The dreamer and the dream

I was listening to NPR's "Fresh Air" this afternoon while driving into Atlanta, and they told a really compelling story about terrorists in love.  The story was examining obsessive love in jihadi radicals and I was expecting to hear sad stories about dissilusioned terrorists, fear, god, etc.  But what I was not expecting to hear was a commentary on dreams.  As I prepare for my dream healing intensive I am increasingly aware of how dreams show up in my everyday encounters with others.  I am always interested in hearing my friends tell me of their dreams which are always incredibly fascinating and thought provoking.  But in this particular story, they interviewed Ken Ballen, former federal prosecutor, who interviewed over 100 men who all talked about their experiences as terrorists, and he told the story of one Al Qaida operative who was waiting for a dream to give him information on whether he should move in a particular direction or not.  He employed a "Seer" to interpret his dreams or dream on his behalf and they rejoiced when the dream message indicated that he was the operative who would be chosen to cleanse the world of infidels.  This took me back to the days when the practice of dream incubation was the order of the day.  Back in Egypt they incubated dreams as a matter of course.  As I was getting out of the car I heard the interviewer ask a question about how one knows to make distinctions between dreams that are specifically for the goodness of humanity and dreams that are not. Unfortunately I was not able to hear his answer, but I imagine that is a question people ask all the time.  How do I know whether this dream is good, bad, significant... I wondered aloud whether or not using the creative arts to uncover dream messages rather than cultural mores might have made the difference between life and death for thousands of people.  But then again I know that dreams and their images are projections of our individual realities and we are constantly influenced by the collective unconscious energy that surrounds us.  And still I wonder...