Dreaming to Wake Up

A friend, graduate student in psychology, explained to me the interpretation of dreams. He said that dreams come from the subconscious part of the brain. He said that to understand them, you must imagine that your subconscious is a director making a movie filled with symbolism – and that movie is your dream. This director is incredibly brilliant, but he doesn’t have a lot of time, so he composes the movie with whatever is handy.

I've used this explanation, and I find it useful.

1. A friend’s dream in China.

A friend of mine had a prosperous, life-long business in Asia, but the government forced him to sell it to them. He had a wad of cash, but no plan. We met in China. He was studying Chinese; I was teaching international business law.

He dreamed of operating a bakery. Literally. He had this dream as he slept.

He had found a Chinese bakery to buy. It was modern and well-equipped. But the price that the owners demanded was outlandish. And the local Chinese market was flooded with bakeries.

Like me, he was a Christian. We talked about how he could know that his dream was from God. He believed the dream was supernatural, but buying the bakery made no business sense. His business judgment warred with his desire to obey God.

2. Two interpretations.

My friend was inclined to take his dream literally. I don’t recall that I disputed his interpretation; maybe I did. But I warned him against entering into a bad bargain.

I think that his interpretation of the dream gave little credit to the genius director in his head. I think the bakery of his dream was symbolic, not literal. Bread in the Bible is associated with salvation and with Jesus. In 1 Corinthians 11:23-24, Paul says this:

[T]he Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.

In church, people to this day take "holy communion": bread and wine.

So in Biblical symbolism, Jesus is bread, and we must eat that bread. As a Christian, my friend was familiar with this symbolism. In this symbolism, owning a bakery can be spreading salvation.

So perhaps God, through my friend’s subconscious, was telling him to spread the word of God.

He didn’t buy the bakery. I don’t know what happened to him and his family after I returned to America.

3. My own bakery dream.

Twenty years later, I also dream of a bakery. In that bakery, I honor the dead, but I don’t now remember how. Then I’m among the dead – I’m a ghost in the bakery.

In life, I had been a part owner of the bakery. Newly dead, I stay in the bakery. There are other ghosts there, former part-owners. The living owners can see me and talk to me, but they are unaware of the other ghosts.

At one point, I take a ghost's arm and tell him to strain to push his arm up while I strained to push his arm down. I do this to prove to the living that other ghosts are present. In the dream, I think that my straining will show the existence of that which I am straining against.

The ghosts tell me that the living can see me because I’m newly dead; but with time I’ll disappear from the living, like them.

4. One interpretation: a premonition.

The simplest interpretation of this is that I’ve had a premonition or prediction of my own death. The bakery is life; bread – food – is needed to live, so it is associated with living. When I virtually arm-wrestle another of the dead, I am laboring to be remembered among the living. I’m trying to ensure my own remembrance among the living by trying to make them acknowledge the forgotten dead.

5. Another interpretation: salvation and its loss.

But that interpretation is very direct. It doesn’t give credit to a brilliant director. I think the real interpretation is something else.

I think that this dream is about salvation. Just like my friend’s dream in China might have been God telling him to spread the gospel, to spread the bread of salvation, the bakery of my dream might also be about salvation.

I’ve shared before, somewhat, my pessimism about my own salvation. It’s something that I share reluctantly, but I have my reasons. I think this dream expresses that pessimism.

In the dream, I’m dead. I take this to mean that I’m not saved – I’m dead to God. But I can commune with the living – they speak with me and I to them. To commune with the living while dead could represent the condition of physical life but spiritual death.

When I arm-wrestle with the dead, I strain to convince the living that they cannot take for granted their salvation. I act as a conduit of knowledge about spiritual death. I want the living to know that spiritual death is real, and that it comes to people like themselves.

In my dream, I don’t remember that the living were impressed with this demonstration. And, in fact, when I warn Christians about the uncertainty of salvation, I never convince anybody. My friends are mired in the false doctrine of cheap grace and easy salvation.

6. The dream expresses my frustration with the American Christian church.

This dream expresses my anxiety over my own salvation, but it also expresses my frustration with modern American Christianity. The Church doesn’t strive to bring its congregation to salvation. Too much, the Church says that salvation is easy.

Since salvation is all done and taken care of, churches find other missions. Some churches preach the prosperity gospel. They tell their congregations that God wants to make them rich. A church of this kind focuses its members’ attention on riches in this world. This defies the real message of the Bible, which is opposite of what such churches teach.

Some churches are about making insiders and outsiders. The insiders are the right-believing members of the church. The outsiders are those who are gay, or liberal, or who believe in science over a literal interpretation of Genesis and other parts of the Bible. These churches are about being church insiders. Insiders with God? No worries. Call these the churches of the gospel of smugness.

Some churches are about power – the power of the Holy Spirit. I heard of a pastor who boasted that new members of his church chase demons down the street before they learn John 3:16. I believe in the spiritual gifts, but I also believe that they can be a trap for a church, causing division and provoking pride and stirring foolish attitudes.

7. The point.

My point is that churches often are distracted by their particular obsessions. My point is that churches need to re-focus. I would hope that they would become less assured about the salvation of their members. I would hope that they would become more humble and more energetic in their pursuit of God. I think that’s the import of my dream.