Abstract
Sleep and dreams played an important role in ancient popular morality. It was commonly held that in sleep people experience dreams, visions and apparitions which can be seen as signs or indications of a variety of things. If carefully interpreted, they can reveal to us not only the psychophysical condition of the dreamer, his or her humoral balance or imbalance, and moral character, but also divine intentions and future events which are otherwise hidden to human understanding. The interpretation of dreams was an integral part of some established institutions, most notably healing, incubation, that is, ritual sleep in a sanctuary, and divination.
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Perälä, M. (2014). Ancient Theories. In: Knuuttila, S., Sihvola, J. (eds) Sourcebook for the History of the Philosophy of Mind. Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, vol 12. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6967-0_11
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