A+history+of+dreams

Dreams Our fascination with dreams stretch back through centuries and links many traditions. It has inspired myths, legends, poetry and strange tales many of which have become part of our cultural heritage, enriching our imaginative life. In ancient Greece, dreams were interpreted not only to diagnose illness but to suggest treatment. At the centre of this was the cult of the god Asclepius (known to the Romans as Asclepius), son of Apollo and the mortal woman Coronis. Asclepius had a dramatic start to life. Angered by the discovery of Coronis’s infidelity, Apollo sent his sister Artimis to kil her. Then, abruptly regretting his haste, he snatched his unborn son from her her corpse as it burned on the funeral pyre. Asclepius waseducated by the centaur Chiron, who taught him healing; he also learnt surgery and the use of drugs, love potions and chanting. Athena godess of wisdom is even said to have given him a magic potion made from the Gorgon’s blood. But when Asclepius used his skill in medicine to raise the dead, Zeus killed him with a thunder bolt for daring to trespass on the territory of the immortals. Zeus however did honour Asclepius by making him a god and transforming him into the constellation Ophiuchus. Throughout the Grek world Asclepius, the formost god of healing, was worshiped from around 300 BC to as late as 6 centuray AD. People travelled long distances in search of cures, especially to the main temple of Asclepius at Epidaurus. Here they made sacrifices and offered gifts through the priests who were the keepers of the god’s sacred secrets. At night, patients slept in dormitory cells close to the temple, to undergo the healing process after a period of struggle and concerntration called ‘ incubation’. Dream incubation, like the dream quest the shaman often undertakes, is an active process involving the journey. Drugs, deprivation, the place itself, withdrawl and prayer and not just the fact of a dream. As they slept hoping for a visit by the god in their deams, the sacred dogs and (harmless) snakes of Asclepius moved among them. To dream of being licked by one of these creatures was a good omen, or the god himself might appear as a snake. Priest interpreters gave advice and would prescribe treatment. In the third Dynasty Egypt, over 4,700 years ago, lived Imhotep, or ‘he who comes in peace’. Poet, philosopher and astronomer. Imhotep is now known as the architect of the Step pyramid at Saqqara. He was a physician priest who was later deified, and was probably assimilated by the Greek god’s cult. At the first temple of Imhotep- believed to be the first hospital –pilgrims prayed to the god for healing, 2000 years before Hippocrates. Imhotep’s tomb in Egypt was a powerful site for dream incubation. Joseph, whose story is told in Genesis and who is one of the most famous dream interpretuers, was imprisoned there, along with the Pharaoh’s butler and baker. The symbol of Asclepius – a physician’s staff entwined with a snake, or twin snakes- is very ancient, and he Egyptian moon deity Thoth carries a similar magic rod. It is thought to represent the renewal of youth, because the serpant casts off its dead skin, so the staff of Asclepius makes an appropriate symbol for the medical profession. A similar staff is the caduceus of Hermes (the Roman Mercury), messenger of the gods, conductor of the dead and patron of merchant and thieves. In the early20th century the US army medical department adopted this winged staff as its emblem, helping to spread confusion of the two staffs. In ancient Egypt too it was assumed that illness culd be cured bt the interpretation of dreams. Like the Greeks, Egyptian patients slept in temples, where, after cleansing and purging rituals, prayers were offered to Serapis, the god of dreams. The pictogram fro ‘dream’ uses the symbol of an open eye, implying that it is in dreams that we truly see. If you would like to know more try Jung’s //Memories, Dreams, Reflections// The Ouroboros – the snake that devours its tail, is one of th oldest symbols in the world. Often representing the encircling waters of the universe. The sybol of the Great World Serpant engraved on a bronze receptacle dating from around 1200 BC from the Chou Dynasty in China, while its literary history is as old as the Greek Oneirocritica, or dream book, of the deviner Artemidorus of the second century. Over 3000 years later the Ouroboros was still alive in Kelule’s dream. Ouroboros has been seen as the visualisation of the cycle of the seasons,; as time and continuity of life on earth ; as completion, totality, perfection and eternity,’Alpha and Omega the beginning and the ending. The hidden power of dreams, Dr Robin Royston & Annie Humphries 2006, Bantam press