Since time immemorial, people have tried to penetrate the secret meaning of their night visions. Based on the multiple comparison of their plots with subsequent events of real life, a tradition of interpretations was developed that laid the foundation for a kind of literary genre, including compilation of dream books. The magic in them coexists peacefully with the results of scientific observations. Therefore, works of this kind have always been popular among people with different intellectual development.
Interpreters from the banks of the Nile
The oldest dream book falling into the hands of modern scholars was created in Ancient Egypt. It dates from the beginning of the two thousandth years BC. e. The dream book is a very lengthy essay containing a detailed account of 200 dreams with a description of subsequent events in the life of those who saw them. In addition, it contains recommendations for magical rituals that protect against the machinations of evil spirits.
In the minds of people of that era, falling into a dream, a man opened the door to another world through which the most unwanted guests could penetrate into real life. In this ancient dream book, magic is presented as an integral part of the human attitude, in which the real is closely intertwined with the fruits of his own imagination.
Founder of a new literary genre
The next of the writings that reached us that covered this very vague topic was a treatise written by the Greek philosopher Artemidor Daldiansky, who lived in the 2nd century. In the five independent books composing his dream book, magic, although not completely, is already separated from real life.
Thus, the author divides dreams into ordinary ones, caused by natural causes, for example, daytime impressions, and visionary, sent down to man by the gods. It was in them, according to the philosopher, contained predictions regarding human destinies. This essay, called “One-Criticism” (called onyromancy is the prediction of the future from dreams), served as a theoretical basis for many subsequent generations of interpreters. It is recognized as a classic of this literary genre.
Dream Interpretations and Black Magic
In the Middle Ages, the attitude of the church, and, accordingly, of the whole society towards attempts to interpret dreams and predict the future based on them, was extremely ambiguous. The assessments given to this phenomenon by the holy fathers ranged from a sharp condemnation, bordering on accusations of witchcraft, to pronounced sympathy.
This is explained, first of all, by the fact that, according to the canons of Christian doctrine, the Lord reveals his will and, therefore, the upcoming fate of the world in his dreams only to a narrow circle of elect. The remaining visions are considered to be the product of the devil. For this reason, dream books, magic and witchcraft were considered as phenomena of the same order. Many commentators have been accused of being associated with evil spirits. They ended their days at the bonfires of the Inquisition.
Rehabilitated Dream Interpreters
Throughout the XIII century, under the influence of prominent Western European theologians and philosophers Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great, the picture changed a lot. The condemnation of attempts to predict the future based on night visions was closed by a very tolerant attitude towards them from the church and secular authorities.
It is noted that it was during this period that the magic of numbers, paranosca, founded by Pythagoras (see illustration above), which claimed that each of them had its own mystical meaning, was widespread, along with the compilation of dream books. In the modern world, this teaching has also found its place, changing only the previous name to a more modern one - numerology.
Dreams prompted treatment
At the same time, in the Middle Ages, various kinds of healers decided to determine both the diagnosis and the treatment method on the basis of dreams seen by the patient. As a theoretical guide, they used the work of a Spanish doctor and 13th-century alchemist Arnold de Villanove (“Soleran Health Code”).
In it, the author, along with a set of natural methods of treatment, described in detail ways to alleviate bodily suffering on the basis of secret indications contained in night visions. Thus, in his treatise, which has many features of a dream book, magic goes hand in hand with the results of scientific research.
Keeping up with the times
Among the inhabitants of Europe, another surge in interest in the interpretation of night visions was noted in the middle of the 18th century. It was due to the then-fashioned teachings of astrologers. During this period, magic in dream books began to be supplanted by pseudoscientific, but outwardly very convincing discussions about the effects of a particular phase of the moon on human destinies. Accordingly, the period when they saw it was included in the number of the most important factors determining the secret meaning of sleep, along with its plot features.
It has long been noticed that against the background of wars and various kinds of social upheavals, when the feeling of soil under one’s feet is lost, the demand for forecasters and prophets increases significantly. This happened in the era of the Napoleonic Wars, which swept Europe at the beginning of the XIX century. In all countries, including Russia, the book market was conquered by a kind of bestseller called The Dream Book of Daniel, the authorship of which is attributed to the prominent mystic of the 4th century Artemidor Daldiansky. The peculiarity of his work is that for the first time an alphabetical list of the most common dream plots with their comprehensive interpretation is presented.
It is believed that it was this treatise that inspired the famous Martyn Zadeku to create a dream book that gained extraordinary popularity in Russia and, according to A.S. Pushkin, became the handbook of his immortal heroine Tatyana Larina. This work is also associated with the fashion of fortune-telling from the dream books that was established at the beginning of the 19th century. Magic and occultism, which have temporarily lost their positions, once again seized the minds of readers with its appearance. In Russia, there were many imitators of Zadeka who uninterruptedly supplied the book market with this extremely demanded product. In those years, a new round of craze for magic and dream books began.
In a dream and in reality
Despite all the global shocks that hit mankind in the 20th century, this period of world history has become an era of unusually rapid scientific and technological progress that has touched all aspects of life. He did not pass over those areas that were previously considered the prerogative of the occultists. Already at the beginning of the century, the works of two authoritative scientists specializing in the field of psychiatry, American Gustav Miller and his colleague from Austria Sigmund Freud, became the property of readers.
Both authors traced the connection between the images that visited a person in a dream, and his psychological state. It was the analysis of the human psyche that was reflected in the night dreams that enabled them to make predictions regarding the circumstances of later life. The novelty of the position they held consisted in the assertion that the fate of a person is built by him on the basis of individual characteristics, and dreams fulfill only an informative function.