> I have usually thought that dreams present, in other forms, the emotions and stresses we feel in real life, but I can't know how you may or may not be feeling anything related to the anxiety of not knowing for certain how to arrange the chess pieces on the board.
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> Unlike Sam, I'm open to the possibility of God communicating through dreams, but he and I agree insofar as I'd attach *far* less significance to dreams than to God's direct teachings in Scripture.

I agree. It is far too easy for the unconscious mind to blend together one's own anxieties and biases into a stew of flotsam and jetsam. So my dream was just that -- a phantasm -- borne within the grasp of my own worries. I feel that for a dream to be an indisputable communication from God, it must bear clear hallmarks of being so. For example, it must be far beyond all possible imagining that the dreamer is capable of, because God's understanding is far beyond ours. It must also be clearly in consonance with his recorded Word in Scripture, because God would not testify against himself. Any dream that contradicts his precepts would be false, obviously.


> My belief is that a dream in which Christ or some representation of Christ plays a role should lead a person to spend time in prayer and meditation over her relationship with God, and to ask God to "search my heart" and open it more to Him.

I have done this, because your advice is sound and because it is the right thing to do. Lewis said that Christ on earth was a "prayer warrior," and if HE needed to pray, how much more we need to! At the same time, I confess awkwardness in knowing the source of any promptings received in prayer. I mean, is it truly God, or just my own limited understanding.


>Such dreams probably should not be dissected too finely in search of a detailed message, unless the dreamer feels God is leading her to do so.

Well for what it's worth, I think I understand better one of the symbols in the dream now. The black stone of the chessboard represented the basalt found at the bottom of the ocean-sea floor -- it is the foundation of the earth (or of the earth's crust, anyway). Dave has told me several times that geologically, there is no oceanic basalt older than ~190 million years because the sea floor continually renews itself through tectonic subduction and spreading:

"Basaltic _magma_ is like the blood of the earth - it's what comes out when the earth's skin is cut the whole way through. As a volcanic eruption ends, the hardened basalt "scab" heals the wound in the crust, and the earth has just gained some new seafloor crust. Because the magma erupts out of the earth (and often into water, like in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge), basalt cools very quickly, and the mineral crystals have very little opportunity to grow - so they are very densely fine-grained, heavy, and dark in color. (GeoMan)"

Cool!


> I wish that I could remember my dreams better than I do. For the past several years, it's rare for me to remember even the outline of a dream, much less the details, a few minutes after I wake. Your description of the dream you've had was vivid and detailed, and I greatly enjoyed reading it and visualizing the scene in my own mind.
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> Iss

Thank you, Iss. I am glad -- and relieved even -- that you found the dream sequence of interest; I've wondered if my daft ramblings are of any real concern to anyone else. My husband Dave and his brothers also can never remember any dreams and sort of regard them as "unnatural occurences." So I am happy to know that my Rinker friends believe otherwise. :-)

Wolfspirit