Topic 7: History of Dreams

Ancient Mesopotamia

Earliest clues about dreams ~5000 years ago, known as "the cradle of civilization" central region of modern Iraq

Sumerians

First cultural group residing in Mesopotamia followed by the Akkadians, the Babylonians, and the Assyrians

Cuneiform (2700 B.C.)

Form of writing using wedge-shaped indentations pressed into clay tablets or cylinders; used in later Mesopotamian language

Giglamesh

Chronicle of dream events and the 1st references to sequential dreams from same dreamers; dreams serve to foretell future events and dream content contains bizarre imagery, which holds symbolic meaning

Cultivate

When you ask the god to talk to you in your dreams

Jacob’s ladder

Connection between heaven and earth that the biblical patriarch Jacob dreams, described in the Book of Genesis.

The Talmud

Contains the teachings and opinions of thousands of rabbis on a variety of subjects, including: Halakha (law), ethics, philosophy, customs, history, lore, etc.

Soul travelling

A Hebrew beliefs which means part of the soul departs during sleep and travels all over the world

Egyptian beliefs

Less concerned with demonology and dreams were messages from gods

Hebrew beliefs

Good or evil supernatural entities could be sources of dreams, soul travelling, angels sent in dreams as messengers from God

Chester Beatty Papyrus III

143 “good” dreams and 91 “bad” dreams; interpretations for the various dream imagery

The Carlsburg Papyrus

Originally 250 omens categorized into section headings and describes outcomes after dream activities; the first known dream interpretation guide that had a dedicated section for women’s dreams

Message dreams

Often given to kings: a god showed up and gave a message, and the king woke up. Generally happen after dream incubation in a temple

Mantic dreams

Experienced by anyone, these dreams contained signs of the future (omnia) and would be interpreted by the dreamers

Symbolic dreams

Complex and confusing dreams with unusual interactions between the dreamer and gods, stars, people, animals, or any object. These dreams were considered dangers, indicating diseases or evil spirits and demons

T’ung Shu

An ancient Chinese almanac with 7 classifications of dreams with interpretations – not unlike H&VDC system

Lie-tsu

A taoist who wrote about what source are the dreams coming from

Indian beliefs

Dreams from early in the night are less “processed” or immediate, dreams from later in the night are about your current life

Vedas

Books of wisdom (1500 to 1000 BCE) which contained favorable or unfavorable dreams

The Sushruta Samhita

Collection of medical and surgical lore. Interpretations of illness dreams.

Homer’s epic poems

Earliest Greek references to dreams where divine origin and are sent to the dreamer

Hippocrates

The father of Greek medicine who distinguished between prophetic, diagnostic, and psychological dreams; “All the objects we believe to see indicate a wish of the soul”

Aristotle

Plato's student who argued against an astrological interpretation of dreams and rejected the notion of their divine origin (animals)

Galen

Greek physician who believed dreams had diagnostic utility and indicated imbalances of bodily substances, claimed he had saved many lives as a consequence of his dreams

Lucretius

A Latin poet who believed dreams were separate stationary images but an illusion of motion was created because the images replaced one another so rapidly

Artemidoris of Daldis

First large scale classification of dreams inscribed “Oneirocritica” or “The Interpretation of Dreams”

Saint Jerome

Wealthy Christian who mistranslated ‘witchcraft’ into ‘observing dreams’ in 3 of the 10 places it’s mentioned in the bible, causing Latin-speaking Christians to distance themselves from dreams and to consider them evil

Macrobius

One of the most widely cited books of the Middle Ages and shaped thinking on dreaming for this era

Incubus

A male demon who produced a sensation of weight while sexually possessing a woman

Succubus

A female demon who seduced male dreamers

St. Thomas Aquinas

The Church's most authoritative theologian, issuing warnings about the possible direct or indirect invocation of demons in dreams

Father Gracian

Confessor of Saint Theresa, warned that "it is a sin to believe in dreams.”

Secular dream beliefs

In the 17th, 18th, and 19th century, dreams were dissociated from the devil and associated with philosophical and scientific inquiry

Emergentism

Emphasized the role of physical or somatic factors in creating our mental states (your thoughts are a side effect of your body’s workings)

Thomas Hobbes

17th century representative of this latter "mechanical" or "empirical" approach. Dreams as a side effect of our body functions

17th century

Recognition that the content of dreams were similar to the concerns and character structure of the dreamer's personality

Frank Seafield

Dreams have intelligible meaning and are a direct product of either a bodily and/or mental cause

Yves Delage

French Biologist who believed that dreams were often incomplete acts or suppressed perceptions from the previous day

F.W. Hildebrant

Dreams are self-disclosures: we can see deeper into how our own mind works via dreams, as our deepest desires and impulses are often hidden when we are awake.

W. Robert

Dreamwork is the process that lets perceptions either be added to one’s memory or else forgotten, it “gets rid of the chips from the workshop of the mind”

Marie de Manaceine

Dreams as a shield against monotony: dreams are “friendly companions on our pilgrimage to the grave”. Without them we would age faster and life would be more wearisome.

James Sully

Believed that dreams are symbolic representations, usually of repressed desires from the day before. They expand on our secret wishes and develop them, bringing up instinctive impulses from our subconscious mind

Manifest content

The content of a dream which one is able to consciously remember

Latent content

Unconscious wishes and fantasies which have been denied gratification

Wilhelm Stekel

Dreams highlight struggles between good and evil in everyone; placed a great deal of importance on the first dream that patients reported in therapy, which revealed life conflict, guiding lines, and the type of resistance to be expected in therapy

Symbol

Something standing as a substitute for something else—a perceptual replacement for something hidden—which had some characteristics in common with the unseen thing

Flying and falling dreams

Related to a reproduction of movement sensations experienced in childhood

Jung

Suggested that the psyche was composed of three components: the ego, the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious

Collective unconscious

Structures of the unconscious mind which are shared among beings of the same species; it contains all of the knowledge and experiences we share as a species

Archetypes

Models of people, behaviors or personalities

The Self

An archetype that represents the unified unconsciousness and consciousness of an individual

The Shadow

An archetype that consists of the sex and life instincts inherited from evolutionary ancestors; composed of repressed ideas, weaknesses, desires, instincts and shortcomings

The Persona

An archetype that represents the energy we expend in social roles

Animus

Represents the masculine side of a woman's personality

The anima/animus

An archetype that represents the "true self" rather than the image we present to others and serves as the primary source of communication with the collective unconscious

Anima

The feminine side of a man's personality

Individuation

Psychic goal of achieving ______ or selfhood can only be realized when all of the components of one's personality are balanced

Retrospective symbols

Symbols that have an instinctual origin

Prospective symbols

Symbols that are process-oriented and serve to support development and growth

Objective interpretation

When a character in the dream is considered to reflect an external person with whom the dreamer has an actual waking relationship

Subjective interpretation

When the dream character is considered to portray some part of the dreamer's personality in an archetypal fashion

Alfred Adler

Believed that dreams originate from unfinished and unresolved social problems; dreams are the product of a particular lifestyle and can reinforce this way of life

Katagogic trends

Sexual and egotistical impulses and instincts are dominant

Anagogic trends

Ethics, morality, idealism, and concerns about social communication

Medard Boss

Forego all theories and hypotheses about dreams and to study the dream itself - as an actual phenomenon - to see what could be learned directly

Perception

Occurs when an individual looks at a snowy winter landscape

Calvin Hall

Dreams are embodiment of thoughts and there are sharp distinctions between perception and conception

Conception

Occurs when an individual thinks about the scene

Fritz Perls

All objects and people in the dream are taken to be parts of the person that are being neglected and it’s important to interact with them

Montague Ullman

Developed a “democratic and nonthreatening” approach to working with dreams in a group setting

Safety

According to Ullman, the dreamer must remain in control and their privacy should be respected

Discovery

According to Ullman, the group’s goal is to help the dreamer make discoveries about themself that are difficult to make alone

Theory of Dualism

The mind and body are not one and the same, mental phenomena are non-physical; gave strong emphasis to the independent role of the mind in the 17, 18 & 19th centuries

Dmitri Mendelyev

A professor of chemistry who created the Periodic Table based on a dream he had

Insomnium

Known in the Macrbius as “the nightmare”

Phantasma

Known in the Macrbius as “apparitions”

Psyche

Attempts to gain balance by developing awareness of neglected aspects of the personality and striving for their expression

Lysis

According to Jung, the response to the conflict of the dream by the main character (you)

Dream amplification

Analysis of the central dream elements as opposed to associations with them