The occult significance of dreams was a matter of speculation among the wise at an early period in the history of civilization. The entries on Babylonia and Egypt to some extent out-line the methods by which the wise men of those countries divined the future from visions seen in sleep, and articles dealing with other countries include data relating to dreams and dreamlore. This entry addresses some of the more outstanding theories of antiquity regarding the nature and causes of dreams and the manner in which the ancient diviners generally interpreted them.
Historical Views of Dreaming
Dreams were regarded as of two kinds—false and true, in either case emanating from a supernatural intelligence, evil or good. Sleep was regarded as a second life by the ancients, a life in which the soul was freed from the body and was therefore much more active than during the waking state. The acts it observed and the scenes through which it passed were thought to have a bearing on the future life of the dreamer, but it is also believed that the dream life was regarded as supernatural and "inverted," and that the events that the bodiless spirit beheld were the opposites of those that would later occur on the earth-ly plane. The idea thus originated that "dreams go by contraries," as both popular belief and many treatises upon the subject of nightly visions assure us is the case.
A belief in the divinatory character of dreams arose, and their causes and nature occupied some of the greatest minds of antiquity. Aristotle, for example, believed them to arise solely from natural causes. Posidonius the Stoic was of the opinion that there were three kinds: the first was automatic and came from the clear sight of the soul, the second from spirits, and the third from God. Cratippus, Democritus, and Pythagoras held doctrines almost identical to this or differing only in detail.
Later, Macrobius divided dreams into five kinds: the dream, the vision, the ocular dream, the insomnium, and the phantasm. The first was a figurative and mysterious representation that required an interpretation; the second was an exact representation of a future event in sleep; the third was a dream representing some priest or divinity who declared to the sleeper things to come; the fourth was an ordinary dream not deserving of attention; and the fifth was a disturbing half-awake dream, a species of nightmare.
Other writers divided dreams into accidental dreams and those induced for the purposes of divination. Herodotus wrote that in the temple of Bel in Babylon, a priestess lay on a bed of ram skin ready to dream for divination. The ancient Hebrews obtained such dreams by sleeping among tombs. Dreams are believed to be as successful as hypnosis and other methods of reaching the supernatural world and hearing its pronouncements.
Sleep was, of course, often induced by drugs, whether the soma of the Hindus, the peyotl of the ancient Mexicans, the hashish of the Arabs, or the opium of the Malays or Chinese. These narcotics, which have the property of inducing speedy sleep and of heightening inward visions, were and are still prized by professional dreamers all over the world, especially as they render dreaming almost immediately possible.
Ancient Methods of Dream Interpretation
As stated, interpretation of dreams was generally undertaken by a special class of diviners, who in ancient Greece were known as oneiocritikoi, or "interpreters of dreams." The first treatise on the subject was that of Artemidorus (ca. 100C.E.). He differentiated between the dreams of kings and those of commoners, since he believed that the visions of royalty referred to the commonwealth and not to the individual. Dreams that represented something happening to the dreamer revealed a personal significance, whereas a dream relating to another concerned him alone. He detailed the numerous species of dreams throughout five books, giving numerous examples. The rules of Artemidorus are far from clear, and according to them, any dream might signify any event, and any interpretation might be considered justifiable.
The method of testing dreams according to Moses Amyraldus in his Discours sur les songes divins (1625) was to determine whether the instructions and advice they contained made for good or ill—a test impossible to apply until after the result is known. But Amyraldus addressed this difficulty by proposing to test dreams by the evidence of divine knowledge they showed—by asking whether the dream gave any evidence of things such as God alone could know.
It seems from an examination of dreams submitted to the ancient diviners that the exhibited symbolism could only be interpreted through divine aid, as in the cases of Moses and Daniel in the Bible. Many improbable interpretations were given to most epochal dreams of antiquity. There are some students of the occult who doubt the occult significance of dreams and do not classify dreams generally with vision, second sight, or ecstasy.
Dreams and Psychical Phenomena
Dreams of a supernormal character fall within the purview of psychical research. The dividing line between normal and supernormal dreams is not easy to draw. It is believed that sub-conscious elaboration often presents supernormal effects.
Reportedly Goethe solved scientific problems and composed poetry in his dreams. Jean de La Fontaine composed The Fable of Pleasures and Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote "Kubla Khan" (1816) as a result of dreams. Bernhard Palissy made a piece on dream inspiration. Matthew Maury confessed, "I have had in dream ideas and inspiration that could never have entered my consciousness when awake." Giuseppe Tartini heard his "Sonate del Diavolo" played by Beelzebub in a dream, Holden composed La Phantasie in his sleep; and Charles Nodier's Lydia was similarly born. Robert Louis Stevenson's most ingenious plots were evolved in the dream state. Reportedly Kruger, Corda, and Maignan solved mathematical problems in dreams and Condillac finished an interrupted lecture. For many of the Romantic writers, such as Coleridge and Nodier, these creative dreams were induced by the ingestion of opium.
A dream of Louis Agassiz is frequently quoted. He tried for two weeks to decipher the obscure impression of a fish fossil on the stone slab in which it was preserved. In a dream he saw the fish with all the missing features restored. The image escaped him on awakening. He went to the Jardin des Plantes in the hope that an association with the fossil would recapture it. It did not. The next night he again dreamed of the fish, but in the morning the features of the fish were as elusive as ever. On the third night he placed paper and pencil near his bed. Toward morning the fish again appeared in a dream. Half dreaming, half awake, he traced the outlines in the darkness. On awakening he was surprised to see details in his nocturnal sketch that he thought impossible. He returned to the Jardin des Plantes and began to chisel on the surface of the stone using the sketch as a guide. Reportedly Agassiz found the hidden portions of the fish as indicated in the drawing.
The dream of a Professor Hilprecht, a Babylonian scholar who tried to decipher writing on two small pieces of agate, is more complicated and belongs to the clairvoyant order. As reported in the Proceedings of the Societry for Psychical Research (August 1900), he went to sleep and dreamt of a tall, thin priest of the old pre-Christian Nippur who led him to the treasure chamber of the temple and went with him into a small, lowceilinged room without windows in which there was a large wooden chest; scraps of agate and lapis lazuli lay scattered on the floor. Here the priest addressed Hilprecht as follows: "The two fragments which you have published separately belong together, and their history is as follows: King Kruigalzu [c. 1300 B.C.E.] once sent to the temple of Bel, among other articles of agate and lapis-lazuli, an inscribed votive cylinder of agate. Then we priests suddenly received the command to make for the statue of the god Nidib a pair of ear rings of agate. We were in great dismay, since there was no agate as raw material at hand. In order for us to execute the command there was nothing for us to do but cut the votive cylinder into three parts, thus making three rings, each of which contained a portion of the original inscription. The first two served as ear rings for the statue of the god; the two fragments which have given you so much trouble are portions of them. If you will put the two together you will have a confirmation of my words." The continuation of the story is given by Mrs. Hilprecht, who testified to having seen her husband jump out of bed, rush into the study and cry out, "It is so, it is so."
The scientist Nikola Tesla had waking visions in which a complex electrical engineering apparatus was perceived in total details of design and construction.
There are many cases of bits of information obtained in dreams. William James was impressed by the Enfield case, in which the discovery of the body of a drowned woman was effected through a dream of a Mrs. Titus of Lebanon, a stranger to the scene. Charles Richet recounts the following instance of dream cognition: "I saw Stella on the 2nd of December during the day, and on leaving I said 'I am going to give a lecture on snake poison.' She at once replied: 'I dreamt last night of snakes, or rather of eels.' Then, without of course giving any reason, I asked her to tell me her dream, and her exact words were: 'It was about eels more than snakes, two eels, for I could see their white shining bellies and their sticky skin; and I said to myself I do not like these creatures, but it pains me when they are hurt.' This dream was strangely conformable to what I had done the day before, December 1. On that day I had, for the first time in twenty years, experimented with eels. Desiring to draw from them a little blood, I had put two eels on the table and their white, shining, irridescent, viscous bellies had particularly struck me."
A case of dream clairvoyance, possibly under spirit influence, is that of a Miss Loganson, 19, of Chicago. She saw in a dream the murder of her brother, Oscar, who was a farmer of Marengo, about 50 miles northwest of Chicago. She accused a farmer neighbor named Bedford for days, but no one paid attention to her. At length she was permitted to send a telegram; the reply was, "Oscar has disappeared." Starting for Oscar's farm, accompanied by another brother and by the police, she went directly to Bedford's house. Traces of blood were found in the kitchen. Proceeding to the hen house, the yard of which was paved, the girl said, "My brother is buried here." Because of the girl's insistence and her agitation, consent was given to dig. Under the pavement they first found the brother's over-coat; five feet down they came upon the body. Bedford was arrested at Ellos, Nebraska, and hanged in due course. Miss Loganson, in explanation, said that the spirit of her brother haunted her for seven days in dreams.
Lost objects are frequently found in dreams. In most cases subconscious memory sufficiently explains the mystery. There are, however, more complicated cases. According to legend Hercules appeared in a dream to Sophocles and indicated where a golden crown would be found. Sophocles got the reward promised to the finder.
Supposedly the paranormal character of dreams is clearest in telepathic and prophetic dreams. They often produce an impression lasting for days. Sweating and trembling are occasionally experienced on waking from a dream of this character. The dreams tend to be repeated. One case of prophetic dreams announced the murder of a Chancellor Perceval. It is thus narrated by one Abercrombie: "Many years ago there was mentioned in several of the newspapers a dream which gave notice of the murder of Mr. Perceval. Through the kindness of an eminent medical friend in England I have received the authentic particulars of this remarkable case, from the gentleman to whom the dream occurred. He resides in Cornwall, and eight days before the murder was committed, dreamt that he was in the lobby of the House of Commons, and saw a small man enter, dressed in a blue coat and white waistcoat. Immediately after, he saw a man dressed in a brown coat with yellow basket metal buttons draw a pistol from under his coat, and discharge it at the former, who instantly fell; the blood issued from the wound a little below the left breast. He saw the murderer seized by some gentlemen who were present, and observed his countenance; and on asking who the gentleman was that had been shot, he was told that it was the Chancellor. He then awoke, and mentioned the dream to his wife, who made light of it; but in the course of the night the dream occurred three times without the least variation in any of the circumstances. He was now so much impressed by it, that he felt much inclined to give notice to Mr. Perceval, but was dissuaded by some friends whom he consulted, who assured him that he would only get himself treated as a fanatic. On the evening of the eighth day after, he received the account of the murder. Being in London a short time after, he found in the print-shops a representation of the scene, and recognised in it the countenance and dresses of the parties, the blood on Mr. Perceval's waistcoat, and the yellow basket buttons on Bellingham's coat, precisely as he had seen them in his dreams."
J. W. Dunne's An Experiment with Time (1927) is a study of how future events are foreshadowed in our dreams. By keeping a record of his dreams, putting them down immediately on awakening, he found that a considerable part of his dreams anticipated future experiences, and this was corroborated by fellow experimenters.
Many other dreams, difficult to classify, bear the stamp of paranormal. Camille Flammarion in his Death and its Mystery (1922-23) quoted the curious dream of a Mrs. Marechal, who between sleeping and waking, saw a specter taking her arm and saying, "Either your husband or your daughter must die. Choose!" After great mental sufferings she decided for her child. Five days later her husband, who was in good health, suddenly died.
The experience of déjà vu to which advocates of reincarnation often refer, may be explained by traveling clairvoyance in dreams. Another explanation, a theory of ancestral dreams, is offered in the Bulletins et Mémoires de la Societé d'Anthropologie de Paris by Letourneau, as follows: "Certain events, external or psychic, which have made a deep impression on a person, may be so deeply engraved upon his brain as to result in a molecular orientation, so lasting that it may be transmitted to some of his descendants in the same way as character, aptitudes, mental maladies, etc. It is then no longer a question of infantile reminiscences, but of ancestral recollections, capable of being revived. From that will proceed not only the fortuitous recognition of places which a person has never seen, but, moreover a whole category of peculiar dreams, admirably co-ordinated, in which we witness as at a panorama, adventures which cannot be remembrances, because they have not the least connection with our individual life" (Paul Joire, Psychical and Supernormal Phenomena, 1936).
Hereward Carrington called attention in The Story of Psychic Science (1930) to the neglect shown for the dreams of mediums. It is believed that if the communicators are subconscious personalities, some connection may be established between them and the dreams of the medium. In the Lenora Piper trances the communicators themselves alleged that they were in a dreamlike state. In one instant a statement came through that was quite wrong, but upon investigation, it turned out to be a remark that the communicator made in the delirium of death.
Modern Views on Dreaming
Modern scientists have studied the relationship of eye movements to dreaming. Professors N. Kleitman and E. Aserinsky of the Department of Physiology, University of Chicago, monitored eye movements of sleepers using electroencephalographic records. They distinguished four types of brain wave and sleep periods, ranging from lightest sleep to deep coma. In stage 1 there were rapid eye movements; in stages 2, 3, and 4, eye movements were slow. They concluded that rapid eye movements (REMs) were related to dreaming, when the eyes move like a spectator watching a theater play or reading a book.
This relationship between eye movement and mental states makes interesting comparison with Eastern religious techniques of meditation. In both Indian and Chinese yoga meditation exercises, eye rolling and focusing is linked to techniques of concentration and visionary experience.
The dream state plays a prominent part in Hindu religious philosophy, which recognizes four states of consciousness— waking, dreaming, deep sleep, and a fourth condition of higher consciousness that embraces the first three. Hindu mystics have stressed that since the essential self (the unconditioned sense of "I") is constant in all states of consciousness, identification with the body, mind, emotions, memories, age, sex, and so on in waking life is illusory—a false ego—since such characteristics are transitory. The pure self is always present, and this essential "I-ness" is the same in all individuals. Awareness of this true self in the fourth condition of higher consciousness (turiya) is known as self-realization, in which there is unity with all creation. The significance of dreaming, deep sleep, and waking states is discussed in the Hindu scripture Mandukya Upani-shad.
Many out-of-the-body travel experiences (astral projection) appear to be stimulated by vivid dreams, particularly when waking consciousness is aroused by some irregularity in the logic of a dream. For example, a dreamer recognizes the familiar environment of his own room, but notices that the wallpaper is the wrong design and color, and immediately thinks "This must be a dream!" This gaining of waking consciousness while still in a sleeping condition sometimes results in a subtle or astral body moving independently of the physical body. (See dreaming true; lucid dreams)
Some experimenters have claimed that release of the subtle body may be stimulated by deliberately induced images of release (e.g., taking off in an airplane, traveling upward in an elevator), just before passing into the sleep state. Such out-of-the-body experiences were also recognized in Hindu religious philosophy and are described in ancient scriptures. The subtle body was named the sukshma sharira.
Freudian and Jungian psychoanalysis have moved in a different direction in their interpretation of the significance of dreams. Certain elements in dreams are said to be wish fulfilling, or to contain clues to psychic problems of the individual. In Jungian analysis, dream symbols are also understood as universal archetypes of human experience. Carl G. Jung drew heavily upon Eastern religious philosophies in his exposition of the concept of a collective unconscious.
Scientific research indicates other fascinating areas of dreaming. In 1927 J. W. Dunne, a British airplane designer, published his remarkable book An Experiment with Time, in which he analyzes a dream experiment suggestive of the occur-rence of future elements in dreams, side by side with images from past experience.
In 1970 the Soviet psychiatrist Dr. Vasily Kasatkin reported on a 28 year study of 8,000 dreams and concluded that dreams could warn of the onset of a serious illness several months in advance, through a special sensitivity of the brain to preliminary physical symptoms.
At the Dream Laboratory, founded at Maimonides Medical Center, New York, in 1962, volunteers submitted to controlled experiments in dreaming, studying the rapid eye movements noticeable in people as they dream. One of the most interesting projects was a statistical study with pairs of subjects, which tended to show that telepathic dreams could be produced experimentally.
It would seem that dreaming and the elements in dreams have many different aspects of a physiological and psychological nature, with certain paranormal characteristics. Many of these aspects differ widely in various individuals. There have been well-authenticated prophetic dreams, as well as fragmentary elements of future events of the kind described by J. W. Dunne. Many aspects of dream imagery appear to be a visual presentation of individual psychic problems. Increasing evidence from out-of-the-body travel experiences has convinced some researchers of the reality of astral travel and of its stimulus through dream images. It may well be, as noted in several religious traditions, that there are also meta-physical dimensions to dream experience.
More than a century has passed since Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams (1899) was first published. Its main premise, holding with Freud's conception of the unconscious mind, was that dreams are the symbolic fulfillment of repressed childhood desires. Although the book's sales were abysmally slow for its first several years in print and, despite the holes in Freud's theory that are obvious today, Interpretation of Dreams has greatly influenced Western thought and culture and is now considered by some dream analysts to be the bible of dream studies. Bookstores have long carried dream dictionaries that offer interpretations of nearly any and every symbol or image seen in a dream. Modern dream studies have demonstrated, if anything, that the evaluation of dreams is far more complex than these popular dream interpretation manuals even begin to suggest. To address a more educated society, recent dream manuals offer more in-depth in their analysis of dream interpretation with many concentrating on awareness of hidden messages and awakening the unconscious mind.
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