CHAPTER 3

The Ft^orld of Dreams
COMPARED WITH ASTROLOGY, DREAM INTERPRETATION plays a very secondary role in modern divination. It has lost much of its previous importance, mainly because its adepts have been unable to keep pace with the commercialisation and vulgarisation of astrology. Moreover, it is not nearly as easy to practise, for while the stars can reveal their general message in the morning paper, not even the greatest prophetic genius can hope to explain all the millions of different dreams readers may have had the night before and the many millions more they may have forgotten. While the ability to remember dreams varies from individual to individual, Kant's opinion^ that there can be no sleep without dreams is still shared by many modern psychologists.
In any case, the number of people, and particularly of women, who remember their dreams and attribute a measure of pro- phetic significance to them is large enough to support a special profession, especially in rural areas, where the belief in pro- phetic dreams is very much more deeply rooted than the belief in astrology. Still, even the most simple-minded country yokel would be too ashamed to consult the "experts" about his dreams, and usually prefers to leave that task to his women- folk.
Popular Dream Books
Lacking a rigid doctrine and an authoritative text book like Ptolemy's Tetrahiblos, dream interpreters are far more elastic in their interpretations than star gazers; their "Egyptian Dream Books", "Babylonian-Assyrian Dream Books" or "Per- sian-Arabic Dream Books" are meant to impress rather than act as rules of thumb. In fact, modern dream books are based ^ Immanuel Kant: Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht Part, I, 37.
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on regional folklore rather than on ancient or oriental sources. Dream books enjoy a vast circle of readers, and every year hundreds of thousands of new copies are printed, even though they add little that is not found in the older books. While the publishers — ^most dream books are anonymous — try to keep their products "up to date" (in some of the most recent editions there are references to the atom bomb), by far the largest number of entries remain unchanged from generation to genera- tion. After all, the authors do not have to revise their work according to the calendar or to the sky, since all attempts to correlate dream interpretations with astrology have, apparently, fallen on deaf ears. Countryfolk like their prophecies to be simple and straightforward, so much so that almost all popular dream books have become mere catalogues of simple symbols, characterising entire dreams in which they appear. The sex, the age, or the circumstances of the dreamer are rarely taken into account, and most symbols are said to refer to all mankind. Moreover, while dream symbols are generally far more gloomy than astrological "signs", the dreamers are rarely told what evasive action to take. Dream books simply describe a situation, and leave it to the reader to deal with it as best he can.
Dream symbols are rather complicated — and this, after all, is the main justification for publishing them — and often antici- pate psycho-analytic findings. For that very reason we shall mainly concentrate on dream interpretations from the home of psycho-analysis — Austria. While many Austrian symbols have a simple commonsense connotation — e.g. dreams of spring point to a happy future, and storms point to anger or upsets — others are anything but straightforward. For instance, a race- course indicates loss of fortune, and a coronet is a sign of vanity. Even more frequently, the original sense of the word is com- pletely reversed, turning happy events into painful ones and vice versa, and producing what psycho-analysts might call dream displacements. Thus according to the Altbekanntes Wiener Schusterbuhen Traumbuch (Traditional Viennese Cobblers' Dream Book) marriage means severe illness, pain means a happy event, a hangman means great honours, and stabbing indicates good fortune. Similarly, in the Vollstdndiges Zigeun- erinnen-Traumbuch (Complete Gypsy Dream Book), oranges on a tree mean an unhappy love affair, a fur coat means a gloomy
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future, birth means an unhappy loss, an ambulance means ingratitude.
More striking still is the strong sexual element in primitive dream books. When Freud and his pupils first began to analyse dreams, they must have been struck by the apparent sexual motivation of most traditional dream symbols, for though popular dream books studiously avoid obscene and particularly phallic symbols, they teem with quite unequivocal sexual allusions. Conversely, sexual dreams pure and simple are fre- quently given a non-sexual meaning. Here is a small selection from the Austrian dream books we have mentioned:
Erotic interpretations of
Interpretation of sexual
non-sexual symbols
symbol
's
Unharnessing
= many love
Kissing women =
profit
horses
affairs
Fans
= unrequited love
Marriage =
arguments
Digging
= good mar-
Bachelordom =
joy
graves
riage
Spinning yam
= successful
Whore =
luck in
love
lotteries
Dancing fairies
= sexual
Keeping com- =
profit
temptations pany with
whores
Thimble
= virgin mar-
Marrying a =
luck in all
riage
whore
enter- prises
Squirrel
= Young mar-
Wearing =
worry, mis-
riage
female gar- ments
fortune
Buttonhole
= Impending
Being kept out =
many chil-
marriage
by men at night
dren
Cat
= lascivious- ness
Bearing boys =
much joy
Being painted
= successful
Bearing girls =
illegitimate
love
child
White mouse
= happy mar-
Pregnancy =
hope of
riage
some kind
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