Dreams And Ancient Dream Interpretation

Greece Antiphon, a Greek living in the fourth century bc. wrote the first known descriptive book of dreams. It was designed to be used for practical and profes­sional interpretations. He maintained that dreams are not cre­ated by supernatural powers but natural conditions. In the second century ad a similar book was written by Anemidorus, a Greek physician who lived in Rome. He claimed to have gathered his infonnation from ancient sources, possibly from the Egyptian dream book dating from the second millennium bc. He may have used works from the Assurbanipal library, later destroyed, which held one of the most complete collec­tions of dream literature. Anemidorus classified dreams into dreams, visions, oracles, fantasies and apparitions. He identi­fied two classes of dreams: the somnium, which forecast events; and the insomnium, which are concerned with present matters.

For the somnium dreams Anemidorus gave a dream dictionary.

For example, he said abyss meant an impending danger, a dream of warning, and to see a candle being lighted forecasts a binh, to exhibit a lighted candle augers content­ment and prosperity, a dimly burning candle shows sickness, sadness and delay. This last interpretation is taken from folk­lore of the times and, because dreams tend to use commonly used verbal images, was probably true. He maintained that a person’s name—that is their identity, and the family, national and social background from which they arose—has a bearing on what their dream means.

Plato (429-347 bc) said that even good men dream of un­controlled and violent actions, including sexual aggression. These actions are not committed by good men while awake, but criminals act them out without guilt. Democritus said that dreams are not products of an ethereal soul, but of visual impressions which influence our imagination. Aristotle (383— 322 bc) stated that dreams can predict future events. Earlier Hippocrates, the ‘father of medicine’, discovered that dreams can reveal the onset of organic illness. Such dreams, he said, can be seen as illogically representing external reality.

Hippocrates was born on the island of Kos. On the island was the famous temple dedicated to Aesculapius, the god of medicine. There were about 300 such temples in Greece alone, dedicated to healing through the use of dreams. Hip­pocrates was an Aesculapian, and learnt his form of dream interpretation from them. In such temples the patient would ritually have to cleanse themselves by washing, and abstain from sex, alcohol and even food. They would then be led into what was sometimes a subterranean room with harmless snakes in—these were the symbol of the god. In the morning the patients were asked their dream, and it was expected they would dream an answer to their illness or problem. There are many attestations to the efficacy of this technique from pa­tients.