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 DREAMS

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DREAMS

"Christian Schools and Scholars" (1867); "Biograph- ical Sketch of Hon. H. Dormer" (1868); "Songs in the Night" (1876); "New Utopia" (1876); "History of St. Catherine of Siena" (1880); "History of St. Dominic" (1891); "The Spirit of the Dominican Order" (1896), and some smaller pieces. She trans- lated the "Inner Life of Pere Lacordaire" (1868), edited a "Life of Mother Margaret Mary Hallahan" (1809), "Archbishop Ullathorne's Autobiography" (1891), and "Letters of Archbishop UUathorne" (1892). WiLBERFOHCE, MemoiT of Mother Francis Raphael, O. S. D. (London. 1S95); Cooper in Did. Nat. Biog. (London, 1891), Supp., Vol. II; Annie dominicaine, July, 1S94.

Edwin Btjhton.

Dreams, Interpretation of. — There is in sleep something mysterious which seems, from the earliest times, to have impressed man and aroused his curi- osity. What pliilosophy of sleep sprang from the ob- servation of the phenomenon, we do not know; but, like all phenomena the causes of which are not obvious, sleep came, in the course of time, to be considered as an effect of theDivine agency and as something sacred. We should very likely see a vestige of this simple and primitive philosophy in the reverence shown at all times by the .Arabs to a man sleeping. But the mys- tery of sleep is enhanced by the phenomenon of dream which accompanies it. Primitive people, unable to explain the psychology of dreaming or to discover the causes of sleep, observed that, whereas man can, when awake, control his thoughts and fancies, yet he is ut- terly incapable, when in sleep, either of bringing about such dreams as he might wish, or of directing and rul- ing those that offer themselves to his faculties; hence they were led to attribute dreams to outside and super- natural agencies. The gods, whose power was be- lieved to manifest itself in natural effects, such as thunderstorms and earthquakes, whose messages were supposed to he written by signs in the heavens, could as well send their communications to men in dreams. Hence the persuasion arose that persons favoured by frequent dreams were sacred and chosen intermedia- ries Ijetween the deity and man. Far from being cast asiile by advancing civilization, these ideas developed with it, and were to a certain extent even systema- tized, as appears in particular from the records of the ancient peoples of the East. These all took it for granted that every dream expressed a Divine message. Most dreams came unsought; but occasionally super- natural communications were solicited by "incuba- tion ". The person desirous of obtaining a prophetic dream then Ijetook himself to the temple of the deity from whom he expected instructions, and there slept, after some ritual preparation. Among the shrines known in antiquity for vouchsafing oracles to sleeping worshippers, the temple of ^Esculapius at Epidaurus, where dreams were obtained in which remedies were revealed to cure diseases, the cave of Trophonius, the temple of Serapis, and that of Hathor, near the tur- quoise mines of the Sinai Peninsula, are t he best kno^-n. As a last means to wrest the dream from a reluctant deity, magic was also resorted to. An interesting ex- ample of magical formulse used for this purpose is con- tained in a Gnostic papyrus of relatively late date pre- served in the Leyden Museum; it is entitled " Agatho- cles' Recipe for sending a dream", and may be read in Wiedemann's "Religion der alten jEgypter" (p. 144).

The meaning of the Divine message conveyed in dreams was sometimes obvious and unmistakable, as when the facts to be known were plainly revealed either by the deity himself or through the ministry of some me-ssenger. Thus Thot limes IV was instructed by Ra Hormakhu in a dream to dig out of the sand the statue of the Great Sphinx, near the place where he was sleeping. In like manner the early Babylonian king, Gudca, received the command to erect the tem- ple Erinnu to Ninib. Of this description also were the

dreams recorded in the annals of I\ing .\sshurbanipal. From these documents we learn that Asshur appeared in a dream to Gyges, King of Lydia, and said to him: " Embrace the feet of Asshurbanipal, Iving of Assyria, and thou shalt conquer thy enemies by his name." Forthwith Gyges dispatched messengers to the Assy- rian ruler to narrate this dream and pay him homage, and henceforth succeeded in conquering the Kimme- rians. Another passage relates that, in the course of an expedition against Elam, as the Assyrian troops were afraid to cross the Itti River, Ishtar of Arba-ilu appeared to them in their sleep and said: "I go before Asshurbanipal, the king whom my hands have made." Encouraged by this vision, the army crossed the river ("West, As. Inscr.", vol. Ill; G. Smith, "Hist, of As- shurbanipal "). The Divinely sent dream might also at times foreshow some coming event. Jloreover, its meaning was not always clear and might be shrouded in symbols, or, if conveyed through oral communica- tion, wrapped up in figures of speech. In either case, the knowledge of the significance of the dream would depend on the interpretation. And as most dreams portend no clear message, the task of unfolding dream symbols and figiu-es gradually grew into an art, more or less associated with soothsaying. Elaborate rules were laid down and handbooks compiled for the guid- ance of the priests in explaining the portent of the vi- sions and symbols perceived by the inquirer in his sleep.

Many such manuals have been found in Assyria and Babylonia, the contents of which enable us to under- stand the principles followed in dream-interpretation. From Dan., ii, 2 sqq., it would seem that the potherim, or dream-interpreters, might be called upon even to discharge the perplexing task of recalling dreams for- gotten by the dreamer. The instance here recorded cannot, however, be much insisted upon, as the con- text distinctly intimates that this task, impossible "except to the gods", yet imposed upon the Babylo- nian diviners by a whim of the king, was beyond their acknowledged attributions. Most of the Egyptian magic books hkewise contain incantations either to procure or to explain dreams. These incantations had to be recited according to fixed cantillations, and the soothsayer's art consisted in knowing them thor- oughly, copying them faithfully, and applying them properly. Side by side with this religious view of dreams, which regarded them as the expression of the will of the god, there existed the superstitious view, according to w-hich all dreams were considered as omens. Assuming " that things causally connected in thought are causally connected in fact " (Jevons), people blindly believed that their dreams had a bear- ing on their own fate, and eagerly strove to discover their significance.

Like the Eastern peoples, the Greeks and the Ro- mans attached a religious significance to dreams. Of this belief many traces may be found in classical litera- ture. Homer and Herodotus thought it natural that the gods should send dreams to men, even to deceive them, if needs be, for the accomplishment of their higher ends (.Agamemnon's dream). The same indi- cations may be found also in the works of the dramatists (e. g. Clytemnestra's dream in the " Agamemnon " of ^Eschylus). Plato, whilst regarding it as inconceiva- ble that a god should deceive men, admitted neverthe- less that dreams may come from the gods (Tim., cc. xlvi, xlvii). Aristotle was similarly of the opinion that there is a divinatory value in dreams (De Divin. per somn., ii). The teaching of the Stoics was along the same lines. If the gods, they said, love man and are omniscient as well as all-powerful, they certainly may disclose their purposes to man in sleep. Finally, in Greece and Rome, as well as in the East, the popular views of dreams went a great deal farther and clevel- oped into superstition. It was in accordance with these views, and to gratify the cravings which they