Joseph Had A Dream

Joseph’s Family Line and the Setting of the Joseph Cycle

Well, this morning we begin chapter 37, which is really Joseph's, I have a dream, speech. And we also consider the jealousy of his brothers. In these first 11 verses, it's tempting not to go further into the chapter where the jealousy and the hatred of Joseph's brothers actually flashes in the pan, as it were, and leads to the events that will set the course for the next 14 or 15 chapters.

In Genesis 37, verse 1, we read that Jacob was living in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan. And then in verse 2, we have the formula, this is the account of Jacob's family line.

It could be translated genealogy or generations. This is the toledot of Jacob. And as we said last week, the toledot always goes with the son of whoever's toledot is in view. So when we consider the toledot of Isaac, we were actually in the Jacob cycle.

Now we're considering the toledot of Jacob when we're actually looking at the Joseph.

Cycle.

So the primary focus is going to be on Joseph. Of course, in chapter 38, we'll have an interlude with Tamar and Judah. And it's interesting to see the emphasis that is laid on Judah, especially as we give some consideration to the progeny that will follow from Judah, specifically the lion that will come from his tribe.

So within Genesis, again, we have this very Christ-centered presentation that even this morning, even in these first 11 verses, we'll have opportunity to consider together. Joseph was born in Haran. He was born under the shadow of Laban's treachery.

He grew up as a little boy watching his father mutter and grumble out in the fields as Laban threw another curveball, found another way to cheat or take advantage of Jacob. Of course, Joseph was at that point in time, the youngest son among all of his brothers.

It was not until the events of chapter 35 that his infant brother Benjamin was born when his mother died. And so Joseph was vulnerable in all sorts of ways that his brothers were not, as we'll see. He of course was the youngest son for much of this time.

Now Benjamin has come along, but he was now the eldest son, the first son of Jacob's beloved wife Rachel. And we think back to Rachel's barrenness in that long, long stretch of years when her brother and her sister had their own rivalry, their own hatred and jealousy for each other.

And when Joseph finally came along, we can only think of the train of prayers that had accompanied that moment. How many times had Rachel prayed to the Lord and beseeched the Lord that he might show favor to her and that she might bear a son.

And when that son came, she named him Joseph. May he add another. And of course, when he did add another, it was at the expense of Rachel's own life. Joseph would have been five, maybe six years old when they finally fled from Haran, being hotly pursued by dear old great uncle Laban.

He would have trembled by his father's legs when he saw his father approaching that encounter with Esau. He would have been struck by just how anxious his father seemed and perhaps even the fear that was getting through the camps when they were being divided in two places and defensive positions were being taken place.

As a young five or six year old, he was just old enough to realize something's not right. Something dangerous is coming toward us. But you can imagine the awe he would have felt, perhaps rubbing his weary eyes.

It was in the middle of the night when all his brothers and all of the servants and retinue were on the other side of the Jabbok. And then through the dark shadows of the night in the piercing sunlight of that early morning comes his father, his face perhaps shining like that of Moses.

He had just striven with God at Peniel and the fearful wreck that was at Mahanaim was now resolute. And he would have watched as his siblings were gathered and sent ahead of him in wave after wave. But he stuck by the waist of his mother, Rachel, and his father, Jacob, said, no, you stay.

By me.

You'll stand by me when we go before Esau, my brother. Joseph's already had a pretty fascinating life when we consider what he's seen. The age of five, the age of six, when we find him in verse two, he's 17 years old.

They're living in the land of Canaan. He's there with his father, and he's there with his brothers. He no longer has his mother. And this whole life is now being set in motion, a life that has the providence of God resting upon it.

And that is the theme for the Joseph cycle, as we'll see in the months ahead, the providence.

Of God.

Now, we want to look at these first 11 verses in four parts. And we'll look at that, really, with what Joseph has, four things that Joseph has. First, Joseph has a robe. Second, Joseph has a dream. Third, Joseph has another dream.

And then last, Joseph has an antitype. And we'll get to that and explain that when we get there. So first, Joseph has a robe. We read in verse two, Joseph, a young man of 17, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives.

And he brought their father a bad report about them. So the narrative picks up, Joseph is that awkward teenage age of 17. I miss my younger years. I don't know if I miss the year of 17. Tending to the flocks, we find him shepherding alongside his brothers, not all of his brothers, but specifically the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah.

Now, it's interesting to note that distinction. He's not with all of the other brethren, but he's with specifically the four sons between Bilhah and Zilpah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. They don't share the same mother with Joseph.

Neither do they share the same mother with the sons of Leah. And of course, we're reminded that there's already this click between whose mother are you? That's really your brother. Everyone else is a half-brother, but who's your blood brothers?

And so the handmaidens' wives, they have sort of a click, and Joseph seems to gravitate toward them. The sons of Leah at this point are out of the picture. And so we want to keep sensitive attention to the clicks that have formed in the families of Jacob.

They don't share the same mothers. They don't share the same affinity for each other. We're going to see that next week in the events that lead toward Joseph's time in the pit. We're going to see that even when Joseph is reunited with Benjamin and that special feeling he has toward his bosom brother, Benjamin.

Leah's sons perhaps are the ones that don't have the interest to hang around with these four boys and Joseph. Leah's sons seem to think that they are the most entitled. They are the ones that have prestige and force.

We've already seen that with Reuben's attempted takeover. He went into Bilhah for a reason, to defile her and to take ownership of the family. So we see the sons of Leah jockeying position and power. No wonder that they're enraged at the events that will follow.

And the sense is that these four sons of Bilhah and Zilpah are sort of on the margins of the sons of Leah. They don't quite fit in. They're just trying to get by. They're not as well favored as the sons of Leah, and they don't have the authority within.

The family.

And Joseph gravitates toward them as the young hanger on. The amazing thing, as we'll see more next week, is that though this clique has formed between the sons of the maidens and the sons of Leah, they're all united in their hatred of Joseph eventually.

And it's kind of like the Lord Jesus, how he had this effect on the Pharisees and the Herodians. People who were erstwhile enemies all of a sudden became friends, and it was because they were united in their hatred and opposition of the Lord Jesus.

Joseph has that effect on his siblings. Now we read in verse 2 this report. There's sin in the camp of these four brothers. We read in verse 2, he brought their father a bad report about them. Now what's going on here?

We don't know what the report contains. We don't have any details. We only know that it was a bad report, and it was a bad report about these four men. It showed that these brothers were up to no good.

Gil mentions some of the rabbinical writings, and he says they practice uncleanness out in the fields, eating flesh torn from the living lamb's tails. And it's like, or not, we just don't know. Where do you get that?

That's not hiding behind some Hebrew consonant. I don't know sometimes where these rabbis get their views. We really don't know what the bad report is about, but it's something that David feels compelled to tell Jacob.

Now some interpreters portray, did I say David? That was a Freudian slip, Joseph. Some interpreters portray Joseph as a tattletale. And the argument goes something like this. Even if Joseph's report were entirely fair, this was not the right thing for him to do.

Doesn't love cover a multitude of offenses? Joseph should have covered that bad report in love. Or even if it was something so provocative and so shameful, he should have gone out to his brothers first, and we don't have any record that he did that.

It seems like he saw something and he ran straight to daddy, and he tattled on them. He was a snitch.

He ratted on them.

However you put it, people say this was actually something that we can fault Joseph for doing. It showed that he was more concerned about himself. He was looking at himself in terms of his father's approval.

Won't my father think more of me? Won't I be seen to be the righteous son if I go and tell daddy this, less concerned about the hearts of his brethren? Well, that may be the case. I don't think the narrative tilts in either direction.

I can't say that that's the intent of Moses recording this, but neither can I deny that there may have been some fleshly component of tattling in the way that Joseph deals with.

This bad report.

However, as we will see, Jacob, obviously spoiling Jacob, must have had an impact on this 17-year-old's psyche and self-estimation, but on the other hand, the entirety of the story of Joseph really comes across as wisdom literature, and so the emphasis is not so much on finding a few little faults in Joseph.

The narrative almost has no interest in that from here all the way through chapter 50. Joseph is presented constantly in a very good light, and so if we follow that sort of thematic presentation of Joseph in contrast to the other patriarchs where we've seen them, warts and all, it might be wise to say perhaps there's no charge that can hold up in the court of law that he's tattling.

And perhaps, being charitable to Joseph, we could say he's being faithful to his father even in the little things, no matter what it costs him. He's being faithful to his father even when it will cost him the approval and the comfort of relationships with his brother.

He's being faithful in the small things, and God will make him faithful over great things. It shows perhaps that even at the age of 17, and this is a rarity in our world, Joseph has a very sensitive conscience.

Oh, 17-year-olds in our midst, those perhaps just past or those heading toward it especially. Take great effort to defend the sensitivity of your conscience. Once it calcifies, once it's worn with calluses, it is very hard to resensitize your conscience.

And a sensitive conscience is a terrible thing to lose. You've been given, so many of you, gifts in that you've not had to be sanctified as heavily and as painfully as others in this church body to try to get to the place where your conscience is sensitive to the things of the Lord.

From your youth, you've been raised up in a way that your conscience is constantly producing red flags for you to show you in the way that you ought to go. Don't take that for granted. Don't take that for granted.

Should also say, it's an opportunity to say it, we should beware of tattling. Whether or not Joseph did it here, who's to say? But for us, we ought to be very careful. Backbiting, tattling is a sin. And it all comes down to the way that we're viewing ourselves and the reason we have to share the things that we've seen or we know.

Silence, when we are witnessing sin or seeing sin, silence can actually be a sin. It can be sinful for us not to rebuke, not to exhort. I think we could charge Jacob, being sinfully silent and passive in many ways, that he should have exhorted and rebuked his sons.

We'll see that, I think, more clearly as we move forward. But silence for the Christian can be sin, but when you're choosing not to be silent, you must be sure that your motives are pure. Is this something I can, I'm called to, I ought to cover in love?

Is this something I am to be charitable toward, my brother or my sister who's caught in this sin? If I have a reason to tell it, who am I telling it to and why am I telling it to them? What am I looking to get out of telling it?

Am I expressing it under the camouflage of concern, but really I just want to vent and did you really know this? And very quickly, something that the angel that masquerades as light, he says, oh no, this is good, this is kosher, you have concerns, you're seeing this, you want to garner help and allies to deal with this situation.

Pretty quickly he's tangled you up in a web of gossip and tattling, and it's despicable in the eyes of the Lord, and it's destructive in the life of the church. So we ought to take that to heart. Do we have pure motives?

We're being charitable to Joseph here. It seems inconsonant with the presentation of Joseph to assume he's tattling. At the same time, we're reading history and we're reading about a 17-year-old man who's been sprinkled and showered with his father's favor, and that has to have a certain effect.

And perhaps that is glowing through the narrative in some ways. Wait till you hear my dream, brothers, in ways like that. Now perhaps the fact that we go from this report right to verse 3 is further evidence.

Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age, and he made an ornate robe for him. Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons. Maybe at some level we can't fault Jacob for that.

You know, Joseph I have loved, my other sons not so much. Maybe he has that sort of Malachi moment in the way he looks at his sons, but the problem is that his other sons knew it, as we'll see. His other sons knew it.

They didn't have to imagine, do you think Daddy cares for us as much as the others?

They knew it.

Jacob seems to have no interest to hide it, and so he makes this ornate robe for him. He almost feels like, I don't need to defend this. I'm a 90-year-old man. My wife, the only woman I ever loved, this was her firstborn son to me.

I don't have to defend that. Of course this is my favorite son. Of course this is the son that I love. But his other sons knew it, and in that way, Jacob brought so much of the disaster of his family life upon himself.

He created conditions for sin to flourish. And we ought to be very careful in our homes, brothers and sisters, that our children know that we love them, and we're not creating conditions for sin to flourish.

Where envy is beginning to sprout, we nip it, we pluck it out when it's that little alfalfa sprout before it becomes this rather thick, you know, gorge that we have to saw an axe and chainsaw through.

That's what sin is like. The statement connects Jacob's love for Joseph to the fact that he had been born in his old.

Age.

There's a number of ways. This could be an idiom. It could be a matter-of-fact way of saying he was the one that was actually with Jacob, taking care of Jacob since he was in his old age. In the Hebrew, it's literally he was the son of his old age.

And it might be more than just saying he had him when he was really old. It might be talking about the way that Joseph related to Jacob and caring for Jacob at this point in his life, and sort of being close at home and not necessarily going out to the full extent of the other brothers.

He kept him close. Remember, this is the miracle child. This is the child that barren Rachel brought to Jacob, the child that they thought would never come, the child that was prayed over for month after month and year after year.

And in God's providence, God gave Joseph this special place in his father's affection. Whether he took sinful advantage of that remains to be seen. But we can fault Jacob here for not caring that his other sons were being made jealous and inviting disaster on his own family.

He makes this ornate robe. We almost can't help but think of this as the coat of many colors. It goes to show the power of translation. I actually very much appreciate the restraint of our translation here, ornate robe.

I think that's a very wise translation. Better to think of it as an ornate robe than what's just taken for granted as the coat of many colors. We just take that for various reasons. It seems dependent on not so much the original Hebrew as cognates, and especially the way that Greek renders the Hebrew term for this ornate robe.

King James, of course, says coat of many colors. Other more modern translations, a very colored tunic, and that's kind of, I don't know, doesn't really have that same buzz, a very colored tunic. That's Nazby.

A full-length robe, a richly ornamented robe, a robe of many colors. The significance here is that it's something very ornate, very detailed. It was tailored. It was costly. There would have been long pieces of fabric that had assembled.

That's most likely the idea of many colors. This wouldn't have been something that was dyed, but so much as compiled. It would have been long and flowing, long sleeves. The idea is sort of a full gown that goes down to the wrist, down to the ankles.

And the emphasis is not so much on the color, but the complexity. So better to say ornate robe than coat of many colors. Now even here we can see perhaps a failure of Jacob. At least in part, he chooses when Joseph's only 17 years old to mark out Joseph in this way among his brethren.

He didn't wait till his sword is on his deathbed and pull out the wooden chest and say, I have something very special for you. We're going to talk about the significance of what this may be. But already here we see Jacob's not helping Joseph spiritually in the way that he's treating Joseph in relation to his brothers.

He's not saying in private, you know how much I love you. You are to me like I look at your face and you're like Rachel to me. I see the wife that I buried in your face.

I love you.

You're precious to me. But this is how you need to be toward your brothers. I notice the way they look at you and the way they regard you and I've been praying about it. He's not helping his son spiritually.

If anything, he's only further spoiling, further complicating the way that Joseph is living his life. He really does feel like the center of the universe. William Gouge in his Domestical Duties, at one point he talks about pampering, the effect of pampering children.

And I think an ornate robe is a way of pampering a child. And he quotes Proverbs 27, verse 7, the full soul, that is the mature soul, loathes a honeycomb. And Gouge says, you know, too much food, fancy clothing, pampering, excessive play, it weakens the body and the mind and it will trap your child in immaturity, you see.

And so he's using that wisdom from the Proverbs, a mature soul loathes a honeycomb. It's not craving and seeking after every dainty and every little, you know, treat and every little expense in a way that they can go to the spa, you know, and have all these.

That is immaturity in the life of a believer and in the life of a child that can trap them in immaturity. They're not able to be wise and mature and strident. In some ways, more interested in the long-term vision of what God is doing rather than in the immediate things that can be had and enjoyed.

And I think Gouge is right to point that out. Jacob would be well to keep the honeycombs away from his immature 17-year-old son. Now archaeology suggests that in tribal life during this period among Semitic tribes, some garment would have been used to note the leader of the family, the leader of the clan.

It was a status symbol. There would be insignia upon it. And it may well be that already at the age of 17, Jacob's affection for Joseph is so full that he can't help but say, you are going to be the heir.

You are going to be the leader of the family. You know, what Reuben tried to do to me, the way that Simeon and Levi are, you know, these are not alternatives for me. And I want even them to know that my heart has chosen you.

You are the tribal chief after my own heart, dear Joseph. That seems to be at least implicitly understood in the way that the brothers treat him. They're not concerned about the robe as fashion police so much as the significance of the robe as it's just a matter of time.

Our father is going to put Joseph over us and our inheritance is vulnerable now to this pest of a younger brother. And we have the fulfillment of that, by the way, in 1 Chronicles 5. We read, the sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Jacob, he was indeed the firstborn, but because he defiled his father's bed, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph, the son of Israel, so that the genealogy is not listed according to the birthright.

And Judah prevailed over his brothers and from him came a ruler, although the birthright belonged to Joseph.

Do you see?

First Chronicles 5 says Jacob gave the birthright over to Joseph. Now that double portion ended up resting upon the sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, but as far as the chronicler is concerned, the birthright was given to Joseph.

And so perhaps this ornate robe is the beginning of this plan, this design, for Jacob upon.

Joseph.

He will be the leader of the family. He will be the heir. And when his brothers saw, verse 4, that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and they could not speak a kind word to him.

So now there's this tension in the home. We've seen it throughout Genesis, haven't we? The destructiveness of sin for family life, family life diseased by sin, needing to be.

Redeemed.

The state of Joseph's brothers here is sad. We almost feel bad for them at the beginning of verse 4, they don't feel loved by their.

Father.

They're looking at the kind of love they could experience whenever they look to Joseph. And really, that misstep, that miscalculation by Jacob, it fuels their hatred toward their younger brother. They can't even speak a kind word to him.

They can't even say please or thank you. Family life is toxic here in Genesis 37. It's sad on the one hand, it gets downright tragic as we keep reading. Remember that they had grown up in Haran also. These boys, their whole development, their whole lives were lived out among sibling rivalries.

The rivalry between their mothers, Rachel and Leah, Bilhah and Zilpah. The rivalry between their father, Jacob, and their uncle, Esau. It's this rivalry and tension at every turn. Now they've inherited that amongst themselves.

Now they are carrying on that family trait of squabbling and having jealous rage between brethren. And this is especially sad when we consider Jacob, because he personally knew what it was like to have a father that didn't show him affection.

He grew up very close to Rebekah, but he knew what it was like when he could see his father's smile and delight and enjoyment of Esau whenever he came back to the field. There's my boy, there's the son of my strength, that's my Esau.

Jacob, go get your brother a nice cold iced coffee. He deserves it. Jacob, what have you done all day in the kitchen with mom? No, I wish you were like my boy, Esau. Jacob grew up under that. He should have known how poisonous that was to his own walk with the Lord, how destructive that was for his own relationships.

He should have known the valley that was so deep and the mountain that was so high just to be reconciled to Esau. But he recreates the conditions for that among his own sons. It's tragic. Isaac's favorite son had been Esau, and that rivalry tore their family apart.

And Jacob walks Joseph right into the same situation. Every one of his brothers knows Joseph is the favorite. Would it be too late at this point for there to be some repentance and some turning around?

We talked about how it's these formative years that they grew up and they saw this sibling rivalry and jealousy as normal. Would it have been too late for Jacob to call the family together and begin to walk out in repentance?

As long as that took, it would not have been too late. The world wants you to think, well, if this is how they grew up, if this is 17 years of Joseph's life, even more into the 20s, two decades' worth of this kind of toxicity and tension and jealousy and rage, that can't be overdone.

They're going to have to go to a secular counselor. This is going to take eight years. This can't turn around. And we as Christians go, if there's genuine repentance, the Lord can turn this around.

Real quick. Real quick.

Things that have been built and encrusted in sin for decades, where there's genuine repentance, the physician comes and he heals that disease to everyone's amazement. And I think as families, we need to hear that in our relationships.

Parents are worried about the influence they've had on their grown children.

I blew it.

They wish they had a Joseph they could start over with. This will be the one that I get right. And it's like where there's repentance, the Lord can turn things around really quick.

Really quick.

So we look at this and we look at it soberly. We know that there were deep impressions on the life of Jacob and he made deep impressions on the life of Joseph. And we want to take that soberly. We want to look at that and say, am I training up my children in the way they should go so that when they're older, they won't depart from it?

That's God's word. That's God's warning to parents. If you read that opposite, as we ought to do sometimes with wisdom literature, if you do not train up a child in the way they should go when they are older, they will depart from.

It.

So we take that as a sober warning. But then we look to the grace of God and we say, where there's genuine repentance, the Lord will bless it.

He will honor it.

We also need to keep our eye on the word brothers here. It's going to be infused throughout this whole chapter. It occurs over 20 times when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any.

And we're going to keep seeing this word brother. It's used in a very powerful, dramatic way. The brothers that are not like brothers at all. The brothers that relate more like enemies to Joseph, as we'll see next week.

And so again, we see the spread of sin in family discord, wrath, outbursts of jealousy,.

Hatred.

We recognize the spread of sin as it's recorded in Genesis is primarily the spread of sin in family life. That's how Genesis presents and displays sin. It's the second table of the law sins on full display.

And that disorder has come about because of the failure of the first table of the law in failing to acknowledge God and failing to relate to God rightly, all of the relationships among human beings are poisoned.

And yet we also see that God's grace is going to intervene despite the curse because he has a promised plan of redemption. And so that brings us to secondly, Joseph having a dream. So we began, Joseph has a robe, now second, Joseph has a dream.

We read beginning in verse five, Joseph had a dream and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more, I don't know what he was expecting. He said to them, listen to this dream I had. We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.

And his brothers said to him, do you intend to reign over us?

Will you actually rule us?

And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said. Remember, he's coming to them in this ornate robe. If you couldn't tell from this, let me tell you from my dream what you're going to do to me, the guy that you can't even say a kind word to.

The Lord begins to intervene in the life of Joseph through this dream. And the whole world is bound up in the movement of God at this particular night based on God's revelation of a dream to Joseph. Whatever else is going on in the world, the equivalent of headlines today that were going on in and around the land of Canaan at this point in time, none of that is consequential in the ultimate sense for the history of God's redemption in the world so much as the dream that Joseph has that night.

And none of his family know that. No one else in the world knows that. He intervenes in Joseph's life by bringing a dream. Now, let's talk about that really quick. Dreams were, and I use that decidedly, were a mode of the revelation of God's word.

Dreams were, please note past tense, a mode of the revelation of God's word, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament times. Of course, we have to be careful how we understand the significance of dreams still.

I wouldn't be surprised if a missionary had a dream, something like Paul had a dream of the Macedonian man wearing the Phrygian cap saying, come over and help us. I wouldn't be surprised at all. I would be concerned if they took that as somehow authoritative.

But I do believe that God can work personally in the lives of his people. The question is, what is the standard of authority? What is the revelation of God? And what are things that he allows providentially in our lives that impact us in significant.

Ways?

And so I almost wish I didn't even say that much, but I just want to allow there to be something to be said about the way that God still works dynamically today. And the way that he works dynamically today is through his word, which is no longer revealed in the mode of dreams to his people.

So we ought not to say, the Lord said to me last night in my dream. As soon as you start hearing that, it's like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, you know, alarm bells. And what you do instinctively as a Christian is you say, let's chapter and verse that.

And if you've ever been in the awkward situation I have where you're like, well, the Lord didn't say that because that's against his word here, it's kind of like, but I, and it's like that just doesn't matter.

We've got the word, right? And if he wanted to reveal to you something that wasn't in the word, you have to question the wisdom of why it was necessary for you to receive that revelation. We would say that God has spoken fully and finally in his word.

So I'm trying to protect the mode of the revelation of God's word by also acknowledging the fact that people have strange dreams sometimes. And even, I think, among reformed Christians, we ought to be able to appreciate sometimes the providence of God.

So let's talk about dreams really, really briefly. First of all, we want to, of course, paraphrase, not quote, but paraphrase Hebrews 1, God at various times and in various ways spoke in the past to the fathers.

So various times and at various ways, not constantly as we have access to his word today, and not in the same modality as we have a normative way to understand the revelation of God today. But God spoke in various times and in various ways to the fathers.

Now he's spoken fully and finally to us in the word, that is his son. Now generally speaking, dreams are the product of our own busyness, our own anxiety, it's what we've given our minds over to during the day, it's what we're fearful about or anxious about perhaps.

It's what we're occupying our time and our attention, our energy with. These are the things that tend to creep into our dreams in some sort of reflective, distorted perhaps way. I'm actually, I'm curious at Lunch Fellowship today to hear how people dream among us here at GRBC.

I rarely have any memory of dreams. For whatever reason, I don't ever really recall dreaming much at all. So it would actually surprise me if I had a very vivid dream that I remembered. I of course have had very odd moments in dreams when you're kind of half awake, and usually my dreams are ridiculous, and so they're thankfully not even worth remembering.

But some people have very vivid dreams, and sometimes those dreams have an effect on the way that people are looking at their lives, or saying, I had this dream and it stayed with me ever since I had it.