Dreams in Homer, Heraclitus, and Plato Item Type text; Electronic Thesis Authors Novikova, Aleksandra Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 30/09/2021 14:28:04 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/628164 DREAMS IN HOMER, HERACLITUS, AND PLATO by Aleksandra Novikova ____________________________ Copyright © Aleksandra Novikova 2018 A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES AND CLASSICS In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2018 Novikova !1!2 Novikova !3 Table of Contents Abstract 4 Introduction 5 Chapter 1: Dreams as Messages of the Divine 10 Chapter 2: Dreams as Lack of True Knowledge 24 Chapter 3: Dreams as the Void of True Perception 35 Conclusion 53 Works Cited 54 Novikova !4 Abstract My thesis examines the connection between dreams, knowledge, and perception in the works of Homer, Heraclitus and Plato. Although the perception is not a topic thoroughly discussed in the Iliad and the Odyssey, Homeric view on dreams will serve as a basis for comparison with Heraclitus and Plato. In Homer, dreams are generally messages from a supernatural force imparting some divine knowledge to the sleeper in order to fulfill their own will. As a reaction to the traditionally accepted views of the epics, Heraclitus asserts that dreams, because they are created by specific individuals and are cut off from the shared world fire, are a poor source of the true logos, true knowledge. Furthermore, Plato expands upon Heraclitus’ idea by stating that dreaming is a form of perception that is too unstable to be able to provide true knowledge. By exploring how people perceive dreams while asleep, we can get a better understanding of the sort of knowledge that is obtained in dreams. Novikova !5 Introduction The subject of dreams is an interesting topic because of our own human desire to understand what we experience while asleep. On the one hand, with the advancement of medicine and neurological sciences in the last century, we now know the physiological needs of sleep and its essential part in our daily routine. Nowadays even the simplest sleep tracker can tell us how long we sleep and what stages of sleep we experience. We can also identify that most of dreaming happens during the rapid eye movement (REM) sleep stage (Mendelson 2017: 14-15). However, dreams themselves have not been so easily defined and understood. Many of us try to assign some psychological explanations to what we dream in order to better understand our own subconscious mind, hoping that dreams could reveal some hidden knowledge about ourselves. The significance of dream interpretation goes at least as far back as second and first millennium BCE to Babylonia and Assyria (Lewis 1996). Many cultures had their own dream interpreters who would record and help them interpret their dreams. Although the first comprehensive “dream-book” appeared in the second century CE in the Oneirocritica of Artemidorus (Walde 1999), in Greek culture dreams already had an irreplaceable role in curing various aliments through the process known as sleep incubation. Healing sanctuaries were common throughout Greece and, although the most important sanctuary at Epidaurus of the god Asclepius was not fully developed until the late 4th century BCE, there are many inscriptions dating back to the 5th century which reference this manner of curing various sicknesses (Holowchak 2002: 151-156). It was a religious ritual in which the diseased sleeper would be granted the cure or other means by which the illness could be resolved through a visitation of a god. Additionally, by the late 5th century a collection of medical writings called the Hippocratic Novikova !6 Corpus, usually attributed to Hippocrates despite its questionable authorship, introduced the idea that sleep is necessary and the interpretation of whatever one sees asleep can lead to a better understanding of one’s health. The underlying assumption for all those seeking to understand one’s dreams is that there is some knowledge to be gained from their interpretation. The earliest written record of dreams in Ancient Greece can be seen in Homer’s epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. In both of these works, the terms “to sleep” ("ὕ$"%&) and “dream” (ὄν"%()* or ὄν+() are generally used in conjunction with one another. Even though one asleep does not always dream, one has to be asleep in order to dream. The two states, though technically different, share the same requirement of being unconscious. Nevertheless, a dream comes into the narrative following a specific pattern (Morris 1983): a supernatural deity approaches the unsuspecting sleeper, stands above their head, and speaks to the recipient of the dream. In Homer, dreams are generally in association with some sort of divine or supernatural power and are a way for those powers to utter a message into the sleeper’s mind. The messages themselves are not merely words of wisdom or simple predictions of the future: they carry the will of whatever otherworldly power that created them. In many cases, it is some kind of knowledge which would lead the dreamer into accomplishing the will of the divine being. Sometimes the knowledge imparted upon the sleeper is relatively straightforward. In Book 23 of the Iliad, the ghost of Patroclus1 appears to Achilles in a dream urging the Greek hero to bury his friend as quickly as possible so that he could finally rest in peace. This interjection from the supernatural world immediately propels the grieving man into finally burying his lost comrade. Similarly, this visit serves as a parallel to his mistreatment of Hector’s 1 In the first chapter, I will further explain why I consider this particular episode a dream. Novikova !7 corpse and a reminder to respect the laws of the dead. Other times, however, the knowledge imparted upon the sleeper is deliberately misleading to its recipient (both with positive and negative results). It is evident in Book 6 of the Odyssey, where Nausicaa under the subconscious suggestions of Athena that she would encounter her husband inadvertently meets Odysseus and organize his return home. Regardless of the intention of the supernatural beings, in the epic poems it is only in the dreams provided by the divine that any knowledge can be attained. For the ancient Greeks, the Homeric epics were not only literary works but also poems which represented a past that they otherwise did not have preserved in any other easily accessible form. They were a source of both a historical and a mythical past—a model to follow in many facets of their everyday lives (Scodel 2004; Osborne 2004). As the Greek world experienced economical, cultural, and geographic growth, so did writing and literature that the ancients began to produce. All of these factors facilitated the emergence of curious thinkers (the “pre- Socratics”—more specifically, the early philosophers before the time of Plato) who, instead of accepting the commonly accepted views provided by Homer, pursued the “study of the nature, origin and processes of the natural world” (Warren 2007: 2).2 These early thinkers explored many aspects of the world; some of which were dreams and sleep. The earliest thinker of this period to discuss dreams was Heraclitus in the late 6th to early 5th centuries BCE. Although the fragmentary nature of the texts is problematic, the fragments 2There were several different camps of thought sprawled all over the Mediterranean. The earliest (dating back to the first half of the sixth century BCE) of these scientist-philosophers were the Milesians on the Ionian coast. One of these was Thales whose main interest was to find the principal element from which all things in the universe are made and who is recorded as having accurately predicted a solar eclipse that occurred in 585 BCE (O’Grady 2005). Following was Xenophanes who, aside from composing lyric poetry, was also avidly questioning the epics and how the world works. Then, there were the so-called Eleatic philosophers (named after the Greek colony of Elea in Italy) whose leading philosopher Parmenides (late 6th/early 5th century) claimed that only one thing existed. The list does not end here; however, this extremely brief introduction gives a good overview of the topics that they tended to discuss. Novikova !8 provide a general overview of Heraclitus’ philosophy. Even though the fragments do not necessarily use the exact vocabulary (ὄν"%()* or ὄν+(), Heraclitus discusses dreams while exploring sleep and whatever happens while one is asleep. However, unlike in Homer, dreams are seen as an insignificant part of sleep which does not impart any true knowledge upon the sleeper. Heraclitus, like many of his predecessors, disliked and rejected the traditional views of the divine presented in Homer. Most of all, his main argument was that men only assume to know what is the nature of the gods and not that they actually know. Thus, anything that Homer discussed concerning the divine should not be taken seriously—in this case, the dream-messages from the divine. In his first fragment, Heraclitus attempts to explain that men have the tendency to not understand the logos, the fundamental principle that governs the nature of the universe, even though they have the potential for it. The philosopher also point out that one’s senses, like eyesight, which are used to gather information about the outside world are extremely important.