In addition, other indescribable discomforts troubled me... It was then that the Savior began to reveal things to me for the first time. He ordered me to walk barefoot, and I would scream in my sleep as if it were awake and the order had already been carried out: “Great is Asclepius! His command has been fulfilled.” In my dreams, I imagined myself screaming like this while walking. After that came God’s call and the journey from Smyrna to Pergamon for my good fortune. (D.S. II 7)
Sacred Discourses by Aristeides
In this series of articles, we want to approach dreams from different perspectives. On one hand, it seems interesting to evaluate how dreams have been interpreted in terms of their meaning, but on the other, how the process of dreaming has been understood. Defining one without the other could lead to a limited understanding of everything that surrounds the dream question.
For a long time, dreams were understood as a trance that allowed communication with the gods. An example of this is the text we have collected at the beginning and which was compiled in the 2nd century AD in the work Sacred Discourses by Aristeides (117-181 AD). However, interpretations and hypotheses about what dreams were or meant fluctuated greatly from antiquity until science appeared in the 20th century.
Research has divided historical evolution into three major stages: philosophical period: which would cover from ancient times to the 17th century; pre-scientific period: from the 18th century until 1929 and scientific period: starting from 1929 (Belloch et al., 2016, pp. 294-295).
Philosophical Period:
In the first phase, proposals were mere speculations without any basis or evidence. Gradually, different experiences and contemplations would be collected that allowed sustaining various conjectures.
The earliest written references we have on the concept of dreams come from ancient Egypt, related to dream interpretation. Specifically, they are the Chester Beatty Papyri, dated around 1350 BC. Dreams were considered as contrary predictions: for example, a dream about death had the meaning of a long life (Thorpy, 2011, p. 4).
Continuing chronologically, the next notable reference comes from ancient China, where dreams were seen as a state of unity with the Universe. This unity is also reflected in the concept and symbol of yin-yang (attributed to Fu Hsi around 2900 BC), understanding it as the interaction of two basic principles of life: ying, the active, light, dry, warm, positive, versus yang: passive, dark, cold, wet, negative. In parallel, sleep was placed against wakefulness.
The next civilization we have evidence that analyzed the concept of dreams was ancient Greece, where we could start with Alcmaeon of Crotona (6th century BC - 5th century BC), who around the 6th century BC proposed what would be known as the vascular hypothesis: “sleep is due to a withdrawal of blood from the blood vessels, and wakefulness consists in its diffusion, and complete withdrawal, death” (LM D 32=DK A 18).
Later we find Empedocles of Agrigento (495 BC - 435 BC) who would postulate his conception, known as the thermal hypothesis (Belloch et al., 2016, p. 294), recorded by Flavius Aëtius (396 AD - 454 AD) in this way: “sleep is produced by a moderate cooling of the heat in the blood; and death, by complete cooling” (LM D 206b=DK A 85) (Santos, 2023, p. 15).
On the island of Kos we find Hippocrates (460 BC - 370 BC), who has probably had more influence on medicine than any other individual in history, and from where derives the Hippocratic Oath. For him, “sleep is due to blood moving from extremities to internal regions of the body.”
The next relevant example we find in the work of Theophrastus (371 BC - 287 BC) titled On the Senses, where he attributes to Dionysius (412 BC - 323 BC) the theory that clarity of thought depends on clean air and considers humidity as a harmful element. Furthermore, he classifies sleep among conditions that reduce intellectual capacity, along with alcohol intoxication, overeating, and early childhood (Santos, 2023, p. 19):
«Thinking, as was said, depends on pure and dry air, since humidity dulls the mind. For this reason, in dreams, in drunkenness, and after overeating one thinks worse. Humidity even deprives the mind of its faculties (…). The cause of children lacking intelligence is the same: they have too much moisture» (LM D 44=DK A 19).
Later we can find other references to sleep within book IX of The Republic by Plato (427 BC - 347 BC). In this case, Plato analyzes the happiness of tyrants. He compares the desires that we truly need with those that we do not. He explains that some unnecessary desires go against laws and describes them using an interesting example: these desires arise in dreams when our rational part is asleep and our more savage part, full of food and drink, takes control. In dreams, this savage part is completely free and can do anything without feeling shame, from inappropriate sexual acts to committing murder. Plato comments that we all have these forbidden desires, but for most people they are weak because they are controlled by laws and reason. However, in tyrants, these desires dominate their lives, and they constantly seek to satisfy them. According to Plato, this makes the life of a tyrant like being always in a dream, pursuing happiness that is not real (Aoiz Monreal, 2022, p. 37; Ugalde, 2017, p. 178).
On the other hand, Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC) makes references to sleep in his work On Divination, where he comments that images appearing in dreams or during wakefulness are emanations of night, at a time when the organism's contact with the outside world is weakened, which favors communication (Santos, 2023, p. 31). He is also attributed to the known as ingestion hypothesis, where he proposes that food, once ingested, induces vapors absorbed by blood vessels and then transferred to the brain, inducing drowsiness. The vapors later cool down and return to lower parts of the body, moving heat away from the brain, which triggers sleep onset. Sleep continues while digestion occurs (Thorpy, 2011, p. 7).
Entering now into the new millennium we discover Aelius Aristides (118 AD - 180 AD) who proposes that dreams were a “divine emanation of Asclepius, even when the god himself does not intervene directly in visions” (Copete, 2002, p. 56). In this world, interpretation differs from the Egyptian one we mentioned above: in this case, for example, if someone dreamed about a shipwreck, the divine order was to not continue with the journey.
Another example and perhaps the most recognized in terms of dedication to dreams is Artemidorus of Daldis (2nd century AD), who wrote the main work on dreams from antiquity, the Oneirocritica (Artemidorus et al., 1989). In it, he analyzes different types of dreams and their meanings, establishing categories and offering examples of how to interpret them.
Throughout the article, we have explored how theories intertwine and evolve, shaped by the minds of various theorists. These fundamental hypotheses serve as cornerstones for subsequent civilizations' development. An illustrative example is the impact of all these ideas on Galen's vision in ancient Rome. But to unravel that influence, we will have to wait until the next installment.
Bibliography
Artemidorus, Ruiz García, E., & Artemidorus. (1989). The Interpretation of Dreams. Editorial Gredos.
Aoiz Monreal, J. (2022). Margins of Moral Character in Aristotle: Sleep and Bestiality. Ideas y Valores, 71 (180), 35-57. https://doi.org/10.15446/ideasyvalores.v71n180.84401
Belloch, A., Sandín, B., & Ramos Campos, F. (2016). Manual of Psychopathology (Rev ed.). McGraw-Hill.
Copete, J. M. C. (2002). Dreams and communication with the divine in Aelius Aristides. Codex aquilarensis: Cuadernos de investigación del Monasterio de Santa María la Real, 18, 51-68.
Santos, J. A. (2023). Sleep, dreams and oniromancy in pre-Aristotelian thought. Endoxa, 51. https://revistas.uned.es/index.php/endoxa/article/view/28252
Thorpy, M. J. (2011). History of sleep medicine. In P. Montagna & S. Chokroverty (Eds.), Handbook of Clinical Neurology (Vol. 98, pp. 3-25). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-52006-7.00001-0
Ugalde, J. (2017). Wonder, the original affection of philosophy. Areté, 29 (1), 167-181. https://doi.org/10.18800/arete.201701.007
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