THE SEMIOTICS OF THE SOUL IN ANCIENT MEDICAL DREAM INTERPRETATION: PERCEPTION AND THE POETICS OF DREAM PRODUCTION IN HIPPOCRATES’ ON REGIMEN
Ramus June 1, 2019 Ella Haselswerdt 2 citations
In ancient Greek and Roman medicine, dreams served two distinct diagnostic roles. The better-known practice, Asclepian dream incubation, involved suppliants sleeping in a temple so the god Asclepius could visit them with a healing dream. A second, less documented type of dream had purely physiological origins, arising from the body's internal state and offering diagnostic information through the patient's inward perception, not divine intervention. As fifth-century medical thinkers increasingly valued direct observation (opsis and autopsy) for producing scientific knowledge, but faced taboos against dissecting living or dead human bodies, dreams provided a unique, albeit mediated, means to observe a patient's internal condition.