Question Four
How many and who are those who divine well by dreaming
It is asked how many and who are those who dream well and divine by dreaming.
To this it is answered that three kinds of human beings dream well and divine: namely, the insane, friends, and melancholics.
First, the insane foresee well and divine concerning dreams. The reason for this is that such persons are not intent upon their own motions, and therefore apprehend and discern the motion of an extraneous passion which touches them. But the most prudent and best men are intent only upon wisdom, virtues, and other honorable things, on account of which they do not perceive dreams.
Second, I say that friends dream well and correctly, in accordance with the way matters turn out concerning their acquaintances and friends. The reason for this is that friends have greater solicitude for one another, and therefore have greater cognition of their images. Hence acquaintances and friends, especially when separated far from one another, are most solicitous for one another, hoping many things concerning one another and fearing many things concerning one another. For they especially know one another and perceive the motions made between them through the passions of hope, love, and fear.
And dreams concerning acquaintances and friends stand in this manner. For the motions in dreams concerning friends are more deeply rooted and more vehement than those concerning strangers. This can also be made evident by one example which Cicero relates in Book I of On Divination.
He says there that two intimate companions and friends, Arcadians—that is, Greeks—journeying together, arrived at a certain city. One of them proceeded to the house of his friend, but the other turned aside to an inn.
The one who was in the house of his friend saw his companion in dreams, begging him to come to his aid, because unless he helped him he was to be slain by the innkeeper. Awakened by this vision, he rose from his bed and attempted to go to the inn where these things were taking place. But, returning to himself and making little of it as a vain dream, he returned to bed and fell asleep.
Then his companion appeared a second time through a dream and seemed to beg him more urgently than before to aid him. But this man, still paying no heed to the dream, fell asleep again.
His companion appeared to him a third time in sleep with a great complaint, saying that he had now been slain. He implored him that, since he had neglected to bring aid to his life, he should at least not deny him vengeance. He said that his slaughtered body was being carried outside the gate upon a cart, covered with dung, to be buried, so that the innkeeper’s crime or wicked deed might be concealed.
Then the intimate friend, compelled by these persistent pleas, immediately ran with a magistrate to that gate very early in the morning. He intercepted the cart which his companion had shown him in his sleep, and brought the innkeeper to capital punishment.
Valerius Maximus relates this in Book I, in the chapter on dreams.
Third, melancholics forecast and conjecture dreams better than others. The reason for this is that in them there is a vehement impression of imaginations; and also because they attend less to their own motions and sleep less deeply, and therefore conjecture, divine, and foresee dreams to a greater degree.
Those, however, who determine and interpret dreams best and most skillfully are those who are moved subtly to inspect the likenesses of things. For example: just as it stands with moving water, so it very often stands with dreams. Those, therefore, who, looking into moving water, see distorted and confused images are ready subtly to render the things figured or signified by them because they know how to inspect the likenesses of the images or representations in relation to those things of which they are images, saying that this is the figure of a human being, this of a horse, and similar things.
So also in dreams, those looking upon distorted images are ready to determine the things figured or signified by them if they are moved subtly to inspect the likenesses of those images in relation to the things of which they are images.
These things are from blessed Thomas at the end of the third book On Sleep and Waking, and from Albert in his commentary there.