I had a dream. (Full)

[77150]

Originally Posted by OBW

Found the reference. Ecclesiastes 5:7. It appears most likely that this is referring to thoughts and imaginations rather than to the workings of the brain during sleep.

5:3 For a dream cometh through the multitude of business;

"multitude of business" can also be translated through much effort, or much labor.

I think that this definitely conveys the sense of dream as in the phrase "my dream is to be a doctor". However, there is a famous story regarding a dream being the breakthrough that led to the discovery of the DNA structure, ultimately resulting in a Nobel Prize. History has other anecdotal stories like this. So it seems that if you spend months focused on a particular problem it is quite likely that a dream may come through all of that effort.

[OBW]

Originally Posted by 77150

5:3 For a dream cometh through the multitude of business;

"multitude of business" can also be translated through much effort, or much labor.

I think that this definitely conveys the sense of dream as in the phrase "my dream is to be a doctor". However, there is a famous story regarding a dream being the breakthrough that led to the discovery of the DNA structure, ultimately resulting in a Nobel Prize. History has other anecdotal stories like this. So it seems that if you spend months focused on a particular problem it is quite likely that a dream may come through all of that effort.

And if you spend months on a problem, it may be that your mind never really ceases in its efforts, but the elimination of distractions could allow it to see something otherwise obscured.

I will admit that I went to sleep one night after trying to provide an answer as a tutor in high school. (I was a sophomore helping a senior in math.) I suddenly awoke with the answer. But the was no association to any dream previously.

And the kind of dream in which your mind continues to rummage over what was occupying your mind immediately before sleep — whether a serious issue at work, plans around the house or for the future, or that horror movie you just saw — is evidence that our brain does not completely turn off during sleep. It does not simply turn to nonsensical dreams in all cases.

But all of this is irrelevant. The term as used in Ecclesiastes is fairly clearly about the conscious use of the imagination, not the unconscious results of our sleep, whether our own dreams or something planted there by God.