Three Basic Questions about Dreaming 11
meaning. An example is a man who dreams of a shipwreck, and then, in
waking life, the shipwreck actually happens, exactly as in the dream. Alle-
gorical dreams use indirect imagery and symbolism to express their
meanings. An example here would be a dream of returning from Hades,
which might signify that the dreamer is going to return from a foreign
land to his or her own country. Artemidorus says that through allegorical
dreams “the soul is conveying something obscurely by physical means”
(15). Although he suggests in this passage, and elsewhere in his book,
that the source of dreams lies in certain prophetic powers of the soul,
Artemidorus declines to engage in debate on this point:
I do not, like Aristotle, inquire as to whether the cause of our dreaming is
outside of us and comes from the gods or whether it is motivated by some-
thing within, which disposes the soul in a certain way and causes a natu-
ral event to happen to it. Rather, I use the word in the same way that we
customarily call all unforeseen things god-sent. (20–21)
The main body of the Oneirocritica is an extensive catalog of different
dream images and their interpretations. For example, Artemidorus dis-
cusses dreams of going blind, of losing teeth, of being beheaded; dreams
of various kinds of sexual behavior; dreams of rivers, mountains, clouds,
and trees; dreams of kings, priests, gods, and mythological beasts; and on
and on and on in remarkably minute and painstaking detail. According to
Artemidorus, most dreams have significance for the personal life of the
dreamer, relating to the individual’s health, family, occupation, romantic
relationships, and so forth. He does grant, though, that the dreams of
some people (e.g., political leaders) may have significance for the broader
community as well.
Some modern psychologists have accused Artemidorus of devising a
kind of “cookie cutter” system of dream interpretation in which each
dream image is assigned a particular meaning regardless of the dreamer’s
personal life context. A close reading of the Oneirocritica shows, however,
that Artemidorus insists any accurate dream interpretation must rely on a
detailed knowledge of the dreamer’s life: “It is profitable—indeed, not
only profitable but necessary—for the dreamer as well as for the person
who is interpreting that the dream interpreter know the dreamer’s iden-
tity, occupation, birth, financial status, state of health, and age” (21).
Artemidorus gives numerous examples in which the same dream dreamed
by two different people can have two very different interpretations,
depending on the particular life circumstances of the dreamers. Further-
more, although he goes to great lengths in the Oneirocritica to teach his
