Ask the Rov: Is my dream a message to me? Should I be doing something?

By Rabbi Chaim Hillel Raskin – Rov of Anash in Petach Tikvah

In Tanach and in the Gemara, we find many instances of dreams serving as a form of messaging from Hashem and portending future events. In this context, there is an idea of performing hatavas chalom for a negative dream (to “interpret it” positively), as well as fasting a taanis chalom.¹

Yet, the Gemara relates that when Shmuel would have a negative dream, he would quote the posuk in Zecharya, “The dreams speak falsely.” The Gemara also notes that a person dreams at night about what he was thinking during the day. And in another context, Chazal say that dreams are meaningless (divrei chalomos lo maalin velo moridin).²

More recent poskim note that for the average person, dreams are meaningless and are no reason for concern,³ though the Alter Rebbe lists a few dreams that are problematic even in the present age (e.g. Sefer Torah or tefillin that fall down ch”v).⁴

In general, the Rebbe would advise people not to get caught up in worrying about negative dreams, and that it could even be a tactic of the yetzer hara to distract a person from important matters.⁵

Still, there were times when the Rebbe did give reference to certain dreams, especially when it came to dreams about people who passed away (where he would bring up whether the burial and aveilus were done according to halacha, and asking forgiveness).⁶

In addition, the Rebbe would encourage doing things to prevent bad dreams, including checking the mezuzah of the bedroom, giving tzedakah every morning, mikvah for men, saying krias shema and hamapil with kavana, avoiding idle talk before going to sleep, and reading stories about the Rebbeim and chassidim before going to bed.⁷

The Rebbe also sometimes mentioned the hatavas chalom said during birkas kohanim that once it was said, there is no reason to think about the dream anymore.⁸

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From The Weekly Farbrengen by Merkaz Anash