Dreambooks

This chapter on dreambooks from our three main religious traditions concentrates on the differences between reported male and female dreaming, and the different interpretative strategies that were applied in these sources to men’s and women’s dreams. It starts by considering where dreambooks or dream key manuals began in the Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman traditions. The importance of generic context is again paramount. Dreambooks were written as manuals for interpreters but eventually came to be used by laypersons without any special training. The problem of discernment between good and evil dreams, and their causes, was not the primary concern of dreambook writers or those who used them, nor did they worry about how dreams related to a future that was governed by providence. They were simply concerned with what a specific dream meant for the present and future: was it good or bad? Dream interpreters attempted to lend scientific credibility to the profession by laying out in detail the many factors that could influence the interpretation of a dream. One of these variables was the gender of the dreamer, as seen in a survey of dream symbols from the Oneirocriticon of Artemidorus, the Book of Blessings, Byzantine dreambooks, and the early Islamic tradition.

The Trouble with Dreams

This chapter is concerned with eastern monastic teachings on the meaning and significance of revelatory dreams, and the contemporaneous Talmudic tradition from Persia. The monastic sayings of the Byzantine East were focused on ascetics and were used predominantly as a guide for other ascetics. Eastern Christian monastics—men as well as women—and their lay followers, regularly received visions. In the first part of the chapter, the eastern monastic tradition of Byzantium is illustrated by various ascetic treatises from Evagrius, the Sayings of the Desert Fathers (and Mothers), and monastic writings from east and west Syria. The second part surveys late antique Jewish approaches to divination in dreams and the activity of the soul, examining the intersection of dream interpretation and rabbinic life in the Babylonian Talmud. A strong belief in the democratic nature of dream interpretation is evident here, especially in The Book of Blessings (Berakoth), according to which prophetic dreams were available to everyone, and professional interpreters were not needed to understand them. The third part contrasts these with early Islamic hadith on dreams and their interpretation.

Why Dreams Mattered in Late Antiquity

The introductory chapter outlines the standard methods of approach that have been adopted in post-Foucauldian scholarship on dreams and their cultural importance. It reviews the history of recent scholarship on dreams and the various methods of approach to modern and pre-modern dreaming, including the gender studies perspective adopted here. It defines key terms such as ‘dream-vision’ and ‘divination’, and introduces the main themes of the chapters to follow. The study of the three monotheistic traditions—rabbinic Judaism, Byzantine Christianity, and early Islam—together in this volume shows the many ways in which dreams and spiritual authority were inextricably linked across the various cultures of the ancient Mediterranean. Ancient religious approaches to dreams are contrasted with modern psychoanalytic and social psychology approaches. The book adopts an ‘ecumenic perspective’ on dream interpretation, treating it as a shared ideology of pagans and monotheists in the East and West. An ecumenic perspective focuses on the common idea that the prophetic dream carried a message from the realm of the divine, rather than focusing on what prophetic dreams can tell us about the dreamer’s subconscious mind. The chapter offers a summary of the scope of the study and of the contents of the remaining six chapters.

In the Footsteps of the Prophets

This chapter traces the evidence for appropriation of Jewish and Christian traditions by Muhammad and his early followers, the companions. It studies the portrayal of prophetic dreamers by Byzantine and early Islamic history writers, who sought to trace a providential hand at work in human affairs. This chapter focuses on the place of dreams in the stories of the long period of conflict between Byzantium and the followers of the Prophet from 622 to 1000 CE. It reads the Qur’an as a series of prophetic messages developed in an apocalyptic context where the end of the world was thought to be imminent. The military successes of Muhammad’s followers meant a greater presence of apocalypticism in Byzantine chronicles also. It shows that women played an important role in both the Byzantine and Islamic narratives of their victories and defeats, both as dreamers and interpreters of dreams for the males in their families. In contrast to dreambooks, sayings of the sages, and hagiography, the historiographical texts of this period contain no dreams of demonic origin, and thus no deception in dreams. Only dreams which proved ‘true’ are considered worthy of relating in such histories. Prophecies containing dreams which were invented after the event (vaticinia ex eventu) are a feature shared by the Byzantine and Islamic traditions.

Dreams and the Material World

This chapter turns to the hagiographic tradition and what it can tell us about the spiritual roles available to men and women within it. It is concerned mostly with archetypal-spiritual dreams and prophetic or mantic dreams, which pertained not only to the future but also to the present. Any dream in which a prophet, angel, saint, or other agent of God appears may be considered prophetic. Byzantine saints found new avenues of appearance through tangible items such as icons and holy relics. Their messages, which could have personal or wider significance, were generally clear in meaning and did not require interpretation by specialists. The chapter compares the dreams of holy Christian men and women with the dreams of their Muslim counterparts in the Sufi tradition. It shows that dreams allowed pious women a greater degree of spiritual agency than was normally accorded to them in either culture. This unusual equity of gender is also evident in the early hagiographic biographies of Muhammad. The chapter closes with apocalyptic visions in Judaism, Byzantine Christianity, and Islam, showing that they were symptomatic of communities in crisis, regardless of faith. Moving from community concerns to individual concerns about the afterlife, it looks at tours of the other world, including two undertaken by women.

Channelling the Divine

This chapter surveys pagan, Christian, and early Islamic attitudes to dream divination and oracles, and the associated practice of incubation at shrines that continued from Antiquity in a religious guise. Divine messages received in oracular dreams in the pagan, Judaeo-Christian, Graeco-Roman, and early Islamic traditions required specialist interpreters and specific locations for gaining privileged access to the divine. It shows how the pagan practices of consulting oracles and sleeping at shrines were adopted and adapted by Byzantine Christians and early Muslims. The first half of the chapter deals with the pagan and monotheist reliance on oracles. Oracles came in many shapes and sizes, but one thing they had in common across the various religious traditions was a starring role for women. Oracles were usually delivered in a state of ecstatic frenzy, the sign of possession by a god or a demon. The process of dream incubation also involved visitations by a god or a saint, gained by sleeping at a holy place, temple, or shrine. The second half of the chapter examines pagan records of the practice of incubation, before discussing how this tradition was transformed in the miracle collections of male and female saints in the Byzantine milieu, where it attained spiritual overtones. The limited evidence for incubation in the Talmud will be treated, as well as early Islamic incubation practices.

Epilogue

The epilogue draws out the common threads in all three traditions—Byzantine Christianity, rabbinic Judaism, and early Islam—and shows how they survive in the contemporary world. In political conflicts, dreams are still sometimes used as justifications for military action, especially by jihadists and others keen to incite inter-religious conflict. Online evidence shows that dream discourses are still being interpreted and appropriated by some contemporary Christian and Islamic believers as tools of providence and divine revelation. Unlike the post-Freudian understanding of dreams as reflections of individual psychic processes of the unconscious, dreams had both individual and social significance in the Byzantine tradition, and in the Islamic tradition up to the current day. Immense semiotic power was thus given to a medium that was able to be misrepresented and manipulated at will. This has always been the problem with dreams and is probably the main reason why they are discounted in most post-Enlightenment societies, but not by all. The chapter asks whether such dreams are important to certain fundamentalist religious cultures because they give equal opportunities to men and women to mediate divine judgement and participate vicariously in violence. It closes with an assessment of current trends in Islam and evangelical Christianity.

Scriptural Models of Dream Interpretation

This chapter traces the models of prophetic dream interpretation that were available to late antique Jewish, Byzantine Christian, and early Islamic writers from their own scriptural traditions. It offers a survey of those foundational scriptural traditions regarding the spiritual value and meaning of dreams and visions. First, it examines the Hebrew scriptures on prophetic dreams and their hierarchy of revelation. The ambiguity inherent in enigmatic dreams gave the chance of a starring role to two young men blessed with the divine gift of dream interpretation, Joseph and Daniel. Women had only a very limited place within the Hebrew prophetic tradition. Prophetic women were given a great chance to star in the New Testament writings, and especially in early apostolic tradition of Montanism. The chapter discusses how this third-century prophetic movement dealt with the question of extra-biblical prophecy through visions. The problem of discerning true from false prophets will be found to be a live issue for early Christian commentators such as Origen of Alexandria. Finally, the chapter contrasts the Judaeo-Christian scriptural tradition with the Qur’anic verses in which Muhammad, the Seal of the Prophets, described his various revelations.