Oneiromancy

Диссертация посвящена изучению народной традиции толкования сновидений в восточнославянской культуре. Основной материал исследования – рассказы о вещих снах, записанные автором в Полтавской области (2012–2018 гг.). Целью работы является выявление механизмов интерпретации сновидений, которые не отражены (или отражены слабо) в традиционных правилах толкования снов («устных сонниках»). Для этого описываются устойчивые нарративные схемы, характерные для рассказов о сновидениях, имеющих сходную логику интерпретации. Анализируя тексты, можно заключить, что сновидец обладает достаточно большой свободой при толковании сна. На осмысление сюжета сновидения влияют эмоционально-чувственная составляющая сновидческого опыта, индивидуальные ассоциации сновидца, а также контекст, в котором рассказывается и интерпретируется сон. Однако, несмотря на уникальность сновидений и обстоятельств, в рамках которых они получают интерпретацию, толкования снов отнюдь не произвольны и подчиняются закрепленным в традиции моделям, которые подробно рассмотрены в работе. Данные модели выводятся при анализе развернутых рассказов о снах, их невозможно выявить на материале толковательных текстов «если снится X – будет Y». Инвариантные структуры нарративов о вещих сновидениях коррелируют не столько c формулами «устного сонника», сколько с моделями, лежащими в основе фольклорных текстов других жанров (загадки, сказки, былички и др.).

The thesis investigates the folk tradition of dream interpretation in the eastern Slavic culture. Essential materials for the research are narratives about prophetic dreams recorded by the author in the Poltava region (2012–2018 years). The work aims at describing the ways of dream interpretation, which are (almost) not reflected in the “oral dream books” (commentaries of informants accompanying the story about a prophetic dream, and other explanatory narratives). For this purpose, the author describes invariant narrative schemes that are common for narratives about prophetic dreams containing the similar logic of interpretation. Analyzing the texts, we can conclude that a dreamer has pretty much freedom in attributing interpretations to dreams. Interpretation of a dream plot depends on emotional and sensual components of dream experience, individual associations of a dreamer, and a context in which a dream is told and interpreted. In spite of the singularity of every dream and dreamer, the traditional interpretations of dream plots are not arbitrary: they come down to the models, which are revealed in the work. These invariant narrative structures (“interpretation models”) can be derived from the prophetic dream narratives, but not from brief formulae “if you see in the dream X, it predicts Y in reality”. The common structures of dream plots (which have similar “prophetic meaning”) correlate with the narrative schemas underlying the folklore texts of other genres (riddles, fairy tales, belief narratives and so on).

In ancient times, mirrors seemed rare and precious, and many cultures endowed them with magical properties. They believed that mirrors not only reflected the soul, but also had the power of retaining part of the soul of those who looked into them. Although mirrors have become inexpensive and common in modern times, some of these ancient beliefs have stayed with us, for example the common fear that breaking a mirror may bring seven years bad luck.

Whatever one believes about physical mirrors, it makes sense psychologically that dream mirrors may indeed reflect the soul, and in addition may also reveal to dreamers hidden aspects of themselves, serve as powerful mediums for obtaining important information, and act as useful portals to other dimensions and realities beyond the gates of mundane thought.

The article investigates the impact on Western culture of the so-called Oneirocriticon of Achmet, a Byzantine Greek dreambook, by focusing on an early Latin translation made by Leo Tuscus in 1176 and entitled De Somniis et Oraculis. The study presents a revised list of both existing and lost Latin manuscripts, and of the manuscripts containing later translations into vernacular European languages. A subsection is dedicated to the text preserved in Oxford, St John’s Library MS 172 considered as the missing link between the Latin tradition and some of the vernacular versions. In order to provide evidence of the successful reception of the De Somniis et Oraculis and its authority within the Western medieval dream tradition, the author discusses two literary cases from Dante’s Commedia (Purgatorio 9) and from the Lancelot en prose. The list of excellent readers of Tuscus includes also Coluccio Salutati, Filippo Buonaccorsi, Pierleone da Spoleto, Gerolamo Cardano and the Renaissance families Visconti-Sforza, Montefeltro, de’ Medici and Estensi.

In appendix, the author publishes the transcriptions of the index of Tuscus’ dreambook, and of a few significant excerpts  taken from the manuscript Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby 103.

KEYWORDS - Leo Tuscus - Leon Toscan - Leone Toscano - Leo Pisano - Leo da Pisa - Leo Etherianus - Pseudo-Achmet - Achmet ibn Sirin - Sereim - De Somniis et Oraculis - Divination through dreams - Dream Divination - Divinatione per somnium - Dreams in Literature - Dreaming in the Middle Ages - Divinazione - Oneirocritica - Oneirocriticon - Digby 103 - Berriot - Byzantium - Dondaine - Purgatorio IX - Purgatorio 9 - Dream of the eagle - Dreams in Dante"

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the seduction of the wild man Enkidu by Shamhat the harlot symbolically causes his death as an unreflective animal and his rebirth as a human – an Eden-like fall into self-awareness. Created as a match for king Gilgamesh of Uruk, Enkidu goes on to become the king’s beloved friend. In European folk traditions, the Wild Man is interchangeable with the bear, and parallels can be drawn between Enkidu and the Candlemas Bear associated with Carnival. Since Enkidu symbolises our pre-human nature, one can perceive a figurative truth to the pan-European folk belief that people are descended from bears. Thematic overlaps exist between some Gilgamesh narratives and European folk-tales about a Wild Man whose father was a bear (the Bear’s Son / Jean de l’Ours motif) or about twin boys, one of whom was raised in the wild by a female bear (Valentine and Orson). Perhaps surprisingly, the roots of Santa Claus lie in the Wild Man. So too do the origins of Merlin, the wizard of medieval Arthurian romance. Merlin has elements in common with Enkidu, while King Arthur can be seen as a metaphorical “Bear’s son.” Over time, the status of the Wild Man has changed from a wholly inhuman monster to a “noble savage” who today might even be cast as a salvific eco-warrior.

In many cultures, dreams are seen as tools of divination. Mesopotamia is no different, and the earliest examples of oneiromancy can be traced as far back as the Third Millennium BCE. References to dreams and dream reports are found in a wide-variety of letters, literary texts, and royal inscriptions. Dreams (both spontaneous and induced) were considered signs from the divine sphere which were sometimes immediately intelligible, and sometimes needed extensive interpretation. Our knowledge of Mesopotamian dream interpretation has survived through a lengthy omen series from Nineveh (Kuyunjik), coined after its incipit Zaqīqu/Ziqīqu, and which consisted at one point of at least 11 tablets. Oppenheim called this scholarly work the "Assyrian Dreambook", suggesting it was an Assyrian invention, but in addition to Assyria (Nineveh, Kalḫu and Assur), Akkadian dream omens have come down to us from Babylonia (Old Babylonian, Middle Babylonian and Neo-Babylonian periods), Ḫattuša and Susa. After Oppenheim's preliminary work, no systematic investigation has been undertaken into this text corpus. The present study seeks to reconstruct the series Zaqīqu/Ziqīqu and to investigate the development of Mesopotamian dream omens from the Second Millennium and the First Millennium, providing a full edition of the available material, both old and new. This study will also examine the topical arrangement of omens in the series, together with the use of the principle of "keywords/keysigns" by the ancient scholars. Since the series Zaqīqu/Ziqīqu also contained incantations (Tablet I) and rituals averting evil dreams (Tablet X, XI), an in-depth study will be undertaken in order to ascertain their relationship to the larger structure of the series, as well as their affiliation with texts outside the series, such as, for example, the Assyrian Dream Compendium, which is a specific collection of incantations and rituals averting evil dreams.

"La divinazione per somnium, pratica non teurgica (oniromantica) ma naturale (onirocritica), diffusa e per evidenza di prove ammessa da Aristotele, dalle auctoritates cattoliche e da Dante, è una disciplina astrologica, fisiologica ed esegetica insieme, la cui presenza e il cui ruolo nel poema sono rimasti trasparenti per lungo tempo «perché il nostro orecchio è impreparato all’ascolto di un linguaggio tecnico di precisione insospettata, sordo a una semantica lontana dalla nostra cultura e dalla nostra storia».


KEYWORDS - Purgatorio 9 - Sogno dell'aquila - Pseudo-Achmet - Leo Tuscus - De somniis et Oraculis - the dream of the eagle - corono e mitrio - Stelle e Sogni - Medieval Astrology - Medieval Physiology - Astrologia - Fisiologia medievale - Alessandro Magno - Alexander the Great - de Angelis Violetta"""

Après avoir très brièvement mentionné les traits particuliers du texte qui est à la base de cette investigation, la Lampe pour l’Œil de la Contemplation du grand maître tibétain gNubs-chen sangs-rgyas ye-shes, nous présenterons la structure du chapitre 4, qui traite de l’approche graduelle, afin de situer l’exposé d’oniromancie dans son contexte.
Ensuite, nous examinerons quelques-uns des rêves mentionnés dans le texte, tout en montrant certaines différences avec le passage correspondant du Ratnakūṭa-sūtra. 
Nous poursuivrons en examinant le contexte contemplatif de l’oniromancie et du yoga du rêve, et terminerons par une présentation du fondement métaphysique de ces pratiques méditatives.

This article follows upon my earlier study and edition of three mantic alphabets in late medieval English, in Anglia 132/3 (2014: 473–505). Mantic alphabets are a late medieval form of dream divination that was known throughout the Latin West but that vanished completely in the early modern period. Like other medieval types of the mantic arts, this kind of oneiromancy made a quick transition into print in the late fifteenth century; yet it was soon affected negatively by a growing suspicion against dream interpretation during the sixteenth‑century religious reforms, and by changing perspectives on dream theory and dream divination on the part of early printers and humanists. Central to the present study are four English mantic alphabets, one from the end of the medieval period, and three from the modern age. The first mantic alphabet is a hitherto unpublished fifteenth‑century English text witness in Oxford, Balliol College, MS 329. This text sheds new light on the transmission of mantic alphabets in late medieval England, and on the reception of medieval dream divination in early modern Europe. With the help of a number of texts from continental Europe and an excursion into the early print history of dream divination, the Balliol text is situated in its early modern setting, which sometimes proved hostile to medieval forms of oneiromancy. The other English mantic alphabets were discovered in a series of related American popular divination manuals that used dream divination as a basis for selecting lucky lottery numbers. Unattested since early modernity, the American alphabets show some significant differences in comparison to the medieval texts, not least in their use in selecting lucky numbers.

Although the actual dreaming experience of the Byzantines lies beyond our reach, the remarkable number of dream narratives in the surviving sources of the period attests to the cardinal function of dreams as vehicles of meaning, and thus affords modern scholars access to the wider cultural fabric of symbolic representations of the Byzantine world. Whether recounting real or invented dreams, the narratives serve various purposes, such as political and religious agendas, personal aspirations or simply an author’s display of literary skill. It is only in recent years that Byzantine dreaming has attracted scholarly attention, and important publications have suggested the way in which Byzantines reshaped ancient interpretative models and applied new perceptions to the functions of dreams.

This book - the first collection of studies on Byzantine dreams to be published - aims to demonstrate further the importance of closely examining dreams in Byzantium in their wider historical and cultural, as well as narrative, context. Linked by this common thread, the essays offer insights into the function of dreams in hagiography, historiography, rhetoric, epistolography, and romance. They explore gender and erotic aspects of dreams; they examine cross-cultural facets of dreaming, provide new readings, and contextualize specific cases; they also look at the Greco-Roman background and Islamic influences of Byzantine dreams and their Christianization. The volume provides a broad variety of perspectives, including those of psychoanalysis and anthropology.

Contents:

    Prologue
    Dreaming in the Life of Cyril Phileotes, Margaret Mullett
    The morphology of healing dreams: dream and therapy in Byzantine collections of miracle stories, Stavroula Constantinou
    Ecstasy as a form of visionary experience in early Byzantine monastic literature, Bettina Krönung
    The heavenly city: religious and secular visions of the other world in Byzantine literature, Carolina Cupane
    A little revelation for personal use, Christine Angelidi
    Prokopios’ dream before the campaign against Libya: a reading of Wars 3.12.1-5, Ilias Anagnostakis
    Dream narratives in the Continuation of Theophanes, George T. Calofonos
    The historiography of dreaming in medieval Byzantium, Paul Magdalino
  The dream-key manuals of Byzantium, Steven M. Oberhelman
    Byzantine and Islamic dream interpretation: a comparative approach to the problem of ‘reality’ vs ‘literary tradition’, Maria Mavroudi
    Fluid dreams, solid consciences: erotic dreams in Byzantium, Charis Messis
    Gender ambiguity in dreams of conversion, prophecy and creativity, Barbara Tedlock
    Psychoanalysis and Byzantine oneirographia, Catia Galatariotou
    Index.

About the Editors:

    Christine Angelidi is Research Director Emerita at the Institute of Historical Research of the Hellenic National Research Foundation, Greece.
    George T. Calofonos is Research Associate at the Institute of Historical Research of the Hellenic National Research Foundation, Greece."

In the XXIInd c. BCE, Gudea, ruler of the Southern Mesopotamian city-state of Lagaš, begins the construction of the sanctuary dedicated to the city-god Ninĝirsu. The building programme is accompanied by a celebrative apparatus that includes the production of two clay cylinders inscribed with the narrative of the preparatory phase of the construction.
In this paper I analyse the three dreams of Gudea attested in the cylinders. In these dreams the ruler of Lagaš receives the order from Ninĝirsu to build the temple, together with instructions and further reassurance that the gods will support Gudea in his undertaking.
I further examine the role of dreams and their interpretation in third millennium Mesopotamia and Sumerian literature. I investigate the figure of the dream interpreter and the relationship of dreams with femininity and alterity. Furthermore, I analyse the function of dreams in cuneiform literature, mainly focusing on the Epic of Gilgameš in comparison with the cylinders of Gudea.
In the conclusion, I discuss the role dreams play within the political and celebrative discourse of Gudea.

Libiamo ne’ lieti calici. Ancient Near Eastern Studies Presented to Lucio Milano on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday by Pupils, Colleagues and Friends.
Edited by Paola Corò, Elena Devecchi, Nicla De Zorzi, and Massimo Maiocchi with the collaboration of Stefania Ermidoro and Erica Scarpa,
pp. 161-179.

This paper analyses how Artemidorus integrates literary quotations into his Onirocriticon (2nd century CE). At a time when paideia is essential to the definition of the Greek man, the use of quotations underlines how much Artemidorus cares about displaying his knowledge in this field as well. On the one hand, we show that his choices reveal only an indirect knowledge of most of the texts he is quoting, since those texts are also quoted by other writers (which indicates that they belong to a common stock) and by compilers: it is therefore likely that Artemidorus borrowed the quotations from handbooks, unless he found them through his predecessors. On the other hand, we study the way he uses quotations to support his analysis of dreams, drawing on the etymology or on the metaphorical value of some words, even if he has to transform the meaning of the quoted text.

On the dream-god, Homer, Ilias 2:

Bien qu'il ne semble pas qu'il ait existé des cultes d'Oneiros, ce dernier apparaît dans l'« Iliade » comme un dieu à part entière qui présente des affinités avec les divinités primordiales, les enfants de la Nuit. Son rôle médiateur permet à Zeus de communiquer avec Agamemnon pour que se réalise la volonté divine ; mais il représente une intervention dérangeante du monde divin dans le monde humain, à la différence d'Hermès qui agit au niveau des hommes pour faciliter les transitions tout en préservant l'autonomie humaine.

Il contributo analizza la maniera in cui le varie forme di predizione del futuro si realizzano, intrecciandosi, nell’opera di Cecco d’Ascoli e lo statuto che esse assumono dalle opere latine fino al poema volgare. In particolare, si prendono in esame la connotazione della magia e delle tecniche divinatorie nei commenti al Sacrobosco e ad Alcabizio, il ricorso all’astrologia giudiziaria, disciplina padroneggiata da Cecco, per gli oroscopi politici delle città italiane, e infine l’esercizio del profetismo politico tout court, specialmente nell’Acerba. L’intento è quello di esplorare il particolare uso del profetismo da parte di un personaggio dalle note competenze astrologiche, di evidenziarne i differenti ambienti di fruizione e fornire qualche pista di indagine anche per la ricostruzione biografica dell’autore e per il suo posizionamento rispetto al contesto politico del primo Trecento.        ENG: The paper analyses the ways in which various forms of prediction of the future are realised and intertwined in Cecco d’Ascoli’s works, and the status they assume from Latin commentaries to the vernacular poem. It will mainly focus on the connotation of magic and divinatory techniques in Cecco’s commentaries to Sacrobosco and Alcabitius, on the use of judicial astrology – a discipline mastered by the author – for political horoscopes of Italian cities, and finally on the practice of political prophetism itself, especially in the poem L’Acerba. The aim is to explore the particular uses of prophetism by a renowned astrologist as Cecco, to highlight its different areas of fruition, and also to provide some cues for the biographical reconstruction of the author and for his positioning within the political context of the early fourteenth century.

Aut credebat esse aut credi volebat: fonti antiche e tentativi di analisi psicologica, in «Scholia. Didattica», [supplemento didattico a ‘Scholia. Rivista di letteratura latina e greca’, edita presso il Dipartimento di Studi Antichistici dell’Università di Roma ‘Tor Vergata’], 3, 2 (2001), pp. 21-42.

"Scriveva Victor Ehrenberg ne L’Atene di Aristofane che “le questioni storiche, in quanto riguardano il modo di comportarsi degli uomini, sono, in ultima analisi, delle questioni psicologiche” dal momento che le “reazioni psicologiche sono esse stesse dei fatti, non delle ricostruzioni astratte né un tentativo di esplorare le cosidette ‘profondità dell’inconscio’” . Ad un’analisi in termini psicologici della storia antica spingono del resto le stesse fonti storiografiche  a nostra disposizione, ove proprio ai fattori psicologici è spesso attribuito, nelle spiegazioni causali, un ruolo importante: amori, vendette, avidità, ambizioni di singoli individui sono spesso addotti quale causa di guerre, di paci, di iniziative politiche. Questa circostanza spiega del resto la copiosità del materiale di tal genere che le fonti antiche mettono a disposizione  (sogni, aneddoti, motti di spirito, comportamenti, tic...) e sembrerebbe a sua volta giustificare un simile approccio.
Se ne era reso conto già Plutarco, le cui Vite parallele muovono appunto dalla precisa consapevolezza delle risorse e delle potenzialità di questo materiale. Ecc."

The article considers the search queries containing the phrase “what does dream mean” (or similar phrases) which were made by Internet users from Poltava region (the material for the analysis was obtained using a tool “Keyword Planner” in Google AdWords). In the light of the hypothesis that cultural notions about the rules of dream interpretation influence how a user formulates a web search query about meaning of a dream, the content of search queries has been compared with the records of interviews (oral dream books and prophetic dream narratives) conducted in the same region (2012–2018). In the article are revealed correlations and discrepancies between texts of web search queries (frequently searched items) and popular symbols of oral dream books or frequently recorded motives of prophetic dreams narratives.

THE ORDERED DREAM. Ming Dynasty Oneirological Treatises in Light of Dream Traditions in Chinese Divination, Medicine and Religion.
Dissertation, PhD in Chinese Studies, École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris).
Advisor: Prof. Marc KALINOWSKI.
Summa cum laude (“Mention: Très Honorable avec les félicitations du jury à l’unanimité”).
Defended on Dec. 15, 2007.
Jury: Prof. Anne Cheng (Collège de France), Prof. Catherine Despeux (INALCO), Prof. Jean-Pierre Drège (EPHE), Prof. Marc Kalinowski (EPHE), Prof. Michael Lackner (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg).

Dream interpretation during early psychoanalysis elicited associations from the patient but also involved authoritarian interpretations focused on whatever the analyst believed to be the key human drives—sex, power, transcendence, etc. Modern dream interpretation relies on non-leading questions to help the dreamer through an associative process to discover their own meaning for the dream. Research finds that patients rate therapy sessions utilizing dreams more highly in terms of session quality, mastery, and insight gained.

La adivinación en los papiros mágicos griegos
Athanassia Zografou
p. 336-340
Référence(s) :
Alejandro García Molinos, La adivinación en los papiros mágicos griegos, Zaragoza, Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza, 2017. 1 vol. 17 × 23 cm, 520 p. (Monografías de filología griega, 27). ISBN : 978–84–16935–38–3.

Статья подготовлена в рамках научного проекта «Создание сюжетно-мотивного указателя фольклорных рассказов о сновидениях (на восточнославянском материале XX-XXI вв.)». В ней представлены основные принципы разработки указателя мотивов пророческих сновидений.
Подробнее о проекте: https://www.rsuh.ru/science/proektnye-nauchnye-kollektivy-rggu/sozdanie-syuzhetno-motivnogo-ukazatelya-folklornykh-rasskazov-o-snovideniyakh-na-vostochnoslavyansko/
Весь номер журнала со статьями участников проекта можно скачать здесь: https://inslav.ru/sites/default/files/zhs-2020-4.pdf
Группа проекта «Вконтакте»: https://vk.com/folkdream
О монографии, подготовленной по итогам проекта, и указателе мотивов пророческих сновидений: https://www.rsuh.ru/news/detail.php?ID=678565