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ABSTRACT
Children's experience and understanding of their divine dreams
Kate Adams
email: 0003568a@student.gla.ac.uk
Kate Adams is completing her PhD at Glasgow University, UK. This
is an extension of previously conducted research, focusing on Christian
and secular children's dreams about/from God, and Muslim children's dreams
from Allah. She has published articles on teacher's anxiety dreams and
children's dreams about God. She is an experienced teacher.
Summary of Presentation
This paper presents the outcomes of an empirical study into the divine
dreams of secular, Christian and Muslim children aged 9-11. After an
introduction to the respective scripture's teaching on the divine origin
of some dreams, I will describe the themes of the children's dreams and
their understanding of them.
Learning Objectives:
To know that the Judaeo-Christian and Islamic scriptures contain
accounts of God/Allah sending dreams to people.
To know what themes the children's dreams about/from God/Allah have.
To understand the ways in which children interpret their dreams about/from
God/Allah.
Evaluation questions:
In the respective scriptures, what forms do the dreams from God/Allah
take?
Identify two common themes in the dream content reported by the children.
Describe one way in which some of the children distinguish a dream as
having a divine origin.
Abstract
This paper, which is part of a PhD thesis, explores an historical
religious belief about dreams and illustrates its relevance to children
today. The research focuses upon the belief that is found in the Holy
Scriptures and traditions of Judaeo-Christianity and Islam, namely that
God/Allah can send dreams to people. Do children with different religious
and non-religious upbringings, living in Britain, share this religious
understanding? In a previous small-scale research project, I illustrated
that 21.2% of secular and Christian children questioned (n= 66) reported
dreams in which God appeared. Do children also have dreams that they
believe have divine origins, even if there is no visual appearance of a
deity? This current study asks how children aged 9-11 from secular and
Christian backgrounds report and understand a dream about or from God, and
how children from Muslim backgrounds report and understand a dream from
Allah.
The paper briefly reports on the methodology used in this research; namely
a questionnaire to establish the content of the dream, with a follow-up
interview in order to explore the children's understanding of it.
Three results of the data analysis will be presented. The first is a
description of the sample and the numbers of children who reported a dream
about/from God/Allah in each group. The second aspect will be an overview
of the themes of the dreams' content in the different groups of children.
These included dreams that feature deceased loved ones and dreams that
predict the future. Three-quarters of the children believed that their
dream was giving them a message. The third result will be a summary of how
the children understood their dreams. For example, did the children
interpret the dreams as a message from God/Allah, or as a 'meaningless'
dream - the result of something experienced in waking life? Why did a
child interpret one dream as having a divine origin, and other dreams as
not?
The presentation will conclude with the argument that the children across
the samples report dreams that share common themes in their content, and
that there are similarities in the ways in which the children interpret
and understand this type of dream. Thus the findings also support the
argument that religions' views of dreams have a role to play in
contemporary dream research. It can provide an insight into the ways in
which children understand some of their dreams; dreams that are rare for
most of the children but nevertheless, in many cases, significant.
Bibliography
(Please note that as this paper is drawn from a PhD thesis, this list
below does not fully represent the amount or range of material on dreams
that I have read)
ADAMS, KATE 2001 God talks to me in my dreams: The occurrence and
significance of children's dreams about God International Journal of
Children's Spirituality Vol 6 no. 1 pp. 99-111
ALI, A YUSUF 1983 The Holy Qur'an - Text, Translation and Commentary
Maryland: Amana Corp
AZAM, UMAR 1992 Dreams in Islam Pennsylvania: Dorrance Publishing Co.
BILAL PHILIPS, ABU AMEENAH 1996 Dream Interpretation According to the
Qur'an and Sunnah Sharjah: Dar Al Fatah
BULKELEY, KELLY 1999 Visions of the Night: Dreams, religion and psychology
Albany: State University of New York Press
GNUSE, ROBERT K 1996 Dreams and Dream Reports in the Writings of Josephus
- A Traditio-Historical Analysis Leiden: E J Brill
JUNG C G (Trans. HULL R F C. Eds. READ, HERBERT, FORDHAM; ADLER, GERHARD
and McGUIRE, WILLIAM) 1969 The Collected Works of C G Jung Volumes 3, 9:1,
10 London: Routledge and Kegan Paul
HUNT, HARRY 1989 The Multiplicity of Dreams New Haven Yale
University Press
KELSEY, MORTON T 1991 God, Dreams and Revelation: A Christian
Interpretation of Dreams Minneapolis: Augsberg
SALINE, SHARON 1999 The most recent dreams of children ages 8-11 Dreaming
vol. 9 Nos. 2/3 pp. 173-180
SANFORD, JOHN, A. 1989 Dreams: God's Forgotten Language San
Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers
SCHNEIDER, ADAM and DOMHOFF, G WILLIAM (no date) Doing Research Projects
on Dream Content http://psych.ucsc.edu/dreams/projects.html accessed
31.07.01
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