Babylonian Dream Beliefs
Tony Crisp
Babylonian civilisation lasted from 1800 till 600 BC. It was an urban society with twelve or so cities in the nation, resting upon the agricultural land surrounding the cities. The social structure was headed by the king as absolute monarch. Under him were a group of appointed governors and administrators. Beneath this were freemen and then slaves. The culture lasted for about 1200 years.
The world ancient people’s lived in was one filled with spirits and demons, gods and goddesses, good and evil forces. This is understandable when we realise our forebears had no clear conception of how natural forces, illness, the mind, worked. The many intangibles they were surrounded by, the immense uncertainties they faced, were quite usefully called spirits - invisible/mysterious yet potent powers that could act upon one for good or ill. Their beliefs and observations regarding dreams were therefore deeply coloured by their world view. Death was a certainty, illness, physical or mental was a possibility, love and reproduction were drives to be satisfied, and so many dreams or myths centred on the way they met these. It must also be remembered that such cultures had, according to recent theories, only recently developed personal self-awreness; only just lost direct perception of subjective gods. See: The Origins of Consciousness by Julian Jaynes.
In the Babylonian culture the attempt to find certainty amid uncertainty, to control or direct the threatening forces of nature, to find ones way through the events of life, led to a wide array of techniques concerned with prophecy, magical control or propitiation, and trying to know the will of the gods. The kings hoped that a god would be on their side in battle, or would give them confidence by telling them in a dream that they would overcome their enemies. In fact the influence of these early Babylonian beliefs is still present in modern religion where each side of an opposing army, even with belief in the same God, prays for support and victory.
The Babylonians believed that an event in one part of the world or cosmos, would cause an occurrence in another part. A comet appearing in the sky for instance, would be seen as presaging great social or personal changes. This link between the cosmos and the individual also suggested to the Babylonians that the cosmos could be influenced by human action - thus the rituals of appeasement or magic. These beliefs led to an examination of any mysterious event in an attempt to understand its personal or wider significance. Dreams were one of the possible sources of such prophecy or enlightening information. Over a long period of time strange events such as the birth of a two headed calf, or a strange dream, were noted and following events watched. If a barren woman had a child after such an event, then it was thought that the next time the event occurred, a barren woman would again be made fertile. Of course this led to deliberate attempts to obtain or perform the first, to bring about the latter - thus magic. There were in fact magic rituals to prevent bad or evil dreams.
Dreams were classified into several types. Those of rulers and leaders such as priests were seen as one type, and those of common people of another. There was also a division between good dreams and bad dreams. If one goes into any large book-store and looks at dream dictionaries written before the advent of modern psychotherapy, it can easily be seen that most definitions are still written in the same style - that the dream will bring good or bad luck regarding money, romance or health. In fact they are derivations of the ancient Babylonian dream books. These speculations, observations and collection of folk beliefs were put into book form by the Babylonians, and are thought to have contained texts on dreams dating back to 5000 BC. These ancient Babylonian dream dictionaries were copied and taken to the library at Nineveh by king Assurbanipal. The great dream encyclopaedist Artemidorus later drew on these records for his own learning. The part of the Jewish Talmud which was written during the Babylonian captivity is also full of dream interpretations and ways of dealing with dreams, and undoubtedly drew on the Babylonian library.
These dream dictionaries contained beliefs and observations took note of any belief however bizarre. As an example of some of the ideas presented in this collection of works, we can read - ‘If a date appears on a man’s head, it means woe. If a fish appears on his head, that man will be strong. If a mountain appears on his head, it means that he will have no rival. If salt appears on his head, it means that he will apply himself to bald his house….If a man dreams that he goes to a pleasure garden, it means that he will gain his freedom. If a goes to a market garden, his dwelling will be uncomfortable. If he goes to kindle a firebrand he will see woe during his days. If he goes to sow a field, he will escape from a ruined place. If he goes to hunt in the country, he will be eminent. If he goes to an oxstall, (he will have) safety. If he goes to the sheepfold, he will rise to the first rank.’
Babylonian culture also produced one of the great, and certainly the oldest literary work which included a series of dreams. This is the Epic Of Gilgamesh which dates from about 2000 BC, and is the oldest hero account. It is the story of how the king, Gilgamesh, searches for immortality having lost his friend Enkidu. See: The mention of Gilgamesh in analysis of dreams; Gilgamesh.
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