Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Biblical Dream Interpretations


Understanding the Dreams You Dream

In the book Understanding the Dreams You Dream, Ira Milligan tells us thast God communicates through dreams all the time; He visits us every morning according to Job. We often think the dreams are pointless, though, and forget about them when they could've been an answer to our prayers. Milligan says dreams are a snapshot and to help us remember them. Milligan then desribes everything you need to know about interpreting dreams - what to look for, what kind of dream it is, how to know if it's changeable, what repetitious dreams mean, using proper application, and whether or not the dream is from God. Milligan uses Bible verses to help us understand what he explaining. The rest of the book is a dictionary with the most common Biblical interpretations for each word mentioned. The translations are backed up with at least one Bible verse, too. The dictionary has nine different sections to make it easier when looking up words. The sections range from animals to colors to vehicles and parts. One example of an interpretation is seventeen, under the numbers section. The description is "incomplete: immature; undeveloped; unfinished; childish; naive; a babe in Christ" (Milligan 97). Milligan got this description from Genesis 37:2a and Jeremiah 32:9,15.

I think Milligan did a really good job describing how to interpret dreams and what certain things mean when dreaming. He used one of his and one of his friend's dreams to help the reader understand what he was saying. Moreover, I loved the fact that he used tons of Bible verses to help prove to me that what he was saying was true. Sometimes, the verses reiterated what Milligan said. It was nice to have the interpretation clarified again in different words. At times, though, the verses weren't helpful, at least to me they weren't. For example, I didn't see how the verses used to back up the interpretation of the number seventeen were helpful. They didn't seem to apply to the translation, but I think that it just because I didn't understand the verses.

Additionally, I enjoyed learning the different between night visions and dreams. I didn't even know some of the things we see while sleeping were called night visions. I thought everything was a dream. Milligan says night visions don't need much, if any, interpretation because each one usually has a voice relaying the message of the vision. A dream, on the other hand, "seldom lends itself to self-interpretation" (Milligan 8). Another thing I really liked about the book was the dictionary itself. It will come in handy for times when I have dreams I don't understand.

Milligan, Ira. Understanding the Dreams You Dream. 2nd ed. Shippensburg: Destiny Image Publishers, Inc., 1997. Print.

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