The Classical Quarterly

GALEN ON DREAMS: FROM DIVINE REVELATION TO RHETORICAL STRATEGY

The Classical Quarterly January 26, 2026 Jonathan L. Zecher

Abstract Dreams were an important but epistemically ambiguous feature of ancient medicine and a key site of religious experience. Galen of Pergamum, whose father’s dreams were decisive in his becoming a physician, incorporates dreams into diagnostic inquiry, therapeutic innovation and theological speculation. Scholars have long treated Galen’s positive descriptions of his and others’ dreams as...