Dreams in the Bible and in Modern English Discourse: A Shift in Perspective

This paper investigates the linguistic aspect of phenomenon secularisation, using as example English word “dream.” Comparative analysis structure dream narratives in Bible and modern texts allowed us to discern two major secularisation trends—humanizing divine mystifying human. In Bible, entering into contact with while asleep is always evaluated ambivalently: one fascinated by great favour fears for one’s life. religious discourse, growing number manifest positive evaluation comforting. The second tendency consists transfer transcendental experiences from sphere describing human mind emotions. Here, ambivalent experience springs up mysterious depths subconscious. At lexical level, both tendencies result new senses “dream” well important changes narrative relating experiences. end, we provide a dictionary entry noun “dream”.