I keep having a recurring negative dream. I try to be careful about how I say Hampil, but this same type of dream keeps happening. Besides giving tzedaka, which I feel compelled to do after these dreams, what else can I do? Do dreams have some special significance or can I safely overlook these.
All insight is appreciated.

B"H

Rivkaleah,

The last chapter of Meseches Berakhos has a whole section on dreams and their significance. I would suggest you reading it, beginning with page 52, or shortly thereafter. I also remember reading that most "bad dreams" signify that something good will happen to the person.

Some have also explained that חלומות השוא ידברו , viz., that dreams are in vain; they neither edify, nor destroy, but are mainly the result of one's over-active thoughts. At any rate, if you would like to have an interpretation rendered, have a person interpret what you saw in your dream in a good light. For a dream usually goes after its interpretation.

David

quote:

recurring negative dream.

My rabbi once explained that sometimes when we incur a negative experience within a dream it spares us from having to incur such an experience in real life.

Rivka

My exerience demands that I do not ignore dreams. Too many times I have received information of a cautionary nature that I would have had no other way of knowing. Too many times that information prooved accurate. Once I had a dream of a person fairly close with our family. The dream warned me of a behaviour I never would have believed nor suspected. I witnessed his behaviour in a dream. Ten years later, the exact event came to light in a public way and had I not behaved cautiously with my family's dealings with him, my family too would have been heavily damaged by his actions. Of course I never told others (except my journal) of the dream's exact content for fear that the dream was just a dream and it would not be kosher to pass around news I had no way of validating. But it was true all the same and I acted on it in a cautious way. At least eight times in my life this has happened in different subjects with either warnigns of danger or other foreknowledge.

Torh speaks of G-d using dreams as a legitimate form of communication. Perhaps because we are easier to reach when we are sleeping. REMEMBER THAT WOMEN ARE MORE SPIRITAULLY IN SYNC WITH HASH-M AND THEREFOR DREAMS CAN BE EVIDENCE OF THIS "ANTENNAE LIKE" PERCEPTIVENESS.

But this is what I have gleaned over the years in how to understand a dream:

If there si a legitimate message and not some ridiculous "overeating" dream, there are consistently these components:

1. I will wake up immediately afterward.

2. Unlike normal meaningless dreams, I will remember the dream clearly

3. there will be a clear message or tone to the dream (no fuzzy pink bunnies flying around holding lollipops). Rather, a prophetic or serious and clear observance of an event, even if the event doesn't completely make sense.

4. There will often be meaning to what is NOT there, or little details that will set you off about the dream, like other people's apathy, or an odd response.

5. Ocasionally (not always) reoccurance.

I don't know why I have dreams like this, but at least eight times in my life, I have THNAKED G-D that I had them so I could avoid danger!

Don't dismiss them.

I hope this helps. Remember that not having a dreams interpretaion does not mean it should be ignored. Some of my dreams didn't make sense until they happened. But i knew to pay attention because they disturbed my sould so much.