The ancient Jews strongly believed that God communicated with them directly or by way of angel/messenger through dreams. This contrast with the Greek concept wherein dreams originating from the realm of the dead.

There are many Cabalistic writings, Hasidic scriptures, the Babylonion Talmud and the Old Testament which contain many references to dreamsthat had divine revelation as part of their content. In the Talmud, for example, we find a rabbi interpreting a dreamof a man pouring oil on a palm tree as an indication of incestuous urges for his mother.

Some interesting dreams in the ancient past:

• Joseph intepreted the dream of a pharaoh, because of the failure of the Eqyptian interpreters to satisfy their king. This dream involved the replacement of seven fat sheaves of grain by seven withered ones, then of seven thin cows consuming seven fat cows. Joseph’s analysis was that there would be seven years of famine following the previous seven years of plenty. That is exactly what happened!
•  Jacob changed his name to Israel and eventually sired 12 sons. The 12 tribe of Israel were the descendants of these 12 sons. The dream Jacob had proved quite prophetic and changed the course of Jewish history.
• another great dream involved Moses. He woke up int he middle of the night after “wrestling with an angel” and cajoled his wife to circumcise their son. By this act, Moses and his son converted from being Egyptian to that of Judaism. Eventually, Moses would lead his people out of Egyptian bondage during the Exodus, bring the Ten Commandments to them as law and guid them to the Promised Land.

The head Druid priest in ancient Celtic societies would be instructed in his dream state to offer himself as a sacrifice to save his people in times of great danger.

It was their belief that by submission to a triple death- by strangling, cutting and either drawing or burning-his soul’s energy would be unleashed and assist with the community’s protection. This was achieved by his soul working in conjunction with the gods.

The Oneirocritica is a five volume work of the Greek Artemidorus (second century A.D.) which is the first significant published work on dreams.

Artemidorus wrote that:

• a dream was unique to the individual.
• dream is underlined with the principle of association - a dream image evokes some image or meaning in the conscious mind.
• stated that dreams are infused into men for their advantages and instruction

Dreams and Health:

Interestingly,Hippocrates the reknown physician (460B.C. -360B.C.) felt that the stars, moon and sun represented the organic state of the body in a dream. He felt that if dream stars shine brightly and follow their natural orbit, the dreamer’s body is functioning normally. If dream stars become clouded or fall from their orbit or a cosmic catastrophe occurs, some disease is taking shape in the body.

Prodromic dreams(other names like precognitive, prophetic, prognostic and theorematic) are those that reflect symptoms of an illness just before they actually manifest in the body. Hippocrates deduced that certain dream images of health such as white clothing, bright stars, radiant sunshine or mightly rivers, could be used to restore health. He based this approach on the accuracy of these Prodromic dreams.

In the ancient past in Rome, dreams were taken very seriously by the Romans and they literally helped shape history.

One such infamous character is Julius Caesar and his dreams.

(a) Julius Caesar had a dream during which he had intercourse with his mother. This occured on his way back from Gaul. The interpretation was that he was destined to conquer the ” motherland”. Caesar did take over as the emperor of Rome shortly after this.

(b) Caesar also dreamt that he had ascended above the clouds and shake the god Jupiter’s hand. This was accompanied by his wife’s equally precognitive dream of him in her arms stabbed as he lay in a gable ornament shaped like a temple. All of these signs including the famous “beware the Ides of March” were however ignored by Caesar and his assassination from the stabbing by several senators took place on the Ides of March in 44B.C.

In the ancient time, the Roman Catholic Church took a very narrow minded view towards dreams. Hence, the authorities saw to it that dreams were condemned. Dreams not sanctioned by ecclesiastical authorities were assumed to originate from the devil.

The Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches still maintain this stance.

In the ancient past, the Chinese felt that dreams occurred when the soul or called the hun temporarily left the physical body. This hun could converse with souls of the dead, the gods or other spirits.

As late as the 14th century A.D. all visitors to an important city spent the night in an incubation temple so that they could receive messages from the gods.

According to Islamic tradition, the Prophet Mohammed considered dreams a conversation between man and his God. However their attitude was quite contrast as unimportant people did not need to dream- a slave’s dream was really meant for his master, the child for its parent and that of the wife must be for her husband.

A prayer ritual or istipara was known in Islamic societies where a special prayer was recited just before sleep in order to elicit an answer to a difficult problem. Potion/drugs were sometimes used to induce dreams by the Dervishes(a Muslim ascetic order) and the people of Kurdistan ( a mountainous and plateau region in Iraq)

The Chester Beatty papyrus kept by the ancient Egyptian priests which dates back to approximately 2,000 B.C., is one of the earliest record on Egyptian man dreaming.

The ancient Eqyptian believed that:

• dreams were messages from their gods
• interpretations of dreams should be based on the theory of opposites for example say that a dream of death represented an omen of long life

The men selected to interpret these dreams in ancient Egypt were called ” Masters of the Secret Things ” or ” Scribes of the Double House”. A disturbed individual slept in the temple following the administration of a potion to promote dreaming. The priest would then interpret the dream and give advice of its cure.

Incidentally, the ancient Hindu scriptures known as the Puranas reported that dreams were also messages from gods. The Upanishad (approximately 1,000B.C) states that dreams took place in a land between the real and the promixed world. This dream would freed us from inhibitions to allow our true nature to surface.

Many scholars feel that the concept of a soul and its existence after death of the physical body originates from dreams of primitive man.