12 An Introduction to the Psychology of Dreaming
readers what he knows of the process of dream interpretation, Artemi-
dorus insists that books are not enough: “I maintain that it is necessary
for the interpreter of dreams to have prepared himself from his own
resources and to use his native intelligence rather than simply to rely
upon manuals” (22). Throughout the book, he emphasizes that personal
experience is the only reliable guide in the process of dream
interpretation:
I have always called upon experience as the witness and guiding principle
of my statements. Everything has been the result of personal experience,
since I have not done anything else, and have always devoted myself, day
and night, to the study of dream interpretation. (137)
Classic Western Answers to the Three Basic Questions
The views on dreams expressed in the Bible, the philosophy of Aristo-
tle, and the Oneirocritica of Artemidorus can be analyzed in terms of the
three basic questions of formation, function, and interpretation discussed
above.
In the Bible, some dreams are formed directly by God, while other
dreams seem to be merely the vain creations of the dreamer’s own mind.
Dreams serve a number of functions in the Bible: they can be divine rev-
elations, expressions of reassurance and guidance, prophecies of the
future, or warnings of possible danger. Dreams can be successfully inter-
preted by the use of symbolic translations from the dreams’ imagery to
their waking-life analogs. The best interpreters, Joseph and Daniel, are
guided first and foremost by their faith in God. However, the Bible also
warns that some dreams can be meaningless and easily misinterpreted,
thereby leading people into error and impiety.
In contrast to the Bible’s portrait of dream revelations from God, Aris-
totle asserts that all dreams are formed by the dreamer’s own sleep-
impaired mind. Dreams have no real function, in Aristotle’s view, beyond
the small possibility of revealing perceptions of waking life that were
overlooked during the day. He grants that dreams can be interpreted, in
the sense that resemblances can be discerned between the distorted
imagery of a dream and the objects of waking-life perception.
Artemidorus sidesteps the question of how dreams are formed; he is
comfortable with either the idea that dreams are literally “god-sent” or the
idea that dreams are caused by the human mind alone. Either way,
Artemidorus believes that the valuable function of dreams is to foretell
what will come in the dreamer’s future. For Artemidorus, dreams are
