21 replies to this topic

[Chaim613]

I know that Dreams are more or less meaningless today because of our low spiritual level, but is there any practical lesson in avodas Hashem that can be gained or learned from dreams or sleep....or is it just a waste of time....

I have heard that we spend close to 20 years of life sleeping, and 6 years of which are dreaming... is it in vain? Is there anything useful that is gained from dreams?

Please elaborate as much as possible.

thank you,
Chaim

[Rabbi Shapiro]

I know that Dreams are more or less meaningless today because of our low spiritual level, but is there any practical lesson in avodas Hashem that can be gained or learned from dreams or sleep....or is it just a waste of time....

I have heard that we spend close to 20 years of life sleeping, and 6 years of which are dreaming... is it in vain? Is there anything useful that is gained from dreams?

Please elaborate as much as possible.

thank you,
Chaim

Your point about sleep taking up so much of our life is made by the Gemora in Shabbos (89b), which says that out of the 70 years we live, we need to subtract 25 years of nighttime, presumably because that time is spent sleeping. The Zohar in Vayigash (207a) says that the time we spend sleeping more than "shisin nishmei" is considered like death (it is from that Zohar that the Bais Yosef (OH 4) derives that the amount of sleep necessary to require negel vasser is "shisin nishmei").

As far as dreams go, in short (see Ramchal Derech Hashem 3:1): There are two types of dreams: natural and spiritual. Natural dreams are simply the result of natural causes, and have no spiritual meaning. There are other kinds of dreams, though. Those happen because when a person sleeps, his Ruach and Neshama separate from the body, leaving only the Nefesh with the sleeping person. In its separated state, the Neshama can pick up information from spiritual sources, such as Malachim for example, which the sleeping person ultimately perceives as a dream. This information can be about the present or the future, and it can be either true or false, as there exist sources of false information in the spiritual realm as well. It can also be perceived with varying degrees of clarity, confusion, and obscurity. The information, even if accurate, can end up in dream form mixed in with plain, natural dream material, creating a dream whose net value is useless to the average dreamer, because he will not be able to tell what part of the dream comes from where.

So I would not pay much attention to the content of your dreams, at least not as far as the reliability of whatever it is they seem to be telling you. Unless you're on the level to discern whether there is anything of value in the dream's message. As far as whether they mean anything psychologically, that is not my field.

And if you do become a big Tzadik, sleep will not be a waste of time for you, either. The Seforim tell us that Tzadikim in their sleep are able to accomplish tremendous things because their Neshomos are then not handicapped by being attached to an earthly body. For two easy references on this, see Keren Orah on Brachos 20b, or the Kedushas Levi on the beginning of Shir HaShirim.

[Chaim613]

I thank you for your quick response.

My question is more about those of us, who are not big tzaddikim, and have dreams that are likely meaningless... is their anything (besides physical strength) that can be gained from all of this seemingly wasted time? Besides our physical strength is there any help that sleep or dreams provide for our avodas Hashem? I mean it seems sort of funny, that if for the average person dreams are meaningless or at least indiscernible why did Hashem create most of us with the need for sleep and the ability to have dreams which essentially is a waste of 25 years on this earth? Why not only give tzaddikim the need to sleep or dreams b'chal?

thank you,
Chaim

[Rabbi Shapiro]

I thank you for your quick response.

My question is more about those of us, who are not big tzaddikim, and have dreams that are likely meaningless... is their anything (besides physical strength) that can be gained from all of this seemingly wasted time? Besides our physical strength is there any help that sleep or dreams provide for our avodas Hashem? I mean it seems sort of funny, that if for the average person dreams are meaningless or at least indiscernible why did Hashem create most of us with the need for sleep and the ability to have dreams which essentially is a waste of 25 years on this earth? Why not only give tzaddikim the need to sleep or dreams b'chal?

thank you,
Chaim

First, you should know that when you say "we are not big Tzadikim," that that is our choice - it's not that were created to be that way. People tend to assume that the world was designed for the average good Jew and Tzadikim are icing on the cake, so to speak. The truth is, the world was created for Tzdikim. If there would be an organ in the human body that is only useful for Tzadikim, we would not have a kashya as to why Hashem created such an organ for those who are not big Tzadikim. The world was created for the Tzadikim; the rest of us are background players. Nature provided humans with equipment needed for Tzadikim. If most of us waste what we were given, that is our choice, but it is not a theological difficulty.

So if only Tzadikim benefit from "dream time" or "sleep time" it would not be problematic.

But I am not understanding why the fact that we spend 25 years sleeping is any more of a question than why Hashem did not give us all 25 more years of life to live altogether. If people live 70-minus-25 years of sleep, that means the life span of a person is really 45 years, but stretched out over 70 years with breaks in between, which is when we sleep. Being dead is also a waste of time but nobody lives forever, and so too nobody lives constantly. But sleep serves a spiritual purpose - the Neshama leaves the body, and it experiences things (even if you're not a Tzadik and don't receive visions). In fact, the Taz brings that one of the reasons we make a Bracha in the morning of Shelo Asani Goy / Eved / Isha is that we are thanking Hashem that when our Neshomo left our body in our sleep, we did not wake up with a different one - one of an Ishe / Eved / Goy. The Ramak says that in fact people can wake up with a different Neshama, sometimes the Neshoma of a Goy etc. and it affects his actions tremendously. There are other spiritual aspects of sleep as well.

So sleep definitely is part of the spiritual functioning of a person, even non-Tzadikim.

But there is nothing difficult to understand about sleep being a simple physical-psychological function, like eating or going to the bathroom. We have a physical body and it has many physical needs. Some take more time than others. Sleep is not any more difficult to understand than any of other physical functions we must perform to maintain our physical health.

[taon]

WHat if the dream is of something that when seen in real life is a bad siman? I had a dream where I dropped a Sefer Torah (it didint feel like a real one though)

[Rabbi Shapiro]

See Shulchan Aruch Orech Chaim 220.

But the dream still should not be taken as a sign that whatever you saw in the dream will happen.

[rocksdontfly]

Your point about sleep taking up so much of our life is made by the Gemora in Shabbos (89b), which says that out of the 70 years we live, we need to subtract 25 years of nighttime, presumably because that time is spent sleeping. The Zohar in Vayigash (207a) says that the time we spend sleeping more than "shisin nishmei" is considered like death (it is from that Zohar that the Bais Yosef (OH 4) derives that the amount of sleep necessary to require negel vasser is "shisin nishmei").

As far as dreams go, in short (see Ramchal Derech Hashem 3:1): There are two types of dreams: natural and spiritual. Natural dreams are simply the result of natural causes, and have no spiritual meaning. There are other kinds of dreams, though. Those happen because when a person sleeps, his Ruach and Neshama separate from the body, leaving only the Nefesh with the sleeping person. In its separated state, the Neshama can pick up information from spiritual sources, such as Malachim for example, which the sleeping person ultimately perceives as a dream. This information can be about the present or the future, and it can be either true or false, as there exist sources of false information in the spiritual realm as well. It can also be perceived with varying degrees of clarity, confusion, and obscurity. The information, even if accurate, can end up in dream form mixed in with plain, natural dream material, creating a dream whose net value is useless to the average dreamer, because he will not be able to tell what part of the dream comes from where.

So I would not pay much attention to the content of your dreams, at least not as far as the reliability of whatever it is they seem to be telling you. Unless you're on the level to discern whether there is anything of value in the dream's message. As far as whether they mean anything psychologically, that is not my field.

And if you do become a big Tzadik, sleep will not be a waste of time for you, either. The Seforim tell us that Tzadikim in their sleep are able to accomplish tremendous things because their Neshomos are then not handicapped by being attached to an earthly body. For two easy references on this, see Keren Orah on Brachos 20b, or the Kedushas Levi on the beginning of Shir HaShirim.

q1:how is there faulcity in the spiritual realm?
q2:what r the 5 levels of neshama? what happens to our neshama while were asleep?

[Bas-Levi]

q2:what r the 5 levels of neshama?

The five levels of neshama are nefesh, ruach, neshama, chaya and yechidah, in ascending order. As far as I know, the first three are seated in the guf, while the chaya and yechida are "above" the guf.

[Rabbi Shapiro]

q1:how is there faulcity in the spiritual realm?
q2:what r the 5 levels of neshama? what happens to our neshama while were asleep

That's "falsity."

Because although nothing in the spiritual realm has Bechirah and so it cannot purposely lie, there are entities that are not designed to fully process information in a logical fashion such that they can determine the truth. In other words, they can make mistakes. By accepting their information as fact, you are using them in a way that they were not designed to be used. By way of analogy, an ambulance has the word "AMBULANCE" printed backwards on its hood in order for people to be able to read it properly in their rear view mirrors. But if someone reads it "normally," i.e. forwards and not backwards, he will be reading gibberish. So too in the spiritual realm there are "sources" of information that need to be "decoded" before used, and which, taken at face value, seem to convey falsehood. And because your Neshama is not equipped to know what needs to be deciphered, or how to decipher it, it will receive a false impression.

In addition, there are sources of falsehood in the upstairs realm as well. The "other side" is charged with the job of fooling people by making bad seem good and vice versa. In other words, these forces are programmed to skewer information and present it in a illusory way. That's all they "know" how to do. They lie. If your Neshama gets information from them it will not be an accurate picture of reality.

[Rabbi Shapiro]

The five levels of neshama are nefesh, ruach, neshama, chaya and yechidah, in ascending order. As far as I know, the first three are seated in the guf, while the chaya and yechida are "above" the guf.

True, but Rav Chaim Volozhen writes (Nefesh haChaim 1:17) that since Adam sinned, nobody has attained these two higher levels. Once someone begins to attain this level, he leaves the world, because he becomes too "high" to be among the living. After Techiyas HaMeisim, this level will once again be reachable.

[yuiop]

I can't give an exact page number reference, but the Artscroll biography of Rav Moshe recounted that late in life, when speaking to another gadol, he lamented the fact that he found it necessary to sleep more as he aged. Why is this lamentable if tzadikkim can achieve so much through sleep?

I suppose that the obvious response is that he was capable of accomplishing more while awake than in his sleep. But that's no response at all, since it means that sleep is not even of use to tzaddikim and then we're back at the original question of why Hashem gave us the need for sleep in the first place.

Moreover, the same book stated that, for most of his life, Rav Moshe slept from 11pm to 4am, only five hours. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that he saw the need to minimize his sleep as much as possible.

[Rabbi Shapiro]

First, accomplishing and doing Mitzvos are two different things. In other words, even if what Tzadikim do in their sleep is a million times greater than what they can do when they are awake, and even if Rav Moshe was on that level, still, there is no Mitzvah to do whatever it is we do in our sleep. It is a Mitzvah to learn, and so our job is to do as much of that as we can. Our mission in this world is not to accomplish, but to fulfill Hashem's Mitzvos. And Hashem gave us a Mitzvah to learn.

Two: The more of a Tzadik you are, the more yםu can accomplish in your sleep. If a person sleeps all day he is not much of a Tzadik. But the more he learns and does Mitzvos while he is up, the more he can accomplish in his sleep even if he sleeps less.

Three: It does not say that the more you sleep the more you accomplish. Neshomos don't work that way; physical bodies do. Whatever amount of sleep a person needs, thats how much "time" it takes to accomplish whatever the Tzadik accomplishes. If Hashem decrees that someone should need more sleep, it does not mean he accomplishes more in his sleep. it means that Hashem has decreed that he needs more time to accomplish whatever it is he accomplishes in his sleep. And that is lamentable.

[Benjamin]

q1:how is there faulcity in the spiritual realm?

I wonder if my interpretation is correct but I think Ramchal says in Derech Hashem that false dreams are the result of sheidim?

I 'seems it's not enough to have a physical world to give us bechira but also on the spiritual side we have false prophets, sheidim, kishuf, etc for those New Agers who have no problem with the idea of a spiritual side.

[Rabbi Shapiro]

I wonder if my interpretation is correct but I think Ramchal says in Derech Hashem that false dreams are the result of sheidim?

I 'seems it's not enough to have a physical world to give us bechira but also on the spiritual side we have false prophets, sheidim, kishuf, etc for those New Agers who have no problem with the idea of a spiritual side.

He says Sheidim are one of the many possible reasons for false dreams. He says there could be many reasons, including what a person ate that day, or his experiences while awake.

Re "New Agers" - in our religion, nobody has a "problem" with a "spiritual side." It's what our religion is based on.

[Struggling teen]

I had a dream last night that I felt I was in. it was not a good dream it was bad I woke up and then went back to sleep and another bad dream..what do dreams mean? im scared of them coming true chas vshalom...what can I say or do to make sure these don't happen again and that it means nothing. what do I do?

[taon]

They dont mean anything today. If you're still nervous, you can do hatavas chalom, annulment of dreams, the more complete siddurim have it.

[Struggling teen]

whats  tht?

[Struggling teen]

Im nervous because I had a dream once and month later it came exactly true!!!!!!!!!!

[taon]

It happens. doesnt mean anything. hatavas chalom (not hataras, sorry) is something you say, with other people, to annul any possible negative meaning behind a dream.

[Struggling teen]

It happens. doesnt mean anything. hatavas chalom (not hataras, sorry) is something you say, with other people, to annul any possible negative meaning behind a dream.

it came true to all the details - someone died on a certain night in ceratain weather levaya..