Oneiroi

In Greek mythology, the Oneiroi (Ὄνειροι) were the brothers (according to Hesiod) or sons (according to Ovid) of Hypnos, the god of sleep. They were personifications of dreams—black-winged daemons—and were said to live on the shores of the Ocean in the far West, in a cavern near the border of Hades. The gods sent dreams to mortals from one of two gates located there: true dreams emerged from a gate made of horn, whereas false dreams threaded their way from a gate fashioned of ivory.

Oneiroi are described in the Odyssey, Hesiod's Theogony, and Ovid's Metamorphoses, and are briefly mentioned in Vergil's Aeneid when Aeneas is coming back from the Underworld. Hesiod establishes them in his Theogony as sons of Nyx, either through parthenogenesis^[1] or with Erebus.^[2] According to Euripides, their mother was Gaea.

The most powerful Oneiros was Morpheus. His brothers Phobetor and Phantasos crafted parts of dreams, while he formed the dream in general. Morpheus shaped human figures; Phobetor, animal figures; while Phantasos shaped inanimate objects.

In popular culture

• The gate of ivory is seen in H. P. Lovecraft's story, "The Doom that Came to Sarnath," as a set of magnificent ivory gates, carved from one piece of ivory stood at the entrance of a city of vain humans, which seems to be taken from Lord Dunsany's story "The Idle Days on the Yann". It is also mentioned as a passage to the realm of hallucinations in Lovecraft's "Celephaïs."
• Oneiroid Psychosis, a darkwave band, derive the first part of their name from the Greek word oneirois.
• Dream, ruler of the kingdom of sleep (The Dreaming) from Neil Gaiman's graphic novel series The Sandman, is often known as Oneiros.

References

External links

• Encyclopedia Mythica - Oneiroi
• Here Be Dreams
• Theoi Project - Oneiroi

Sources

• Smith, William. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.