Dream Encounters in Christian and Islamic Societies and Its Implications for Christian Ministry and Mission

Abstract

Dreams are commonly experienced by people in every society, but how they are perceived differs according to a person’s perspective. One’s education, socio-cultural and religious backgrounds all influence the way dreams are viewed (Bulkeley 1995:9). Phenomenologically, a dreamer is aware of certain events during this altered state of consciousness. They may be achieved through incubation, drugs or mere somnolence. For this discussion, I focus on dreams encountered in the natural course of sleep. The loss of self-awareness and control experienced when a dreamer dreams is sometimes more pronounced than encountered in a vision or a trance. However, such loss is not necessarily total. One may suddenly awake in a parallel physical enactment of the dream in the real world like dreaming of free-fall from a cliff only to be awakened by the fall from one’s bed!