Dream
interpretation is the process of assigning meaning to dreams. In
ancient societies, including Egypt and Greece dreaming was considered as a supernatural communication or a means of divine intervention, whose message could be unravelled by those with certain powers like ESP or psychic powers or sixth sense and so on... ... In modern times, various schools of
psychology have offered theoretical explanations about the meaning of dreams.
The ancient Greeks constructed temples called Asclepieions, a
healing temple, sacred to the god Asclepius where sick people were cured. It was believed that cures would be effected through divine grace by incubating dreams within the confines of the temple. Dreams were also considered “prophetic” of particular significance.A forecast dream.. In ancient Egypt priests were skilled as
Dream interpreters. In the Western world, the first major work on dream interpretation was the 2nd-century
Oneirocritica by Artemidorus which interpreted the meaning of many subjects of dreams. The 9th-century
On the Cause of Dreams by al-Farabi (known as Alpharabius in the West) was the first work to clearly distinguish between dream interpretation and the nature and causes of dreams.
Dream interpretation was a part of
psychoanalysis at the end of the 19th century.The perceived,
manifest content of a dream is analyzed to reveal its latent meaning to the psyche of the dreamer. One of the seminal works on the subject is
The Interpretation of Dreams (''Die Traumdeutung''; meaning ''dream-reading''), by Sigmund Freud, first published in 1899. He argued that the foundation of all dream content is wish-fulfilment Freud described the actual technique of psychoanalytic dream-analysis in the following terms:-
“You entirely disregard the apparent connections between the elements in the manifest dream and collect the ideas that occur to you in connection with each separate element of the dream by free association according to the psychoanalytic rules. From this you arrive at the latent dream-thoughts, just as you arrived at the patient''s hidden complexes from his associations to his symptoms and memories...The true meaning of the dream, which has now replaced the manifest content, is always clearly intelligible.”
There is not much contradiction between the scientific interpretation and the ancient school of thought. Having said dream interpretation is not a subject to be generalized apart from the basic way of how to interpret.Individuals may see the same content for ex:- snake or ocean; any separate theme, not the whole sequence as it is.But it does not hold the same meaning for them.Even though we can assign certain characteristics to specific symbols, it again depends a lot on the subjective issues of the dreamer.
An intriguing area is prophetic dreaming wherein you see dreams as a forecast of near future or later in future. In order to tune into such dreams one has to be in tune with his subconscious. Because a person from outside may not be able to interpret what fortune did it convey. We do not always hear such kind of dreams from all people. It again happens only to a few.One good thing about such dreams is that it serves to help take precautions but on the other hand it does create anxiety on the part of the dreamer.He cannot convince others about the authenticity of his dreams. Everything in life cannot be explained in terms of consciousness alone. The missing links are available only to the subconscious.
More summaries about the Dream interpretation: Dreams are not just dreams.