon me and get out of this place. I was kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews in the first placed and even here I have done nothing wrong to warrant being put in this dungeon."

The chief baker, seeing that the interpretation of the cup-bearer's dream had been favourable, asked Joseph to explain his dream. But the interpretation of the baker's dream was tragic. The baker was to be hanged on the gallows in three days' time. The birds will eat the flesh off his bones. And it so happened as Joseph had explained.

Pharaoh's dreams

Two years later Pharaoh had a dream wherein seven lean cows came after seven fat cows and ate them up. Pharaoh woke up and immediately went to sleep again. This time he dreamt that seven meagre and scorched ears of corn proceeded to eat up seven full and ripe ears of corn. Pharaoh sent for the magicians and wise men in his kingdom. But no one could provide an answer. The cup-bearer suddenly remembered that he had forgotten to pass Joseph's appeal to the Pharaoh, so he told Pharaoh about Joseph's correct interpretation of his and the chief baker's dreams.

Joseph, brought before Pharaoh to explain his dreams, declared: "God, not I, will give Pharaoh a favourable answer. The two dreams have the same message. There will be seven years of plenty in Egypt followed by seven years of famine. I advise the apopointment of a capable man to deal with this great problem."

Heeding this advice, Pharaoh appointed Joseph governor of all Egypt. Joseph ordered the storing of one-fifth of the grain harvested each year so that there would be enough to feed the people in years of want.

Joseph, being upright and honest, was given the grace and capability to help those in need, even his own brothers who had betrayed him and sold him into slavery, It was the power of interpreting dreams that saved the Egyptians and the Israelites.