ABSTRACT
Dreaming is a regular and universal human experience, and one that from the beginning of history has been accorded religious significance. It should have the attention of practical theologians on those grounds alone. This article, which arose out of an interfaith inquiry, contradicts the repeated assertion in the literature that Christian dream interpretation has died out, and surveys the flourishing current scene: the psychotherapy-based therapeutic approach; collective dreaming as community engagement including political “dream” rhetoric; cultures in which the dream-world is as real as waking experience; dream interpretation relying on spontaneous grace or training of charismatic gifts; and the mechanistic approach associated with popular New Age practices. Each of these is described, criticisms summarized, and the author’s own evaluations offered, with the continuing refrain that practical theology should be engaging with the wide range of specific issues they generate.
