Greek tradition
Birth in Greek dream interpretation
The most famous passage in the book is a set of women who all had the same dream and for whom it meant entirely different things.
What this page is
What follows describes what the Greek material says about particular images, where it says it, and what the method around it required. It is not a claim that a dream about any of these things means anything, and Artemidorus's own framework holds that most dreams mean nothing at all.
At Book 4.67 Artemidorus reports seven women who each dreamt they gave birth to a serpent, and gives what became of every child. One became a public speaker, one a priest, one a prophet. One became an adulterer, one a runaway slave, one a paralytic, and one was executed as a criminal.
What makes the passage extraordinary is that he supplies a separate reason for each, and every reason is a different property of the same animal. The speaker, because a serpent has a forked tongue and so does a public speaker. The priest, because the serpent is sacred and has a part in the secret rites. The prophet, because it is sacred to Apollo, who is the most versed in prophecy. The adulterer, because a serpent slips through the narrowest holes and avoids being seen. The runaway, because it does not travel in a straight line. The paralytic, because it must use its whole body to move at all. And the executed man, because when a serpent is caught it is struck over the head and dies that way.
The meaning is not stored in the symbol. It is built afterwards, out of whichever feature of a snake happens to fit what already happened. Seven outcomes, one image, and the image did no work in any of them.
Read honestly that is an admission, and it is the most useful page in this whole section. The method is retrospective. Artemidorus does not conceal it, which is a good deal more candid than any dictionary written since.
Worth knowing
These are outcomes collected after the fact, by a man with a professional interest in the method working. They are evidence about how interpretation was practised, not evidence that dreams predict anything.
What is actually recorded about dreaming of birth
Birth dreams are extremely common during pregnancy and are usually anxious. Outside pregnancy they more often accompany beginnings: projects, changes, new phases.
The birth entrySources and reviewed references
2 references. What these labels mean
- 1.Oneirocritica (The Interpretation of Dreams)Historical dream record
Artemidorus of Daldis (200)
Cited for: The earliest surviving systematic dream dictionary, and evidence that dream interpretation has been organised by symbol and by the dreamer's circumstances for at least eighteen centuries.
- 2.Dreams and Experience in Classical AntiquityAcademic book
William V. Harris (2009) · Harvard University Press
Cited for: How dreams were recorded, classified and used in Greek and Roman practice, including temple incubation and the interpretive traditions around it.