The principle that a dream follows its interpretation is not an abstraction. The Talmud in Berakhot 55b demonstrates it through the life of Joseph—and through a hard rule about timing.
Rabbi Levi taught: a person should anticipate the fulfillment of a good dream for up to twenty-two years. The proof comes from Joseph's own story. He dreamed of his family bowing to him at age seventeen (Genesis 37:2). He stood before Pharaoh at thirty (Genesis 41:46). Add seven years of plenty and two of famine, and the brothers finally bowed—twenty-two years after the original dream.
Even Joseph's dreams, though, contained elements that were never fulfilled. His dream of the sun and moon and eleven stars bowing to him (Genesis 37:9) implied his mother would bow as well. But Rachel was already dead. Not every detail of a prophetic dream comes true.
Rav Huna introduced a counterintuitive twist: a good person is not shown a good dream, and a wicked person is not shown a bad dream. The righteous are punished for their few sins through nightmares, while the wicked are rewarded for their few good deeds through pleasant dreams. King David never saw a good dream in his entire life. Ahitophel, David's treacherous advisor, never saw a bad one.
But then the Talmud asks: if a righteous person goes seven nights without any dream, doesn't Rabbi Zeira say that person is called "evil"? A dreamless week means God does not wish to communicate with that person at all. The resolution? David certainly dreamed—he just could not understand what he saw. The communication was there. The clarity was not.