In consulting this book with attention, in seeking in it for the explanation of your dreams, and calculating the causes which have produced them, you will rarely depart from the truth, because you will be following the rules of a wise combination, which will prevent you from falling into an illusory if not fatal error.
FOREKNOWLEDGE, OR INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS.
In the Holy Scriptures God says, that he “will pour his Spirit on all flesh, that the young men and maidens shall prophesy, the old men shall see visions, and the young men dream dreams.” Both sacred and profane history are full of so many examples of the fulfilment of dreams, that he must be very skeptical and but little versed in natural science who would refuse to have faith in them.
Hippocrates says that when the body is asleep the soul is awake, and transports itself everywhere, where the body would be able to go, that it knows and sees all that the body could know or see were it awake; that it touches all the body could touch, in a word, that it performs all the actions that the body of a sleeping man could do were he awake.
There are five kinds of dreams, differently named according to their different qualities. The first is dream, the second vision, the third oracle, the fourth revery, and the fifth apparition.
A dream is that which, while we are asleep, shows us the truth hidden under certain figures, as when Joseph interpreted to king Pharaoh the dream concerning the seven lean kine that devoured the seven fat ones; the dream of the seven full ears of corn, etc.
A vision is simply a dream happening when the body is awake instead of sleeping, as Vespasian when he saw the surgeon who had extracted Nero’s tooth.
The oracle is a revelation, or information given us by some angel or other celestial spirit who does God’s bidding. The angel appearing to Joseph the husband of the Virgin, and to the wise men, are examples of this.
Revery occurs when the passions are so vehement that they destroy the mental equilibrium for a time. Then what one thinks of during the day he will dream of at night, as a lover who has been thinking during the day of his beloved one will continue to do so at night while he is sleeping. Sometimes when one fears to meet a person, he will dream at night that he has met him; having fasted during the day, he will dream of eating, or, having been thirsty, of drinking. Avarice will make the miser dream of his gold, and speak of it when sleeping, as he would not do when awake.