Hey, kids, I hope you Santa brought you lots of toys and goodies this Christmas. Keep in mind, though, just because you got loads of shiny new stuff under the tree, that doesn’t mean you should just toss out all of your old things. Do so, and who knows what might happen…
That’s right, Santa might just show up, slide down your psychic chimney straight into your dreams, and force you to have nightmarish visions full of dancing sugarplums and creepy dolls with souless eyes until you get the point and learn to be thankful for everything you have, old and new.
Oh well, at least ol’ Kris Kringle makes sure his message is clear. Alas, figuring out the meaning of some dreams is not so easy. Speaking on the subject, Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary notes…
“There is some value in dream interpretation, in as much as human science may derive from dream analysis some useful data for the treatment and healing of sick individuals, especially those afflicted with some psychological abnormality or disease… On the other hand, to believe in one's own dreams or those related by others as foretelling future events is a sin of superstition. The exceptional cases where dreams are of supernatural origin are to be judged on their own merits. All evidence from Scripture and the lives of the saints indicates that when God makes use of dreams as an extraordinary means of communication he also makes sure the person realizes where the dream originated. The standard rules for discernment of spirits are to be applied in case of doubt whether a dream is of supernatural origin.”
So the next time you dream of some horrifying sock puppet pleading for its life, don’t just immediately assume it’s a message from on high. Unless you get some kind of solid spiritual confirmation, chances are it really is just a vision brought on by an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, or a fragment of underdone potato.
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