1 Some time after this, the cup-bearer of the king of Egypt and his baker offended their lord, the king of Egypt.
2 And Pharaoh was angry with his two officers, the chief cup-bearer and the chief baker,
3 and he put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the prison where Joseph was confined.
The chief cup-bearer and the chief baker were also in prison (the subconscious). This shows how we put the Spirit of Life (the cup-bearer's wine) and of substance (the baker's bread) in bondage to or under the dominion of the materialistic man.
4 The captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he waited on them; and they continued for some time in custody.
By this time Joseph had become the warden in charge of all the prisoners, so that life and substance were under his control. When imagination controls these it exercises a powerful influence in the subconscious, bringing into manifestation many things that are so foreign and strange to us that they seem to come from without.
5 And one night they both dreamed--the cup-bearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were confined in the prison--each his own dream, and each dream with its own meaning.
6 When Joseph came to them in the morning and saw them, they were troubled.
7 So he asked Pharaoh's officers who were with him in custody in his master's house, "Why are your faces downcast today?"
8 They said to him, "We have had dreams, and there is no one to interpret them." And Joseph said to them, "Do not interpretations belong to Gods? Tell them to me, I pray you."
9 So the chief cup-bearer told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, "In my dream there was a vine before me,
10 and on the vine there were three branches; as soon as it budded, its blossoms shot forth, and the clusters ripened into grapes.
11 Pharaoh's cup was in my hand; and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup, and placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand."
12 Then Joseph said to him, "This is its interpretation: the three branches are three days;
13 within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office; and you shall place Pharaoh's cup in his hand as formerly, when you were his cup-bearer.
14 But remember me, when it is well with you, and do me the kindness, I pray you, to make mention of me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this house.
15 For I was indeed stolen out of the land of the Hebrews; and here also I have done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon."
16 When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was favorable, he said to Joseph, "I also had a dream: there were three cake baskets on my head,
17 and in the uppermost basket there were all sorts of baked food for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating it out of the basket on my head."
18 And Joseph answered, "This is its interpretation: the three baskets are three days;
19 within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head--from you! --and hang you on a tree; and the birds will eat the flesh from you."
20 On the third day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, he made a feast for all his servants, and lifted up the head of the chief cup-bearer and the head of the chief baker among his servants.
21 He restored the chief cup-bearer to his position, and he placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand;
22 but he hanged the chief baker, as Joseph had interpreted to them.
Joseph's interpretation of the dreams and the coming to pass of events exactly as he had predicted them gave him prestige as an interpreter of dreams and later brought him to the attention of the king.
What is the significance of dreams? The time of dreaming is either when we are losing consciousness in the process of going to sleep or when we are regaining it during awakening. When we are in deep sleep we live in the subconscious, a life of which the conscious mind knows nothing. This mind catches glimpses of it when we are making the transition from one state to the other. However, we are in close touch with the superconscious, the mind of Spirit, when we are in the borderland state between sleeping and waking. At such times one who is spiritual-minded and who at all times seeks to know what infinite wisdom has to reveal, receives his message. Spirit speaks in symbols such as the cup-bearer's cup of wine and the baker's loaf of bread, and the trained faculty of imagination (Joseph) interprets the symbols to the conscious mind.
23 Yet, the chief cup-bearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.