The perceived link between dreams and the spiritual life: An exploratory qualitative survey

ABSTRACT

Despite recent gains in the understanding of dreams and their meaning, the topic of dreams in relation to spirituality has remained largely unexplored. This study investigates the perceived relationship between dreams and the spiritual life in a multi-national sample. It explores the proposition that dreams contain spiritual messages or realisations, and/or whether experiences of apparently paranormal phenomena in dreams inform a spiritual worldview. A sample of 118 people took part in an online survey in which they responded to closed-ended and open-ended questions about dreams, learning, personal development and spirituality. Ninety-eight out of 118 participants (83%) reported having dreams that informed their spiritual life in some way. Thematic analysis revealed four themes within the domain of dreams and spirituality: 1. Bringing the unconscious into the conscious for healing and insight; 2. Accessing spiritual knowledge via intuition and feeling; 3. Spiritual Messages via encounters with other beings in dreams; and 4. Spiritual messages as precognitive information about upcoming events. The findings have implications for an understanding of the formative role of dreams in the spiritual life. Limitations and future implications of this study are also discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Dreaming
• spirituality
• precognition
• unconscious
• insight
• Jung

Introduction

Much research has been done in recent decades that links dreams with personal growth, emotions, and learning that helps to convey how dreams have meaning for the dreamer (see Malinowski 2021 for a review), but there has been little empirical qualitative research of which we are aware that links dreaming to spirituality. This article describes a study that asked members of the general public across multiple countries for their views on how dreams relate to their spiritual life. We first review four theoretical approaches that help to frame the potential links between dreams and spirituality.

Spirituality, dreams and emotions

The first link between spirituality and dreams is via their mutual connection to emotions. Spirituality has been frequently conceptualised as providing a language and action space for healthy and/or self-transcending emotions (Vaillant 2008; Fuller 2006). At the same time, emotions have been found to be intrinsically linked to the content and intensity of dreaming (Malinowski, Fylan and Horton 2014). One theory that frames this relationship between emotions and dreams is Hartmann’s (2014) theory of dreams. Hartmann argues that dreaming occurs along a continuum from focused waking thought to reverie, daydreaming, and fantasy, and that dreams are particularly characterised by cross-connections. A key function of dreaming is to provide a context for expressing and dealing with emotional concerns. This occurs via image-based connective metaphors that can bring awareness to emotional states, in ways that supplement the subjective feeling of the emotion in normal waking consciousness, particularly if the person is suppressing or repressing the emotion (Hartmann 1996).

Hartmann argues that dreaming phenomenology is hyper-linking, in other words, it brings together elements of one’s personal situation and makes linkages that are not easy to formulate in waking thought (Moorcroft 2013). An example of how emotions are represented in images that Hartmann (1996) provides is the tidal wave dream. The tidal wave is a cross-culturally common picture-metaphor in dreams that represents feeling overwhelmed by one’s circumstances, or fearing the threat of being overwhelmed (Hartmann 2014). In the vein of this consideration of dreams and metaphorical content, Bulkley (1992) theorised that dreams can inform spiritual life via ‘root’ metaphors that can help people solve basic existential concerns and find a spiritual direction in life. He discusses how dreams have been features in spiritual texts in terms of their capacity to represent answers to questions in metaphorical terms. For example, in Jacob’s dream in Genesis 28 a ladder spanning heaven and earth provides a metaphor of the divine and human realms connected to each other. Bulkley then describes a case study of a woman client who had a dream of meeting a nun in a cave. The nun told her to sit on a red bench and wait quietly for the experience of God. This influenced the woman’s spiritual life in profound ways, and contained material that she reflected on as a metaphor.

A range of other research studies have found support for the ‘continuity hypothesis’, which broadly asserts that dream content is continuous with waking emotions and can be understood through the lens of a person’s life experiences and the broader socio-cultural context (Borghi et al. 2021; Petrov and Robinson 2020). This body of research does not explicitly discuss spirituality but speaks to the link between emotions, coping mechanisms and dreaming, and on the basis that emotions are integral to the spiritual life (Robinson 2018), this acts as a potential means to make sense of our data.

Jung’s psychodynamic theory of dreaming

A second aspect of our framework is Jung’s psychodynamic theory of dreaming. According to Jung (1995), dreaming is the product of processes in the unconscious that create narratives and characters which intertwine with emotion into dream content. He shared the view with Freud that some dreams are mundane and relate merely to wish fulfilment (Zhang and Guo 2018), but he also understood that others can be archetypal and contain higher meaning. This array of content in dreams is much like the array of experiences in normal waking consciousness from the mundane to the extraordinary and the sacred (Hunt 1991).

The messages contained in dreams can be understood from a Jungian perspective as a communication from the unconscious, but one that does not accord to a logical analysis, much as poetry or art does not accord well to rational analyses. Jung theorised that the unconscious extends beyond the individual mind and connects human beings in a non-physical matrix that includes the collective unconscious as well as spiritual/archetypal forces (Sayed 2011). He further argued that it is the unconscious that is the human connection to the spiritual and to God. Therefore, to understand the language of the unconscious in dreams, which requires training like learning any language, means enriching one’s spiritual life and moving towards a unity of conscious and unconscious (Jung 1995). The principal function that Jung saw in dreams was that of compensation (Zhu 2013). Jung viewed the psyche as formed of competing but complementary opposites, and if waking life was imbalanced in a particular direction, dreams would operate to provide a compensatory balance. Therefore, from a Jungian perspective, spiritual content in dreams would be functionally beneficial if a person felt that they lacked spirituality in waking life, or if their spiritual life lacked balance in some important way, or if they were seeking an important spiritual answer. An additional important focus of Jung’s approach to dreams was the importance of paying conscious attention to dreams and holding on to the intention of making sense of them. In other words, the persistence and intention of dreamwork was as important as any method therein (Zhu 2013).

Parapsychology

The third part of our framework stems from research on dreams from parapsychology (Roe and Sherwood 2009). Research via surveys and case studies has demonstrated that many people have had dreams that they interpret as providing extrasensory perception. Drawing on data from these studies is made difficult by the lack of control over the circumstances in which they occur, but the sheer frequency of the reports is interesting in itself. Experimental studies allow stronger evidence to determine whether any extrasensory exchange of information occurs. The series of experiments conducted at the Maimonides Medical Centre in New York, USA, and replications of these studies suggest that judges could correctly identify target materials more often than would be expected by chance, using information from dreams (Roe and Sherwood 2009). In our study, we explore this phenomenon of paranormal dream phenomena and its relationship to spirituality from a qualitative perspective of participants’ subjective lifeworld.

The MODI model

A fourth and final aspect of the theoretical lens for this study is the MODI model of the relationship between science and spirituality (Robinson 2020). The model argues that science and spirituality are complementary and overlapping domains of enquiry and experience. Science, on one side, leads to rigorous and reliable knowledge (e.g. external, empirical, thinking-based, explanatory, mechanistic, verbal), but inherently excludes other forms of knowing and experiencing which can be meaningfully categorised under the term of spirituality (e.g. internal, transcendental, contemplative, feeling-based purposive, ineffable). Research shows that dreams provide an access route to forms of knowing that are deeply tied to feelings and work with a metaphorical language, hence are a good fit with the spiritual mode of enquiry (Robinson 2018).

Applied dreamwork in the Jungian tradition provides evidence that dreams can lead to insight and inner awareness (Johnson 1989). Furthermore, the aforementioned parapsychological research supports the notion that dreams may access information not contained within sensory channels, which fits with the transcendental feature of spirituality (i.e. relating to that which is beyond 3D space and linear time). In sum, the MODI model fits well with the proposition that dreams are an integral component of spirituality, while being open to study with the scientific method.

Other considerations

In terms of research on spirituality and dreams in the context of therapy, an innovative study was conducted by Davis and Hill (2005). They compared 51 individuals who did dreamwork in the context of therapeutic counselling and found that 29 who were encouraged to explore the spiritual meaning in their dreams experienced greater increases in spiritual insight into their dreams and greater increases in existential wellbeing than the 21 were who were only asked about dreams in relation to waking concerns. Research has also been done on how to assess and measure spiritual content in dreams (Casto, Krippner and Tartz 1999). The system developed looks at spiritual/sacred objects, characters, settings, activities, emotions and experiences. Out of 280 dream reports, spiritual content was found in 21% of them.

An important related vein of research is on dreams and visions in hospice patients who are terminally ill. Nosek (2015) reports findings from 63 hospice patients, and found that many participants had dreams that related to encountering loved-ones or relatives that helped them to prepare to pass on. These dreams conveyed comforting spiritual messages in terms of a sense of a transcendental reality beyond death. For example, one participant said ‘I am not going alone – [my sister] will be with me’. In a quantitative study of 70 hospice patients, it was found that those experiencing end-of-life dreams and visions had higher ratings of personal strength and post-traumatic growth than those who were not (Levy et al. 2020).

Building on the sparce existing empirical research in this area, and resting on the four theoretical foundations outlined above, the aim of the present study is to provide insights into the perceived relationship between dreaming and the spiritual life, via exploring the research question: In what ways and to what extent do people perceive that their dreams can have a spiritual message or spiritual qualities?

Method

Participants and sampling

Participants were recruited through the University of Greenwich, UK, internal research participation scheme as well as via word-of-mouth and social media platforms. The resulting sample was geographically widespread, but remained a convenience sample insofar as the participants were connected to the researchers (one British, one Romanian), and also to social media groups in which dreams were discussed. One hundred and ten individuals participated in the study via an online platform called Qualtrics. The survey underpinning the study was available to all genders and ages, with no requirements for participation apart from being over the age of 18. Participants ranged in age from 19 to 47, with 26% male, 72% female and 2% preferring not to say. The country of origin of participants was varied: Brazil (1), Bulgaria (4), Canada (1), Chile (1), Colombia (1), Doha (1), United Kingdom (34), France (1), Germany (1), Hungary (1), India (3), Italy (3), Latvia (1), Lebanon (1), Nigeria (1), Pakistan (3), Poland (4), Romania (48), Spain 5), USA (3). All data were provided in English.

Data collection and procedure

Data were collected via an online survey and a mixture of closed-ended questions with open-ended follow-up questions. This form of data collection has a number of advantages and drawbacks. In terms of advantages, it offers anonymity, access for hard-to-reach participants, and facilitates getting more participants for a larger sample. In terms of drawbacks, data from each participant lacks depth compared with interviews, and lacks the possibility of probing (Braun, Clarke, and Gray 2017).

The questions asked were as follows:

1. Have you ever used a technique before going to sleep in order to improve the quality of dreaming or your capacity to remember/use the dream? (e.g. meditation, breathing technique or affirmations, etc.).

   • 1a. If yes, please describe why and give examples that are relevant.

2. Have you ever made a change to your life as a result of a dream or something within a dream?

   • 2a. If yes, please describe why and give any examples of dreams that are relevant.

3. Have you ever found that a dream has helped you to learn something?

   • 3a. If yes, please describe why and give examples that are relevant.

4. Do you think that some of your dreams have a spiritual message or quality?

   • 4a. If yes, please describe why and give examples that are relevant.

In this article, we will discuss only the findings that stem from Question 4 and the follow-up question 4a.

The study gained prior ethical approval via the School of Human Sciences Research Ethics Panel at the University of Greenwich, UK. Participants were provided with a personal code and were informed that if they wanted to withdraw their data, they could do so by quoting the code and requesting withdrawal of their data before a stated cut-off date.

Analysis

Structured Tabular Thematic Analysis was used to analyse all the open-ended data (Robinson 2022). It provides an adaptable technique for working with brief textual data in a structured manner. It is conducted in a spreadsheet software such as Excel. It is designed to address any challenges and opportunities associated with working with brief texts on a procedural level.

Since the researcher cannot directly experience the participant’s world, Structured Tabular Thematic Analysis requires the researcher to fully empathize with the existence of the participant’s real world, including not only viewing life experiences from the participant's perspective but also having critical awareness of the researcher's own biases. Given the exploratory nature of this study, we used an inductive approach to generate meanings from collected data in order to identify patterns that underpin the themes presented below. The specific phases for inductive analysis are as follows: 1. Deep Immersion in the Data; 2. Generating Initial Codes and Themes; 3. Tabulating Themes Against Data Segments; 4. Checking Inter-analyst Agreement; 5. Exploring Theme Frequencies (Robinson 2022).

Two analysts worked on the theme generation and coding. Agreement on theme labelling and theme allocation to participants was reached dialogically over a series of meetings. Structured Tabular Thematic Analysis includes the calculation of theme frequencies, which ensures clarity of information over theme prevalence.

Results

From the closed-ended question asking participants ‘Do you think that some of your dreams have a spiritual message or quality?’, we found that 98 out of 118 participants (83%) reported having spiritually meaningful dreams. Their descriptions of the relationship between dreams and spirituality could be distinguished in four ways, which are presented via the four themes below. All quotations are shown in the language provided, including spelling or grammar mistakes. All data were provided in English.

Theme 1: Bringing the unconscious into consciousness for healing and insight

In terms of bringing the subconscious into consciousness and understanding, 41 participants (35%) described dreams as facilitating information from the unconscious or subconscious into consciousness in ways that bear on their spiritual life. For example, participant 83 stated that dreams are ways that the unconscious mind speaks to a person:

I can see dreams as a way your unconscious mind speaks to a person. Don't get me wrong there are some dreams that you can't explain but most dreams are due to something that has, or is happening to a person.

Participant 56 reflected on dreams and their therapeutic use, mentioning the subconscious:

Yes, the quality of dreams is beyond measure. I think that by understand and believe in our dreams we can be our own therapist bringing healing on so many levels, both conscious and subconscious.

Participant 82 described how she became more cautious after decoding the symbols in her dream:

yes, because like I have had dreams where I see snakes and when I search up the interpretation it says like an enemy and then going more in detail the color of the snake suggests more about the enemy so I see it as a spiritual guidance to be cautious of the people I am surrounded by.

Theme 2: Accessing spiritual knowledge via intuition and feeling

Eleven (9%) participants stated that most of their dreams bear spiritual meaning by way of imparting lessons for personal growth and knowledge via intuitions and feelings of being interconnected. For example, participant 16 stated a dream where he explored the duality of everything around him, therefore he gained spiritual knowledge. As a result, he wondered whether death was as bad as people thought:

I've had a lot of dreams the last few years which have teach or tried to teach me about spiritual knowledge/ lessons, for instance, in a recent dream I explored the duality of everything and polarity of things. It was not a linear dream but rather a dream with different scenarios with different perspectives from 3rd person viewpoint to 1st person viewpoint, to narrative viewpoint. In one scenario I saw how a group of people killing others because of money, due to this fear of poverty this group of people suffered from constant paranoia, which later brought worst scenarios for them, when they were about to die, they looked so relieve as if they saw heaven. Is death really as bad as it seems? Or is it a reset button?

Similarly, participant 63 stated that dreams create an understanding of the duality of people, which explains the tendency to feel familiar with a place without having physically visited it;

It is undeniable that the human being consists of a being in two dimensions (earthly and spiritual). If both are in harmony easily when your body rests, your spirit enjoys and wanders timelessly. That's why we sometimes have the impression that we already know or have already gone or experienced a certain situation or place.

Participant 64 said that dreams relay the spiritual meaning that we are all interconnected:

They have a spiritual meaning, as the dreams tend to give us advertisements about people, which made me realize that we are all interconnected.

Participant 4 said that dreams help to connect to other people:

I think people are all connected with each other, and dreams can be a way to interact with people that are not next to us. It happens to me to have dreams about something or someone in talk or seen in the day, and it is feels normal. But sometimes I dream about people that are not in our life anymore that talk to me and tell what they are doing.

Theme 3: Spiritual messages via encounters with other beings in dreams

Nineteen (16%) participants stated that dreams had provided access to spiritual messages from meeting other beings in the dream state. Participant 70 stated that deities have the power to contact people in dreams:

I believe the universe can give us messages and speak to us. Also, deities can contact people through dreams.

Similarly, participant 76 described a dream where her grandmother offered knowledge about essential concepts in life:

I believe that sleep helps us access parts of our subconscious mind and also other realities and also shut down our rational mind allowing us to receive messages from higher dimensions. For example, I sometimes dream that my grandmother who passed away a few years ago is talking to me and she’s telling me all sorts of messages about things I should know and should be aware of and they always come true.

Participant 33 described how she received spiritual messages from past relatives about her unborn daughter.

Yes, especially when dreaming about the past relatives/ family members with whom I had a strong bond. e.g. as I was pregnant with my daughter (and doctors weren’t able to tell me exactly what gender my unborn child will be) I dreamed about my grandmother, who was in her beloved flower garden and from a huge quantity of roses, she picked one, a blue one, and gave it to me in my dream. I was then almost sure that my baby was going to be a boy. Instead, I gave birth to a daughter who has my grandma’s gorgeous blue eyes.

Theme 4: Spiritual messages as precognitive information about upcoming events

The ability of dreams to transmit information about future events was mentioned by 11 (9%) participants. These included information about various future events or places visited. For example, participant 26 described a dream which was a spiritual message to send a priest to her grandmother:

Yes, I think some dreams can have spiritual message. One night I dreamed my father, who tell me to bring a priest for my grandmother. In the morning I received a call which announced me, the grandmother died. Dad is also dead.

Participant 71 stated a dream in which she discovered news of her colleague’s pregnancy:

I dreamed one of my colleagues being pregnant on the same day she informed her loved ones. I also knew the baby's gender.

Participant 6 wrote about a dream of meeting people at a temple and then being at that specific temple and meeting those people later:

Dreams sometime show hidden messages for the person, for instance once I dreamt about a temple where I meet some mystics and after someday later, I met those people on same temple and they gave me blessings and some lessons about enlightenment.

Discussion

The aim of this article was to indicate how adult individuals perceive the link between dreams and their spiritual life. In the study of 118 people on which the article is based, it was found that most of the sample (83%) reported a connection between their dreams and their spiritual life, thus affirming our research question that this link between dreams and spiritualty is salient to many. From the open-ended texts, we extracted four main themes: 1. Bringing the unconscious into consciousness for healing and insight; 2. Accessing spiritual knowledge via intuition and feeling; 3. Spiritual messages via encounters with other beings in dreams; and 4. Spiritual messages as precognitive information about upcoming events. We interpret these below through the lenses of our theoretical framework.

The first of these themes links directly to the Jungian theory presented in the introduction. Jung (1995) proposed that dreams allow individuals to build bridges between their conscious and unconscious mind, and that this helps with the journey towards wholeness that brings healings and insights; it contrasts with the dissociative state where the unconscious and conscious remain disconnected, leading to neurotic or psychotic symptoms. This was the most prevalent theme; it was discussed by over 50% of those who reported a link between dreams and spirituality. Our data represent the fact that individuals experience this idea that dreams are portals to unconscious material that can be used for therapeutic purposes as subjectively meaningful and can discuss this narratively within brief written texts. The second theme also relates to the Jungian perspective on dreams, as Jung frequently wrote about beings encountered within dreams that represent archetypal forces or spiritual powers, including his own dreams with a character that he named Philemon (Johnston 2009).

However, it is important to consider whether, given the impact of Jungian concepts and terms on culture at large, participants interpret their dreams through an implicit or explicit Jungian lens and thus emphasise ideas such as the unconscious or collective unconscious, thereby creating a link between the findings and a Jungian interpretation, that is to a function of Jungian ideas in contemporary spirituality. This could be used to argue for and against the importance of our findings. It may reflect the fact that people find meaning in their dreams and find the Jungian approach to work as a practical framework for making sense of them, but may also mean that the Jungian theoretical connection may be exaggerated.

The third theme can be meaningfully linked to Hartmann’s theory of dreams. The knowledge of connection that was described as being imparted through dreams by 10 of the participants links to Hartmann’s view of dreams as connective states of consciousness that allow for connections between aspects of the self, memories or thoughts that normal waking consciousness does not facilitate or permit (Hartmann 2014).

The fourth theme links directly to the parapsychology component of our theoretical framework. Seventeen participants described a precognitive insight about the future from their dreams, which fits well with the reviewed research describing robust evidence for this connection via experiments and surveys (Roe and Sherwood 2009).

We believe that our study is an important step forward in understanding the link between dreams and spirituality, which remains curiously unexplored. However, a few limitations should be acknowledged. Firstly, we are studying dreams through the filter of memory and meaning-making. Participants are recalling dreams and their implications for life in the context of partial memories and worldviews that will frame and colour the memories. This should be addressed in the future by prospective dream diary studies that allow for dream data to be collected directly after the dream, and then reflections in relation to the spiritual life could be conducted in light of these dream reports.

Another important limitation is the nature of the convenience sample which was achieved mainly via university students and social media dissemination, which may have biased it towards spiritually inclined individuals through the nature of the social media connections used (however there was no indication on the advertisement that the study was about spirituality which might have encouraged only spiritually minded persons to participate – it was billed as a study of dreams and personal development). The sample included people from 20 countries, which is positive insofar as it suggests the findings have cross-cultural relevance and validity. However, a limitation of the sample as an international one was that 79% came from the UK and Romania. To ensure that the prevalence estimate of what proportion of individuals within a particular culture or country perceive a link between dreams and spirituality, representative sampling from multiple cultures should be used in the future.

A final limitation is in the brief nature of the qualitative data collected. Brief written texts have a range of benefits and drawbacks, as discussed in the Method section above. Interview studies would elicit more personal depth in understanding the way that dreams and spirituality inter-relate.

We believe that the perceived relationship between dreams and spirituality is a vital topic of study and should be continued. Our data show that there is a widespread experience of dreams being integral to spiritual life, but the nature of this link across cultures, demographic groups and time periods remains in much need of systematic research. We hope this article is a step in that important direction.

Data availability statement

The full dataset is freely available. Contact Dr Oliver Robinson for access.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Oliver Robinson

Oliver Robinson in an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Greenwich, UK. His research specialism is adult development, and he also writes on topics that traverse qualitative methodology, epistemology and spirituality.

Maria Cristina Vasile

Maria Cristina Vasile was a student at the University of Greenwich, UK, at the time that this research took place. She is now a Teaching Assistant and is soon to start an integrative transpersonal psychotherapy postgraduate training at Re-Vision.