G.J. Boter & J.J. Flinterman, Are petitionary dreams non-predictive? Observations on Artemidorus’ Oneirocritica 1.6 and 4.2 (original) (raw)
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The Body, Experience, and the History of Dream Science in Artemidorus' Oneirocritica
Apeiron, 2022
The five books of Artemidorus of Ephesus’ Oneirocritica (c. second century CE) constitute the largest collection of divinatory dream-interpretations to survive from Graeco-Roman antiquity. This article examines Artemidorus’ contribution to longstanding medico-philosophical debates over the ontological and epistemic character of such dreams. As with wider Mediterranean traditions concerning premonitory dreams, Greeks and Romans popularly understood them as phenomena with origins exterior to the dreamer (e.g. a visitation of a god). Presocratic and Hippocratic thinkers, however, initiated an effort to bring at least some dream events within the body as interior processes of a physical soul, a bodily turn which ultimately engendered a split in thinking about the possibility and scope of prophetic and diagnostic dreams (e.g. Hippocrates Regimen 4, Aristotle On Prophecy in Dreams, Rufus of Ephesus, and Galen). Here, I examine the way that Artemidorus meant the Oneirocritica to address seriously questions about the ori- gins of dreams and the powers of empirical science in two, related ways. We will see that his defense of oneirocriticism as a techne unfolds along two main axes. First, Artemidorus constructs a necessary veneer of scientific credibility by mobilizing the tropes and organizational strategies characteristic of contemporary technical literature. Secondly, he anchors that authority upon a materialist account of prophetic dreams as “semiotic movements of the soul.” As Price, S. 1986. “The Future of Dreams: From Freud to Artemidorus.” Past & Present 113: 3–36 and Harris-McCoy, D. 2012. Artemidorus’ Oneirocritica: Text, Translation, and Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press observed, this explicit commitment to an empirical method of dream-interpretation resembles that of the Hellenistic medical ‘sect’ known as ‘Empiricists,’ who eschewed interest in theoretical etiology in favor of observation, comparison, and compilation of symptoms and outcomes. Pushing beyond similarity, I argue that Artemidorus not only deployed this method to defend empirically grounded accounts of dream-divination (cf. Cicero De div. 1), but endeavored to show that such a scientific method can be used to stabilize and corral productively the potentially infinite number of interpretations any dream-sign might bear without recourse to an underlying, causal theory.
Artemidorus, Dream Exegesis, and the Case of the Interpolating Expert Dreamer
Mnemosyne
This article makes the following case: according to Artemidorus of Daldis’ Oneirocriticon one main task of the dream interpreter is to identify, through knowledge of the dreamer, which components of a dream are internal in order to assess—as far as possible—the external components of a dream. I argue that very similar hermeneutic issues were being extensively theorised in Artemidorus’ period by Jewish and Christian writers who were concerned with the problem of prophetic interpolation: in particular, cases in the Bible in which prophecies do not come true. In making this comparison, I hope to clarify a number of features of Artemidorus’ hermeneutic, including the relationship between the origin and structure of dreams and the exegetical practice of the dream-interpreter.
In the Greek novel dreams often function as mise en abyme of the narration, in that they foreshadow events, as in Longus, reflect the circularity of narration, as in Chariton, are associated with omens or with the prophetic description of works of art, as in Achilles Tatius, or conceal enigmatic meanings, as in Xenophon Ephesius. The main characters' dreams often share an ambiguity with the novels themselves that puts the dreams halfway between truth and imagination. Not unlike literary creation (above all poetic), dreams are generated by the imaginative faculty of the mind (phantasia). As dreams fluctuate between onar and hypar, so novels oscillate between mythos and logos. In my paper, I want to argue that for ancient readers dreams were likely to share with novelistic narration a common 'phantastic' background, which fully accounts, along with literary tradition, for their pivotal narrative function.
Dream Talking: Platonism and the Interpretation of Dreams in Late Antiquity
Zbornik radova međunarodnoga skupa “Natales grate numeras?” (eds. Diana Sorić, Linda Mijić, Anita Bartulović), 2020
In my paper I shall reconstruct the late Hellenistic tradition of the interpretation of dreams, arguing for a substantial Neoplatonic influence on various oneirocritica, focusing on their symbolism and the use of etymologies. It is hard to determine whether authors generally interested in dreams and authors of dream books had been possibly influenced by a given philosophical school. It has been argued that, for instance, Artemidorus, the author of the most famous Oneirocritica of pagan antiquity, was influenced by Stoicism. However, there are no strong clues of Artemidorus’ special preference for Stoicism, and later authors do not seem to show any explicit Stoic influence. It is highly possible that Plato never believed in prophecies and magic, whereas it is debatable whether he believed in treatments like incubations or not: similar practices are described, for instance, by Aelius Aristides in his Sacred Tales, along with a number of dreams he had over the years of healing at Pergamon; however, Plato and Platonism are two widely different things. Late Platonism does show the influence of religious beliefs and esoteric practices, and it is not by chance that the two thinkers, who were most influential for the literature on the interpretation of dreams in the subsequent centuries, and especially in Byzantium, were the two Neoplatonists Synesius and Calcidius. In my paper I shall discuss these texts and further evidences. Keywords: dreams, Platonism, etymologies, Artemidorus, Aelius, Synesius.
Artemidorus at the Dream Gates: Myth, Theory, and the Restoration of Liminality
Ancient conceptualization of dreams is based on a duality that splits the oneiric field into two hierarchically ordered modalities. The opposition between these dream categories finds its clearest expression in Artemidorus' Oneirocritica, in the distinction between oneiros and enhypnion. This article critically examines Artemidorus' dualistic terminology. Uncovering the Oneirocritica's internal inconsistencies , the article aims to show how Artemidorus' systematization of dreams attempts to resolve an ambiguity that was essential to the Greek experience. As a case study, I examine three Homeric dreams in such a way as to restore the ambiguity suppressed by Artemidorus' logic.
2014 «Philo of Alexandria’s Dream classification», Archiv für Religionsgeschichte, 15 (2014) 67-82.
The Stoic three-fold classification of dreams provided Philo with a structure upon which he built his treatise on Dreams. This treatise was meant to comment on the dreams appearing in the book of Genesis, in the strict order of their appearance in the Scripture. The classification as presented by him added a gradation which classifies dreams by their phenomenology and the clarity of the message they convey. While dreams sent by God are perfectly clear, those which have the soul as a source are obscure enough to require the intervention of a skilled interpreter. The obscurity or clarity of dreams depended on the perfection acquired by the soul of the dreamer. At this point a second three-fold classification complements the one on dreams: the classification of types of lives or types of souls, which involves a gradation of the soul in its progress towards perfection, using as examples the characters appearing in the Scriptures, mainly the Patriarchs.
Divination By Dreams: The Evidence from the Ancient Greeks
Drumspeak, International Journal of Research in the Humanities, 2016
Predicting the future by supernatural means, interpreting past occurrences and unveiling hidden truths generally were practices found in many ancient and modern societies. In classical antiquity, these practices were simply called divinatio. Divinatio showed contacts with oriental cultures at different points and embraced religious practices (such as) dreams, prophecy, augury, necromancy, and astrology. This paper examines dream as an aspect of ancient Greek divination. Substantiating its evidences with some works of ancient Greek writers, the paper employs the descriptive research method to bring to light the Greeks’ perception on dreams and their interpretation. It concludes that dreams, as it is often true today, were a remarkable form of divination among the Greeks and they were seriously regarded as veritable means of knowing the future. Key words: Divination, dreams, description, Greek, perception