Of all phases of human experience, dreams are unquestionably the earliest. With the dawn of intelligence, man began to dream, and from his experiences in that half real world, he drew conclusions regarding the problems that surrounded him.

Oneiromancy, or divination by dreams, was used in connection with ancient oracles, where measures were taken to induce such visions. Spontaneous dreams were frequently accepted as revelations among nearly all the races of antiquity, often with inspirational or inventive results.

The combined findings of centuries of dream interpretation were summarized by Artemidorus a Grecian soothsayer, about the year A.D 150. His four-volume opus, probably the first “Dream Dictionary,” was criticized for the broadness of its rules, which were so liberal that any dream could signify almost anything.

During the centuries that followed, this defect was gradually corrected, and by modern times dreams had become rather well defined, though the authority behind them was open to question. Some interpretations were traditional; others, the results of guesswork; still more, the comparisons of personal experiences.

Then along came Freud, with new and startling theories of dreams and their causes, backed by innumerable examples. His school established the sex motif as fundamental to dream interpretation. This rose to popularity during the early 1900’s, only to produce disagreement among Freudians themselves, as well as opposition from outside sources.

It was generally conceded that Freud’s methods of analysis applied to psychoneurotic patients whose waking lives were replete with ideas and symbols that carried into their dream experiences. But such people represented a minority, whose dreams could be regarded as the exceptions rather than the rule.

Professor Joseph Jastrow epitomized the general criticism with the succinct statement: “What Freud does not sufficiently recognize is that dreams do not all follow similar courses because dreamers have different psychologies.”

This was backed by extensive studies of thousands of dreams which only by extreme distortion or greatly strained assumptions could be interpreted according to Freudian findings. Many psychologists came to the conclusion that the symbolism in dreams may express some direct purpose, rather than serve as the concealment of some suppressed desire.

All this is getting back to the days of Artemidorus, when any dream could mean almost anything. However, this can be winnowed down by classifying the dreamers as well as the dreams. That is what many modem psychologists have done, and by the time personalities, physical conditions, general surroundings, and varied moods have been ruled out, it is possible to place many dreams in seven categories: