Dreams and Souls

Two puzzling thoughts regularly come to mind these days.  Certainly these are not the only two thoughts that are puzzling but they are the subject of this writing.

I, like most of us, dream from time to time, and even remember for a brief time a part of some of them.  Recently my dream scenario was teaching a class, which may be related to the fact that next week I will be back in front of the classroom filled with about twenty students.  So my subconscious influenced that dream.  More recently however, I dreamt of a high school classmate who wasn't even a friend and hardly an acquaintance.  While I don't at this point remember details of any other dreams, I do remember that I was impressed the morning after that the dreams seemed so unrelated to anything that I had been doing or thinking…ever.  So the puzzle is where do these dreams come from?  Is there a supernatural force, a God involved?  I'm leaning in the direction that this is one way God talks to us.  Unfortunately it also seems like a waste of time and effort because most of us don't understand the message.

Secondly, there a question about the concept of souls or our spiritual being which lives on after death according to many if not most major religions of the world.  Science purports that mankind, the earth, the universe all have a beginning.  It also purports that space is nearly endless or at least so vast as to seem endless,  A reasonable mind recognizing our minuscular relative size to this vastness would wonder why only the earth has evolved with intelligent beings and why there may not be other intelligent life out there somewhere.  Both thoughts suggest a question about if humans have souls and evolved through stages from animal characteristics to human qualities, when did the souls enter the picture?

So when did we get our souls?  What do intelligent beings beyond the earth look like and do they have souls?  Are dreams influenced by God and if not why do they seem so random?

I guess I need to do some more walking and talking.  "And he walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own."  More than me talking I need to be listening when he talks.