How scary were bad dreams for the rabbis? Terrifying enough that one was even allowed to fast on Shabbat to ward off any potential ill effects.
In general, as we learn on this amud, one is allowed to exchange one fast day for another, which seems to mean that if you just can't fulfill a vowed fast on the intended day, you can "pay off" that fast with another fast later on.
The exception: fasts for bad dreams, which, for full efficacy must be conducted on the following day, even if it is Shabbat. (Of course, you then own another fast for fasting on Shabbat.) It is interesting that the presumed portents of nightmares were sufficiently unsettling as to allow for a fast on Shabbat, which is asur in any other context.
Think about that next time your sleep is troubled.
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I too was surprised to read that a fast for a bad dream supercedes Shabbat. It is even more interesting that fasting on Shabbat for a bad dream necessitates another fast during the week to atone for fasting on Shabbat (when will it end?!).
But think about the importance of dreams just in the Tanach -- Jacob, Joseph, Gideon, Daniel -- these dreams all accurately foretold the future. Prophecies also came in dreams for many of the prophets. Dreams were serious business, and they still are for some people. I remember my Bubbie z''l was very superstitious about dreams, and Rachel tells me that her grandparents (also from Eastern Europe) were also. She remembers her grandfather talking about people from his town who would fast after having a bad dream -- so the practice isn't that out of style. If we understand dreams as the Tanach and the Talmud seem too, that they are a sort of prophesy, then fasting on Shabbat makes more sense. If you believe your bad dream will become a reality, then you want to do all you can to avoid it. In this mindset, it is worth fasting on Shabbat before it is too late.
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