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Oneirology

scientific study of dreaming

Oneirology (from Greek ὄνειρον, oneiron, "dream"; and -λογία, -logia, "the study of") is the scientific study of dreams. Current research seeks correlations between dreaming and current knowledge about the functions of the brain, as well as understanding of how the brain works during dreaming as pertains to memory formation and mental disorders. The study of oneirology can be distinguished from dream interpretation in that the aim is to quantitatively study the process of dreams instead of analyzing the meaning behind them.

The Dream Could Materialize
(1945) John F. Knott,
DeGolyer Library,
Southern Methodist University.

Quotes

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  • My recent predecessors, in their eagerness for literary fame, thought they would assure their renown if they left behind writings on the interpretation of dreams. But practically all they did was to make copies of one another or take a few of the apt remarks of the earlier writers and interpret them badly or add a lot of nonsense. They wrote not from experience but offhand, each as the spirit moved him. Some perused all the older literature; others did not, missing some works that, because of their antiquity, were rare or corrupted. I, in contrast—in the first place, there is no book on the interpretation of dreams that I did not procure... and in the second place, although public diviners have been much maligned by the sober-faced and the eyebrow-raisers (who stigmatize them as beggars and sorcerers and buffoons), I disdained the slander and spent many years with them, attending them in the cities and festivals in Greece and Asia and Italy and in the biggest and most populous of the islands, to hear about old dreams and their outcomes. There really was no other way to obtain this training. And the result is that out of an abundance of information I am able to discourse on each point truly and without nonsense, and to give simple, manifest proofs, easy for all to comprehend, of the instances I cite—except... where the matter is... clear...
    • Artemidorus, [Oneirocritica] On the Interpretation of Dreams Book I, Tr. Naphtali Lewis, The Interpretation of Dreams & Portents in Antiquity (1976) "Artemidorus, Interpretation of Dreams" pp. 54-55.
  • The distinction between a vision and a dream is no small one... A dream differs from a vision in that the one is indicative of what is to come, and the other of what is. ...It is the nature of experiences to return during sleep and re-present themselves to the soul, thus creating dream manifestations... [B]ody-related dreams arise from lack or excess, soul-related from fear or hope. ...[A] dream operates as a vision calling attention to a prediction of what is to come, and after sleep it... tends to rouse and impel the soul to active undertakings...
    • Artemidorus, [Oneirocritica] On the Interpretation of Dreams Book I, Tr. Naphtali Lewis, The Interpretation of Dreams & Portents in Antiquity (1976) "Artemidorus, Interpretation of Dreams" p. 55.
  • Let us not forget that all the sexual dreams of Artemidorus analyzes are considered by him to belong to the category on oneiros: hence they tell "what will be"... and what is "told" in the dream, is the position of the dreamer as a subject of activity—active or passsive, dominant or dominated, winner or loser, "on top" or "on the bottom," profit-taker or spender, deriving benefits or experiencing losses, finding himself in an advantageous position or suffering damages. ...to tell the subject's mode of being, as destiny has arranged it. ...The Interpretation of Dreams [Oneirocritica] ...shows ...the connection between that which constitutes the individual as an active subject in the sexual relation and that which situates him in the field of social activities. ...In another section of the book ...The male organ ...anagkaion ...is expressive of a whole cluster of relations and activities that determine the individual's standing in the city and in the world. ...One is in a world ...marked by the central position of the male personage and by the importance accorded to the masculine role ...
    • Michel Foucault, "The Care of the Self" The History of Sexuality (2012) Vol. 3, pp. 33-36.
  • According to his nephew... Melville was a believer in Oneirology, and expert in the interpretation of dreams. Some of the examples adduced in proof of this, however, would rather incline us to think that he amused himself by a playful exercise of ingenuity instead of pretending to skill in this occult science.
  • It is to thee, my dear Peter, that I dedicate this my untimely offspring, as I know thy good-nature will dispose thee to cherish the gift, and to pardon in thy friend the imbecility of a first attempt.—With regard to the success of the little adventurer, I can have no doubt: it will be most hospitably entertained by every liberal mind, which, as thy friend Pope saith, shall stoop to read it with the same spirit as its author writ.—But more, Peter—thou knowest me to be somewhat skilled in Oneirology: So, last night, after my usual allowance of reested haddock, I retired to rest, when, as it waxed towards morning, Apollo, our great patron, with all his proper insignia and bearings, stood at my bed-side, and tapping me gently on the cheek, "Son," said he, "Go on! and whatever Homer and Hippocrates were in their day, be thou also in thine." And while the emanations of glory shed an irresistible effulgence over his celestial visage, he took from his divine lyre a wreath of bays, and, with a smile of the most benign complacency, bound it around my temples—when, lo, as I made an effort at prostration, in token of my unworthiness, my nose came into violent contact with the bed-post, and I suddenly awoke from this my celestial reverie...
    • Auctore D. Sangrado, Lay of the Graduate: sive, Dissertatio Poetica Inauguralis quædam de Graduatione in Edinburgo Grassante, Complectens: Pro Gradu Poetico (1819) Dedication.
  • What, then... is scientific oneirology and what is the value of dreams in psychotherapeutics? The answers to these questions are not difficult. Oneirology, strictly speaking, is the study of dreams, not the interpretation of dreams. The interpretation of dreams, as practised by psycho-analysts, is not a science but the application of a mystical theory derived from the superstitious notions that dreams were symbolic prophesies, or that through dreams the gods communed with mortals, or that dreams were due to the agency of good and bad demons, etc.
  • No educated person would attempt to deny the value of the discoveries of Freud and his school. ...[T]he theory is that dreams are the revenge taken by instincts which have been stifled by the social environment. ...a kind of consolation prizes. ...[T]he compensation which Nature awards to... repressed ambitions and desires. I cannot accept this view as... complete... Many dreams are a repetition of experience with which the dreamer has been satisfied in his waking life. They are a kind of Da Capo, a cry of Encore! The new school of oneirology appear to interpret all dreams in terms of hunger. No doubt repressed desires and thwarted ambitions do raise angry and uneasy heads... Often, however, fair scenes of the past come before us in sleep as tranquilly as they usher themselves into our memory. Many dreams are like the revivals of old plays.

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