Dream interpretation

Dream interpretation is the process of assigning meaning to dreams. In many ancient societies, such as those of Egypt and Greece, dreaming was considered a supernatural communication or a means of divine intervention, whose message could be unravelled by people with certain powers.

In modern times, various schools of psychology and neurobiology have offered theories about the meaning and purpose of dreams. Most people currently appear to interpret dream content according to the Freudian theory of dreams in countries, as found by a study conducted in the United States, India, and South Korea.

People appear to believe dreams are particularly meaningful: they assign more meaning to dreams than to similar waking thoughts. For example, people report they would be more likely to cancel a trip they had planned that involved a plane flight if they dreamt of their plane crashing the night before than if they thought of their plane crashing the night before or the Department of Homeland Security issued a Federal warning.

However, people do not attribute equal importance to all dreams. People appear to use motivated reasoning when interpreting their dreams. They are more likely to view dreams confirming their waking beliefs and desires to be more meaningful than dreams that contradict their waking beliefs and desires.

One of the earliest written examples of dream interpretation comes from the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh dreamt that an axe fell from the sky. The people gathered around it in admiration and worship. Gilgamesh threw the axe in front of his mother and then he embraced it like a wife. His mother, Ninsun, interpreted the dream. She said that someone powerful would soon appear. Gilgamesh would struggle with him and try to overpower him, but he would not succeed. Eventually they would become close friends and accomplish great things. She added, "That you embraced him like a wife means he will never forsake you. Thus your dream is solved." While this example shows the tendency to see dreams as mantic (as predicting the future), Ninsun's interpretation anticipates a contemporary approach. The axe, phallic and aggressive, symbolizes a male who will start as aggressive but turn into a friend. To embrace an axe is to transform aggression into affection and camaraderie. Later, a compendium of dream omens, the "Dream Book" or Iškar Zaqīqu was assembled.

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