Dream interpretation

Abstract

Dream interpretation (oneirocriticism), a practice with roots in Pharaonic Egypt and Old Babylonian and Assyrian culture, was common throughout the Greek, Roman, and Byzantine periods. Dreams had many causes (naturalistic or supernatural) and could signify nothing other than the dreamer's mental or physical condition, or be prognosticative of the future. If a dream was a vision or epiphany, no interpretation was usually needed. Many dreams were symbolic and so required an interpreter, someone skilled in decoding dream language, to recover the dream's meaning and importance.