PSYCHOLOGY 459 – APRIL 27, 2006

DREAMS AND VISIONS

BY: BRANDON CHANG

Ref. a, Schnarr, Rev. Fredrerick L. (1980). Dreams, Visions and Sleep Part V. The Use of Dreams and Visions in Preparing for the Lord's Second Coming. New Church Life;100:487-496. Available online at:
          www.swedenborgdigitallibrary.org/SR/fls805.htm

I. How visions and dreams are connected with Swedenborg’s theories

a. Visions and dreams were the principal means of revelation in the most ancient church

b. The old testament and new testament are prime examples of how visions and dreams played a role in revelation

c. A lot of the old testament talks of stories, dreams, and visions

d. There is one main difference between dreams and visions

i. Dreams occur while the corporeal of man is asleep, which is his body and his natural senses

ii. Visions occur when the body is awake, which includes the spiritual and natural bodies

iii. This is so that man sees and hears things relating to the spiritual world

e. Swedenborg’s writings were of dreams and visions because he wrote about his interactions with spirits, angels, and devils

f. Swedenborg says that when he talks to angels face to face he was in his fully awake state

g. All the things that he had seen in the heavens were from his spiritual body

h. Because he was able to be in to worlds at one moment he was seeing these things through his spiritual and natural body

i. In his writings he states that when he was in his natural body, he became invisible to the people in the spiritual world, and when he was in the spiritual world he became visible to the spirits

i. Swedenborg believed that the purpose of his dreams were to prepare him in helping God spread his knowledge through his writings

j. There were three ways in which it helped him

i. They were means for causing Swedenborg to examine himself, and put in order the his loves of self and the world

ii. It was also means for him to establish communication with the spiritual world

iii. Lastly, they were means of introducing him to the knowledge of representatives and significatives

k. Sometimes Swedenborg would reflect on a subject and then dream about it in a representative dream

l. Sometimes he would be in a dream and then suddenly wake up and be in a vision

m. Sometimes the visions came without him even dreaming

i. During these times, Swedenborg would see spirits as men, talking, or doing different things

n. Another purpose of dreams and visions were to put Swedenborg in new situations and states

i. For example in order for Swedenborg to be in certain hells, he would have them in his dreams, and dream of all these bad things, and when he would awake, he would run away.

o. Overall the dreams and visions that Swedenborg had were all preparations from the lord for his use in his writings

II. A little history of Swedenborg’s life as it pertains to dreams and visions

a. Swedenborg was prepared for his mission from the day he was born, but it wasn’t until his mid fifties that he was aware of it

b. Swedenborg said that as a child he was introduced to a special way of breathing that made it possible for him to have dreams and visions early on, and then finally his full wakefulness in the spiritual world

c. It wasn’t till 1736 when he was on a trip in Europe that he began to have his unusual experiences with dreams and visions

d. In 1739 he started to get these dreams and visions on a regular basis, and this is when he started writing about them in a book called, Journal Of Dreams

i. When the people found this journal they noticed that there were pages missing, and they concluded that Swedenborg tore them out because he hadn’t understood the real purpose of his dreams and visions

e. In 1745 the Lord appeared to Swedenborg and told him that he was to be a servant of the Lord’s second coming

f. After this he started studying the Old Testament in their original language and began to decode it

g. His writings on this were put into a book called, Word Explained

h. In 1748 all of his writings about his dreams and visions came to an end

i. A few months before Swedenborg died he made a statement saying that the manifestation of the lord, and intromission into the spiritual world, surpasses all miracles

Related Links:

1. http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/journal-of-dreams.htm

I was able to find this website while searching on www.yahoo.com, under the topic of Swedenborg’s journal, The Journal of Dreams. In this website, it has all of his writings from the journal that he wrote. I thought that if someone was really interested in reading Swedenborg’s writings that they could take a look at this site. I think that this site is really interesting, but might be a little hard to grasp the first time you read it due to grammar problems.

2. http://www.ralphmag.org/AG/swedenborg.html

I was able to find this website searching through www.google.com. I was searching under Swedenborg’s dreams and came across this website. This website gave a general overview of what dreams and visions Swedenborg had throughout his life. It also talks about what some of them meant. I would recommend this site to someone who wants to know a little more about this topic, but doesn’t want to go into deep detail. Overall, I thought that this site was a good and reliable site.

3. http://www.swedenborgdigitallibrary.org/wdp/wdp14.htm

I found this website while searching through www.yahoo.com. I came across this website by looking under Swedenborg and the second coming of the lord. I thought that this site was a good site because it pertained to the topic that this reading was on. This site talks about the lord’s second coming and how Swedenborg played a role in it. Overall, I thought that this website was a great place to find out a little more about the second coming and Swedenborg’s place in it.

My Home Page: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/459s2006/chang/chang-home.htm

Class Home Page: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy24/classhome-g24.htm