Who Said Dreams Were Important?
- Homer
- Æsculapius
- Hypocraties
- Artemadorus Daldianus
- Hannibal
- Caesar
- Constantine
- Dante Alligeheri
- St. Frances of Assisi
- Ghengis Khan
- Marie Antoinette
- Napoleon Bonaparte
- Renè Descartes
- Robert Louis Stephenson
- George McClelland
- George Patton
- Friedrich August Kekule von Stradonitz
- Adolph Hitler
- Niels Bohr
That's Who!
In each of these lives a dream made a difference. Or more accurately, the dreaming mind is credited with being the source of the ideas, insights, revelations and guidance. History is replete with examples. The Bible operates on dreams and visions. Great inventions have been attributed to dreams. The dream mind is a font of insight.
Now about those stories:
- Caesar
- Julius Caesar's decision to cross the Rubicon is attributed
to a dream in which he saw himself in bed with his mother (Mother
Rome, the seers told him) His assassination was foretold in his
wife's Calpurnia's dream. "She held him in her arms, bleeding
and stabbed." Another Caesar, Caesar Augustus, is said to
have walked the streets as a beggar because of instructions he
received in a dream.
- Constantine
- Constantine was in Trier Germany in 312 AD when he had a dream
of Jesus Christ on the Cross with the sign In Hoc Signum (By
this sign.) He issued the Edict of Milan that established tolerance
for the Christians.
- Homer
- Homer reports on Agamemnon's dream from Zeus carried by Hermes.
It was the battle plan that came from the Demios Oneiron, the
village of dreams on the way to Hades.
- Hypocrates
- The father of medicine was an early practitioner at the temples
of Æ sculapius. The Hypocratics developed the idea that
the dream was a window on illness, reflecting the body's state.
Bizarre dream content was indicative of illness, normal content
bode for wellness.
- Artemadorius Daldianus
- In the second century BC Artemidorius had written an Oneirocritica, a dream interpretation aid with 3000 dreams in his database.
He had interpretation tools, stock questions to ask, and deciphering
tools. He wanted to know the dreamers name, mood, situation in
life, character, whether the dream was plausible or bizarre and
whether the dream elements were appropriately connected to each
other. He explored Symbolic dreams, daytime visions, oracles,
nightmares and daytime fantasies. Centuries later, when Guttenberg
finished printing the first Bible, the next book was the Oneirocritica
of Artemadorius.
- Hannibal
- Hannibal attributed the battle plan to attack Rome over the
Alps with Elephants as something that came to him in a dream.
Figures. What a crazy idea!
- St. Frances of Assisi
- St Francis of Assisi founded the Franciscan Order because
of a dream in which Jesus Christ spoke from the cross telling
him to "go set my house in order"
- Dante Alligeheri
- Dante relates that the whole story of the Divine Comedy was
related to him in dream on Good Friday in 1300. When he died in
1321, part of the manuscript was lost. His son Jocojso found the
manuscript after a dream in which his father showed him where
to look.
- Ghengis Khan
- The great Khan is reported to have received his battle plans
from his dreams. He is also reported to have been told in a dream
that he was a chosen one.
- Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette had a dream on Dec 12 1793 of a red sun and pillar. The sun rose and then suddenly set. This just preceded her beheading.
- Rene Descrates
- On November 10, 1619, Descartes has three dreams. two of them
full of violence sex and religion. In the third the Spirit of
Truth showed him the Treasury of Science from which he developed
his ideas for the Cartesian plain and the geometry of the coordinates.
- Robert Louis Stephenson
- Stephenson believed that his best stories came from his dreams.
He reported that the theme for Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde was
derived from a dream. He also reported other breakthroughs in
his writing that came from his dreams. He suffered as a child
from nightmares and learned to control his dreams to change the
nightmares. He says he used his dreams to revise plays and stories
while asleep.
- General George McClelland
- General McClelland had a dream of George Washington who said,
"George do you sleep at your post? Rouse yourself and ere
the sun of tomorrow had set, the Confederate flag would have waved
above the Capitol and your grave, but, note what you see, your
time is short." Washington rolled out a living map of the
troop positions of the confederates for a march on Washington.
McClelland is reported to have taken notes on the presentation
and won the battle.
- Friedrich August Kekule von Stradonitz
- Kekule was a chemist working on the chemical structure of
Benzene. He reports that he got fed up with his data which made
no sense as a "long string" molecule. He was dozing
in his comfy chair when we was startled by the image of a snake
biting its own tail. He woke and worked out the mathematics the
Benzene molecure as a ring rahter than a long string.
- General George Patton
- General George Patton, when at the battlefield on Langres
France, said to his driver that he already knew the place. He
told his driver where to go and said it was as if someone were
whispering directions in his ear. He correctly went to the Ancient
Roman Amphitheater, The Drill Grounds, The Forum and even correctly
went to the spot where Caesar had pitched his tent. "You
see, I've been here before"
- Adolph Hitler
- Hitler was sleeping in a fox hole during the first war, when
her was awakened by a nightmare of his mouth full of dirt. Choking,
he got up and walked away from the fox hole to "get some
air." Then a shell made a direct hit on his foxhole. All
hands were killed except Hitler. He concluded that he had been
spared by divine intervention. The rest is history!
- Napoleon Bonaparte
- Napoleon is reported to have had a dream of a black cat on
the night before the battle of Waterloo.
- Elias Howe
- Howe, the inventor of the sewing machine, wrote that he got
the core idea, the breakthrough concept, from a dream. It was
a nightmare. He had been captured by cannibals. They were preparing
to cook him and they were dancing around the fire waving their
spears. Howe noticed at the head of each spear there was a small
hole through the shaft and the up and down motion of the spears
and the hole remained with him when he woke. The idea of passing
the thread through the needle close to the point, not at the other
end was a major innovation in making mechanical sewing possible.
- Niels Bohr
- Niels Bohr reports that he developed the model of the atom
based on a dream of sitting on the sun with all the planets hissing
around on tiny cords.
- Harriet Tubman
- Tubman had a head injury and was prone to fainting spells. She awoke from one with a dream of soldiers capturing her. She avoided the place she had seen and avoided an ambush.
Are these stories real?
Does it really matter how real they are? What they tell us is that throughout history people have seen dreams as important sources of novel ideas. It delivers battle plans, new ideas, creative solutions, fearsome premonitions. The dreaming mind is an extraordinary repository of information. It is a place from which revelations come. It is a remarkable synthesizing tool that operates on the edges of creativity.