Suppose someone told you that there was something that spoke to you every night, that always presented you with a truth about your own life and soul, that was tailor- made to your individual needs and particular life-story, and that offered to guide you throughout your lifetime and con¬ nect you with a source of wisdom far beyond yourself. And, furthermore, suppose that all of this was absolutely free. Naturally you would be astonished that something like this existed. Yet this is exactly the way it is with our dreams.
I clearly remember when my early guide and mentor, Fritz Kunkel, suggested to me that I begin to record my dreams. No one had ever suggested that dreams might be important to me, though by this time I had come in contact with any number of doctors, psychiatrists, ministers and many others in my search for spiritual guidance and psycho¬ logical wholeness. I was a theological student at the time and had gone through two years of seminary, but no one there had mentioned dreams, nor had the church in which I had been bom and raised. But now I was to discover, as I recorded my first dream, that this was the beginning of a lifelong adventure with something like a voice within myself that was going to offer healing and guidance for my life.
I might not have been surprised at Dr. Kunkel's suggestion had I known more of the spiritual life of ancient man, for while dreams are ignored or disparaged in our era, in ancient times they were greatly valued. There is, as far as I know, no ancient culture in which dreams were not regarded as exceedingly important. The Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans, for instance, all believed dreams to be an important way in which the soul received guidance from the spiritual world. Among primitive people we have many examples of what might be called "dream cultures," that is, cultures in which dreams are at the center of a deeply spiritual way of life.