“Hear my words: When there are prophets among you, I the Lord make myself known to them in visions; I speak to them in dreams.”
Numbers 12:6
Dear members and friends,
More than a century after Swedenborg, a Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung approached dreams from a very different direction. Rather than viewing dreams primarily as supernatural communications, Jung regarded them as expressions of the unconscious mind. His famous observation summarizes his approach: “The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul.”
For Jung, dreams support and nurture our minds for the limitations of our conscious personality. They reveal aspects of ourselves that we ignore, suppress, or are hesitant to integrate. Symbols appearing in dreams are therefore not random but arise from what he called the collective unconscious; a reservoir of universal human patterns or archetypes.
Joseph Campbell, deeply influenced by Jung, expanded this insight into the study of mythology. Campbell observed: “The dream is the personalized myth; the myth is the depersonalized dream.”
In other words, our private dreams and humanity’s great religious stories speak the same symbolic language. Biblical narratives, ancient myths, and our nightly dreams all describe the universal journey of transformation and the movement from ignorance toward wholeness.
Modern psychology generally approaches dreams more cautiously than either Swedenborg or Jung. Neuroscientists suggest that dreaming helps consolidate memories, process emotions, and integrate experiences from daily life. Some theories emphasize the brain’s effort to organize information; others see dreams as emotional regulation or creative problem-solving. Although psychologists differ on why we dream, many agree that dreams often reveal our deepest concerns, fears, and hopes.
Interestingly, these perspectives may not be mutually exclusive. Swedenborg reminds us that human consciousness is connected to the spiritual world. Jung reminds us that much of our life remains unconscious. Psychology reminds us that the brain itself is actively processing experience even while we sleep. Each perspective points toward the same reality: dreams deserve thoughtful reflection, but they should not become objects of superstition.
Joseph’s dreams ultimately were not about his own greatness. Before they could be fulfilled, Joseph endured betrayal, slavery, temptation, imprisonment, and years of waiting. The dreams announced not immediate success but the beginning of a long process of transformation. Only after suffering had reshaped his character, did Joseph prepare to become a source of life for others.
Perhaps our own dreams, whether literal dreams during sleep or the deeper dreams we carry in our hearts, serve a similar purpose. They may not predict the future with certainty. Rather, they invite us to listen more deeply to what God is accomplishing within us. As Joseph himself later confessed to his brothers, “You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20). Divine providence was quietly at work long before Joseph could recognize it, resulting in the best out of poor choices of humans.
Whether we read dreams through the lens of Swedenborg, Jung, Campbell, or psychology, they remind us that much of life unfolds beneath the surface of ordinary awareness. The visible world is only a part of the whole story. The real work of transformation often begins in the hidden places of the soul, where God patiently prepares us for the journey ahead.
Blessings,
Rev. Junchol Lee