Dream from Episode 221
Dreams of God can be confronting, thrilling, and deeply demanding. Throughout history, dreams and visions have been one of the primary ways humans have experienced God as present and real – what is known as theophany, the visible or audible manifestation of God to humanity.
The most mature and precious dreams of God have the potential to re-center our lives and force us to discover divinity in the places we least expect and often avoid. If you make the time to work deeply and thoughtfully with your God dream, you may find that it constellates a new symbol, which is capable of holding opposites. This can fuel a transformation within and around you.
From a Jungian perspective, our modern dreams of God may also help us to repair the current divide between institutional religion and a living, personal psychology.
In this post we explore how we can understand and classify God dreams (or dreams with religious themes), as well as offering detailed advice on working with such dreams. Above, you’ll find a recording of the three of us discussing a God dream discussed in Episode 221 – Daimon: Demon or Destiny? (with a transcript provided at the conclusion of the article).
Three Types of God Dreams
Dreams of God can be framed into three major categories:
- Dreams where the dream-ego meets a figure named God (or a culturally equivalent supreme power).
- Dreams that constellate the God image indirectly, via symbols of ultimacy, center, totality, or overwhelming numinosity (light, voice, mountain, mandala, king, stone, child, etc.).
- Dreams that function in a godlike way, because they correct, reorient, and evaluate your conscious attitudes from a superior, autonomous, and wiser perspective.
When a dream presents God, it is often giving us an image of the Self (the regulating center and totality of your Psyche). In the dream, we experience the Self as other, and it evokes a religious feeling. It brings to the surface the big questions of life: “Who is the maker of dreams, what is the status of that superior intelligence, and how does it relate to my religion, ethics, and matter itself?”
Three Reasons God Might Appear in Your Dreams
1. The dream as corrective other
The dream is a drama scripted by an intelligence that sees us more clearly than even our best friend or worst enemy would. The presence of the god image in the dream forces us to ask where our energy to take action really comes from.
2. Dreams are compensatory
Dreams bring to us what consciousness excludes or undervalues. They function as a regulator of psychic equilibrium. The dream maker’s effect is often experienced as external and autonomous. It’s not surprising that historically, this was interpreted as a spirit power.
3. God has always spoken through dreams
Many people long to hear God’s voice, as it is depicted in ancient texts like the Bible or Torah. But our modern consciousness has forgotten that dreams and visions were the primary channel to that kind of religious experience. Modern people often insert institutions, doctrines, or rationalism between themselves and Psyche’s spontaneous, living religious function.
This yields a predictable compensatory pattern: the more consciousness insists that God cannot or does not speak inwardly, the more the dream will keep reintroducing God in symbolic form, sometimes disruptive, sometimes corrective, sometimes healing.
A Typology of God Dreams
1. Direct theophany (God as person, voice, or presence)
Some dreams present God as a recognizable figure (father, old man, king, judge), or as a commanding voice. God may also appear as natural phenomena (fire, breath, water). We may experience a wise old man who allows us to talk, question, argue, and bring human conflict; the personification offers us an addressable, dialogical form of the God archetype.
Like all encounters with an archetype, this may trigger an inflation that makes us feel that we are specially chosen, or to become morally militaristic because ‘God told us so’. We can slip out of this trap by discerning whether the dream is simply confirming our own bias or calling us to the humble recognition that we are small and dependent upon the greater consciousness of the Self.
2. God as impersonal numinosity (light, fire, from above)
Another common dream form is God as light, fireball, radiance, tornado, tidal wave, or overwhelming energy. This is more abstract because it does not intrinsically provide a frame for dialogue or easy interaction. When the energy shows up like this, it suggests that the profundity of the meaning cannot yet be framed in personal terms.
The challenge is to confront the impulse to bypass our embodied life and important relationships and dissociate into pure spirituality. The waking personality’s mission is to translate the numinous experience of the dream into ethical and relational adjustments in real life.
3. God as the ordering center (mandala, spiral city, pyramid)
Sometimes the energy of the dream constellates a new center for the psychic world rather than a personal deity. This can present as a mandala in the center of a city, or a perfectly walled square, or a remarkable axis like a cosmic tree, a mountain peak, or a temple. When a dreamer is placed in the center of that environment, they often report an experience of light that feels like the face of God.
The juxtaposition of the structured environment where light is revealed suggests the Self is operating as a primary re-ordering principle. The intensity of the encounter could be misunderstood as a tremendous personal achievement, and we find ourselves thinking, “I have arrived,” thereby evading the labor of discovering the new attitude required to relate to the symbol. We can correct for this if we ask who or what is being re-centered, and what I must reorganize around the new axis presented in the dream.
4. God hidden in the despised, rejected, or low (shadow theophany)
One of the most psychologically redemptive dreams in this category is where the divine is discovered in precisely what the waking personality rejects. This is suggested in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas: “Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.”
An encounter with the living God image requires contact with the often-rejected ground of our life. This can include our bodies, the shadow, and a fierce investigation into our authentic ethical stance. For some, this message can provoke moral panic, denial, anger, or disgust.
This kind of dream is an invitation to integrate aspects of shadow where divinity is obscured, without collapsing into cynicism or self-hate.
5. Religious tradition and the dream’s spiritual innovation
Jung suggested that the mission of dreams of this magnitude is to modify our religious attitude, as individuals and as a collective. In his later writings on the evolution of the religious instinct, Jung intuited that rigid rituals and doctrinal alignment would eventually be replaced by a widely accepted veneration of numinous encounters in dreams. In essence, the communal sharing of such dreams would cultivate an orientation to the living archetype rather than the artifacts of ancient experiences.
How Dreams Suggest the Evolution of Religious Instinct
Here are three useful examples of how dreams of God can present us with the evolution of religious instinct:
1. The dream as conservator of essential images
It is not uncommon for those of us who have aligned with a specific religious tradition to find ourselves dreaming that our place of worship has been demolished. The dreamer is tasked with holding the tabernacle or a religious statue, which must be carefully reinstalled in an innovatively rebuilt new church.
This suggests that the external structures of spirituality are being renewed, even while the archetypal images are revered and expected to incarnate in a new structure. Such dreams explicitly distinguish the institutional structures from the spark of numinous life that can move internally from structure to structure, from sacred text to sacred text, from age to age.
2. The dream’s pressure to complete the God image
It is common that dreams present a Trinity that eventually turns into a quaternity. Sometimes this can seem as ordinary as a dream that begins with the dreamer and friends who are waiting for the fourth to arrive. When they do, there are often changes in the dream environment that suggest a new matrix has activated, which will progressively reorganize various factors in the dreamer’s inner life. This often implies that our consciously held ideas and images of God are too one-sided and reject the lived, progressive revelation within us, so Psyche presses for an additional symbol capable of embodying spirituality.
3. Sapientia Dei and the divine feminine
Dreams of God may also show us the resurgence of the divine feminine principle. Father gods have called the human imagination upward into the world of rarefied thought and abstraction, giving us the benefits that come with higher orders of thinking. Jung’s concept of enantiodromia, however, leads us to expect the emergence of the unconscious opposite in the course of time.
When dreams introduce motifs of Mary, Sophia or a feminine divine mediator, we see this unfolding. The glorification of the feminine goddess-image that redeems the body and matter itself is part of the new dispensation. When our dreams introduce divine images of the feminine, we can interpret these as signals that the dreamer’s God image is seeking incarnation.
How To Honor and Work with Dreams of God
Dreams of God often evoke strong resistance in the dreamer. They are inviting us to enter into a difficult process: breaking away from deeply ensconced and reified attitudes.
Avoid the three classic errors
- Literalism: treating the dream as an external revelation in the crude sense, rather than a symbolic event demanding psychological integration.
- Reductionism: explaining away the dream as nothing but a wish, fear, or brain noise brought on by a movie you watched, thereby destroying its meaning-making function.
- Inflation: mistaking contact with the Self (or a numinous God-image) for your personal greatness, mission, or exemption from ethical limits.
Ask, what does the God dream produce in you?
It is seductive to validate the content of a numinous dream because of our intense reaction to it. And while that is one valid factor, we must also ask ourselves what the inner encounter activates in our personality. Does the dream, over time, produce more honesty, greater responsibility, less projection, or capacity for relationship, better differentiation of conscience from self-righteous moralism? The important frame of consideration is to evaluate the interpretation, and notice if it nourishes our consciousness by increasing our aliveness, rather than producing a transient spiritual intoxication.
A Cautionary Note
History has shown in lurid detail that the exclusive veneration of the exalted and sequestered God-image can become psychologically and socially destructive when it is completely severed from the ground upon which its worshipers live. When this exultation reaches a critical mass, we notice more dreams of injured infants found in the catacombs beneath cathedrals, or animals fleeing a burning church, or pale worshipers discovered sleeping for 100 years with their hymnals open. These dreams and many others provide a necessary shock, not unlike a hospital defibrillator, to our feeling function, which requires integration for the ego to embrace new learning about itself and life. While this may evoke some distress, it often leads to a profound renewal that words fail to describe.
How To Interpret a Dream of God
- Phenomenology first: describe the God-appearance (figure, voice, light, place, center, affect) before interpreting it.
- Contextual anchoring: ask what conscious situation the dream is responding to (conflict, one-sidedness, despair, pride, deadness, moral dilemma).
- Amplification: bring in religious and mythic parallels insofar as they illuminate your situation. The Jacob’s ladder story, for instance, becomes psychologically beneficial when understood as a symbolic axis of communication between above and below, or between ego and Self.
- Ethical integration: specify what the dream demands in behavior, relationship, or responsibility.
- Completion of the God image: pay special attention when a fourth unexpected element arrives.
A dream about God is a profound gift from the dream maker. It will make deep demands on you, but may result in a productive re-centering, and a transformative recognition of divinity in unexpected places.
~ Joseph
Joseph R. Lee is a senior certified Jungian analyst, a lecturer, a seasoned clinician, and a leading podcaster who introduces Jung’s ideas to a broad national and international audience. His private practice focuses on the psycho-spiritual healing and strengthening of men. He has served as president of the Philadelphia Association of Jungian Analysts, is co-author of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams, and co-creator of Dream School. Learn more about Joseph here.
References
CG. Jung. (1964). In Man and his symbols (referenced quotation in The Way of the Dream). Doubleday.
Fraser Boa. (1988). The way of the dream (in conversation with Marie-Louise von Franz). Windrose Films.
Marie-Louise von Franz. (1966/1990). Aurora Consurgens: A document attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the problem of opposites in alchemy (R. F. C. Hull & A. S. B. Glover, Trans.). Pantheon.
Marie-Louise von Franz. (1980). Alchemy: An introduction to the symbolism and the psychology. Inner City Books.
Marie-Louise von Franz. (2014). Dreams. Shambhala.
Marie-Louise von Franz. (2014). Archetypal dimensions of the Psyche. Shambhala.
Marie-Louise von Franz. (2014). Psychotherapy. Shambhala.
This Jungian Life Podcast: Analysis of a God Dream
Following is the transcript of the dream discussed in Episode 221 — Daimon: Demon or Destiny?
Joseph 00:02
A dreamer is a 39-year-old male who works as a psychologist and here’s his dream.
I am sitting in the front row of an academic lecture in a large auditorium. I can see my father sitting way back in the last row. A speaker is introduced, he begins to perform miraculous feats. For example, although he is an older man in his 60s, he successfully bench presses over 500 pounds on stage. Next, he begins to levitate. While flying through the air, he proclaims that he is Jesus. He demands that everyone in the audience pray to Him in worship. I do not pray to him. He goes around to each audience member and requests a prayer, all obey. When he appears in front of me, he demands a prayer. I hold up two sticks in the shape of a cross and denounce him. I state angrily that Christ protects me, and that this old man is not God. At this point, I noticed that my father in the back row is the only other person in the building, not praying to the fraud.
As context he adds, “the dream occurred at approximately the two-year anniversary of losing my business. At this time, I was still trying to rebuild myself professionally after this loss.”
The main feelings are “fear and anger, followed by love once I saw my father not praying.”
This is a really, really interesting dream. One of the things that comes up referentially is Jung’s idea of the mana personality and that some people seem to be configured according to Jung, to have a relationship to the collective unconscious in such a way that they have a mediumistic channel to what’s emerging, and are able to give voice to that in a way that other people feel compelled to affirm. Such manner personalities can develop a tremendous amount of status.
A frightening example of that was Adolf Hitler, which of course, is a grotesque, frightening image but in much lesser ways, there are all kinds of modern charismatics. We might question, why is that person so compelling or why does what they’re saying seem to have so much influence on most people? So, I don’t know whether the dream is about his own capacity for this mana personality dynamic, or whether it’s a commentary on other forces or people that are around him, because we didn’t have a lot of context that was given. Just going back to dream theory, most analysts feel that the dream is commenting on something that was stirred up in the last one to three days prior to the dream, that the psyche is working something out. So, lacking that really immediate context, I’m left in a more conceptual realm.
Lisa 03:33
Yes, I agree with you, Joseph. We don’t have a lot of context to ground this. I think you’re onto something there with the mana personality and I would just build on that, by saying that it also seems to have something to do with masculinity, and obviously, the father. So, all of the important characters in the dream are male. We’re missing any feminine characters and the man on stage is performing these feats. At least the first one — bench pressing — is generally something that men do. Of course, there are women bodybuilders as well, but building up that that kind of strength, this is an area that we might typically associate with the masculine and so there’s something about this tremendous, masculine capacity, that is really extraordinary. I mean, he starts to levitate! I agree with you. I wonder, is this speaking about maybe something that’s in the father complex or is it an aspect of his own psyche, the capacity to become, let’s say, inflated. Perhaps he’s very potent but also can become somewhat inflated. We don’t know how he lost his business. But in any case, he seems to take the right attitude toward it at the end. Would you all agree with that?
Deb 05:03
Yes, and I thought too, about how this dream is very much in the realm of the masculine. There’s our dream ego, who is male, the father, the speaker, and then the invocation of Jesus Christ. And then there is the pretender, the inflated image. What I’m wondering about is where and how this drama lives in our dreamer and I’ve really been kind of sitting with that, because Jung is very clear that every part of the dream, in almost all cases, is part of the dreamer — the playwright, the director, the prompter, and the cast of characters. I’m putting that in the context of the reference to having lost his business and here in this dream, both the dream ego and the father are able to summon a countervailing opposition to the speaker who can levitate and declares himself God. So, I am, like you wondering about the father principle and the dream ego being able to resist the inflated spirit of pretension to greatness.
Joseph 06:40
It does feel like the father is a kind of bulwark against the inflation, which seems to be perhaps coming from somewhere else in his psyche. I also want to just mention that the setting is in an academic lecture hall. So, I’m also wondering if there’s some relationship to the inflation, one might feel, as let’s say, a professor, and as much as you’re sitting there lecturing to 200 or 400 kids in a lecture hall. There’s an enormous amount of esteem that is provided around that which can be inflating, of course, for any of us. But also, there are superhuman demands that are being made of professors right now. A lot of professors, some of whom are my friends, could easily say, my god! It’s as if they want me to levitate and bench 500 pounds, and then I’ve got to, you know, do this, and do this, and do this, and I’m working 70 hours a week and for inadequate pay. So, there’s also that ambivalence around having to identify with this superhuman image in order to survive. I think, Lisa, you’ve mentioned this before, that at certain moments in the heroic journey, the inflation gets you through it. So, I’m wondering if this is the bivalence of the inflation. There’s a way in which it could serve somebody to get through something but then it comes at a cost.
Deb 08:21
Yeah. There’s also the image here of our dream ego in the front row, and the father sitting in the back row, sort of book it ending. The book goes on in the middle, so to speak. But I think I’m going to channel you for a minute Lisa, and reference, how this dream reminds me of the fairy tale of the fisherman and his wife. The fisherman goes down and catches a fish that can talk and the fish says, you know, please let me go, and maybe I can help you out and he goes home and basically says to his wife, “guess what happened to me today? I met a fish who could talk!” and the wife says, “Oh my God, go back down there, and then ask him to give us a nice little cottage instead of this miserable, little hovel.” He does and the fish grants the wish, and the wife is never satisfied. So, her demands increase and increase, and they wind up being queen, and then she winds up being pope. But when she asks to be God, the bubble bursts and they go back to where they started from. I’m wondering about how that kind of story is played out that the speaker begins to perform miraculous feats. Although he’s an older man, he successfully bench presses 500 pounds on stage. Wow. Then he’d be a celebrity. Oh my gosh! But when he says he’s Jesus, that’s when the other players in this dream drama come into being. The dream ego says no, and the dream ego’s father says no.
Lisa 10:13
Yeah, that’s really a helpful amplification. I’m finding the question that’s coming up that I think builds on that is, what are we in service to? Everyone else in the auditorium is willing to pray to this fraud, and so where in our lives are we in service to something that is fraudulent or is pretending to be something that it’s not? Part of the sort of Christian ethos is there is this the sense of kind of being humble before God and so I think that stating your allegiance to Christ, in that sense, is something about the appropriate relativization of the ego. I do want to say I’m super curious about the dreamer’s relationship with this father, because I hear the love and I hear that the father is this really positive figure in the dream. And yet I’m also curious, because just the statement, this old man is not God. Is that a statement about his father? And is this about also the separation that we have to make from our parents where we stop seeing them as Gods?
Joseph 11:47
I think it makes perfect sense that the benign father and the inflated father are two sides of the father complex, at the very least. If I step way back and think about it a purely archetypal way, there’s a process that we all go through, often in midlife, but not only then, where the religion of our childhood collapses in the face of our adult psychology and our adult needs. I was raised in the Catholic Church. My image of God was of a levitating old man. Although sometimes it was about a lamb, which always really confused me, the Lamb of God and God, and those images were very hard for me to resolve, you know, when I was six. That said, the idea of the paranormal old man isn’t adequate. It isn’t philosophic enough. It isn’t something that an adult psyche can find meaningful enough to stay in relationship to the religious idea. And so it may very well be here at 39 — easily a place where midlife crisis is beginning to happen –that there is rebuking of the old religious beliefs, ideas and values, and perhaps making way for the emergence of a more appropriate god image. Jung writes about this beautifully and very fully in his volume called Aion, where he just tracks the evolution of the god images historically, helping us understand that as the human psyche evolves, its capacity to imagine the divine also evolves, and can present something that is more meaningful, and more relevant, and more useful. Symbols help us connect to things in the collective unconscious and so again, the demanding, paranormally-strong levitating old man could sound a little bit like Yahweh, or Yahweh in the child’s conception of it, and there’s an opportunity here to challenge that and rebuke it, which is a way of demanding something better.
