Joseph the Dreamer: Sheaves and Cows

In the book of Genesis, Joseph is introduced as a dreamer—and in Neville Goddard's interpretation, that title isn't incidental. Joseph doesn’t just have dreams; he is the dreamer within us all. He symbolises the imaginative faculty—the power of awareness that receives impressions and shapes the world accordingly. He is the inward cause from which all outer events unfold.

The Sheaves Bowing: A Vision of Inner Dominion

Joseph’s first dream is one of sheaves in a field. His sheaf rises and stands upright, while the sheaves of his brothers gather around and bow before it:

“Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.”
— Genesis 37:7 (ESV)

This might seem like youthful arrogance. But symbolically, it reveals a profound truth: the outer world is a harvest of inward assumptions.

The sheaves represent states—manifested conditions, identities, outer facts. Each brother symbolises a different aspect of the self, or a different limiting belief. Their sheaves are the visible results of those beliefs.

But Joseph’s sheaf—his inner conviction of being chosen, set apart, dream-led—stands upright. And everything else must bow to it. This isn’t a hierarchy among people, but a truth about imagination: when the inner self is firmly fixed, the external world reorders itself to reflect that seed.

This directly echoes Genesis 1:11:

“Let the earth put forth grass, herbs yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with the seed in itself…”
— Genesis 1:11 (BBE)

Here, the Bible quietly declares a universal law: all creation contains its own seed. It begins within. Joseph’s dream, his assumption, is the seed. The sheaves bow because the outer world is nothing more than the growth of what was first sown in imagination.

“The world is a mirror, forever reflecting what you are doing within yourself.”
— Neville Goddard

The Fat and Thin Cows: Feast and Famine Within

Later, Pharaoh dreams of seven fat cows devoured by seven thin cows, yet the thin cows remain just as gaunt.

“And behold, seven cows, plump and attractive, came up out of the Nile and fed in the reed grass. And behold, seven other cows, ugly and thin... And the ugly, thin cows ate up the seven attractive, plump cows.”
— Genesis 41:2–4 (ESV)

In Neville’s symbolic understanding, these cows are not agricultural omens, but inner states. Seven signifies spiritual completeness. The fat cows are the full, satisfied states of living from imagination—faith, confidence, and inner certainty. The thin cows are states of lack: doubt, fear, and despair.

Even after consuming abundance, the thin cows remain unchanged. Why? Because no outer experience can sustain what the inner self will not allow. The famine is internal—a famine of assumption, not of supply.

Again, Genesis 1:11 comes to mind: the tree bears fruit “after its kind.” If your inner life is dominated by fear, no matter what you acquire, it will produce “after its kind”—more emptiness.

“Stop looking at the world as it is. Begin now to imagine it as you want it to be, and dare to assume that you are what you want to be.”
— Neville Goddard

One State to Rule Them All

Together, these two dreams—of the sheaves and of the cows—paint a single picture. Joseph, imagination, is the seed-bearing tree of Genesis 1:11. He dreams, and the dream becomes the ordering principle of his world. The brothers bow. The cows consume and yet remain thin—because the root is internal, not external.

Joseph is sold, imprisoned, forgotten—but he keeps dreaming. He holds the vision. He keeps the seed alive within himself, and eventually, the whole world bends to what he imagined.

What you assume—if it is held with inner conviction—is the seed in itself.