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Dreams
Do Dreams Have Meaning?There are several opinions found among the Sages when it comes to dreams. Do dreams have meaning? Are they a portent of future events? Or do they have no meaning at all?
A dream is one-sixtieth prophecy.
Rav Hisda said: Let a person have a dream any time, but not during a fast.
And Rav Hisda said: A dream that was not interpreted is like a message that was not read.
And Rav Hisda said: A bad dream, its sadness is enough for him; a good dream, its joy is enough for him….
And Rav Hisda said: A bad dream is worse than lashes….
Rabbi Yohanan said in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai: Just as it is impossible for grain to grow without straw, so too, it is impossible to dream without some element of insignificant matters. Rabbi Berekhya said: Even if part of a dream is fulfilled, its entirety is not fulfilled….
Shmuel, when he would have a bad dream, would say: “And the dreams speak falsehood” (Zechariah 10:2). When he would have a good dream, he would say: Do dreams speak falsehood? Isn’t it written: “In a dream, I will speak to him” (Numbers 12:6)?
Rabbi Yohanan said that three dreams are fulfilled: a dream in the morning, a dream that another person dreamed about him, and a dream that is interpreted within a dream. And some say a recurring dream as well….
Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani said that Rabbi Yonatan said: A person is shown in a dream only from the thoughts of his heart [when he was awake]…Know that this is so, as one is shown in a dream neither a golden palm tree nor an elephant passing through the eye of a needle….
There were twenty-four interpreters of dreams in Jerusalem. One time, I dreamed
Matters appearing in dreams have no effect.
Dreams during twilight on the eve of Shabbat have no substantive meaning.