Sleep Medicine 9 (2008) 906910 www.elsevier.

com/locate/sleep

Historical Issues in Sleep Medicine

Sleep and dreaming in Greek and Roman philosophy

Joseph Barbera
The Youthdale Child and Adolescent Sleep Centre, 227 Victoria St., Toronto, Ont., Canada M5B 1T8 Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada Received 9 March 2007; received in revised form 20 September 2007; accepted 22 October 2007 Available online 3 December 2007

Abstract Theories as to the function of sleep and dreaming have been with us since the beginning of recorded history. In Ancient Greece and Rome the predominant view of dreams was that they were divine in origin. This view was held not only in theory but also in practice with the establishment of various dream-oracles and dream interpretation manuals (Oneirocritica). However, it is also in the Greek and Roman writings, paralleling advances in philosophy and natural science, that we begin to see the rst rationalistic accounts of dreaming. This paper reviews the evolution of such rational accounts focusing on the inuence of Democritus, who provides us with the rst rationalistic account of dreaming in history, and Aristotle, who provides us with the most explicit account of sleep and dreaming in the ancient world. 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Dream; Sleep; Ancient philosophy; History; Democritus; Aristotle

1. Introduction It is somewhat of a paradox that such a universal phenomenon as dreaming, which occurs in nearly all humans on a more or less nightly basis, should prove so impervious to scientic inquiry. It is only in the last half century that dreaming could be closely identied with a denitive physiological event, i.e., REM sleep [1] (although some appears to occur in NREM sleep as well [2]). Even with this progress, the denitive functions of dreaming, REM sleep and even sleep itself continue to elude us and remain the subjects of considerable debate. This article reviews the ancient approach to explaining the phenomena of sleep and dreaming. Such an historical review helps put our own endeavors in this area in perspective, in particular by illustrating the value of critical thinking over the acceptance of dogma.

2. The traditional view The current assumption that dreaming is a product of the mind is not one generally shared by our ancient forebears. Authors of the earliest civilizations, including the Mesopotamians [3,4] and the Egyptians [5], rmly held to a belief that dreams were divine in origin, i.e., the product of the gods, and were the means by which they communicated their wishes to mortal men. This belief in the divine etiology of dreams was inherited by the ancient Greeks, and later the Romans. This sentiment is best seen in The Odyssey in which Homer declares the presence of two gates from the underworld admitting dreams to mortals, one of horn and one of ivory, that were responsible, respectively, for truthful and deceptive dreams [6]. The belief in the divine origin of dreams is repeated not only in multiple literary works of the ancient world, but also in historical accounts [79]. Dream-oracles were common in the ancient world, wherein supplicants were subjected to dream incubation, the process by which they were induced to sleep in the hopes of receiving a prophetic dream. In some cases,

E-mail address: joseph.barbera@utoronto.ca 1389-9457/$ - see front matter 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.sleep.2007.10.010

J. Barbera / Sleep Medicine 9 (2008) 906910

907

such as the cult of Asclepius, such practices were a part of medical treatment [9,10]. It was this same practical use of the prophetic power of dreams that led to the publication of various dream interpretation manuals culminating in the Oneirocritica of Artemidordus (second century AD) [11]. According to Dodds [7], the ancient Greeks never spoke of having a dream, but always of seeing a dream. The dreamer, in other words, was a passive recipient of an objective dream reality rather than an active agent in the dreams creation. This view is consistent with a belief in the divine origin of dreams, a view which was prevalent throughout the Greek and Roman worlds. However, it was also in this time period that we begin to see the development of alternative hypotheses. 3. Early Greek philosophy Beginning with Thaless prediction of an eclipse in 585 BC, early Greek philosophers attempted to understand nature on its own terms, i.e., in accordance with natural laws and in a natural order, as opposed to simply ascribing various phenomena to divine agency [12]. While it would seem natural that the earliest philosophers would give some thought to the universal phenomena of sleep and dreaming, we unfortunately have only fragments of their formulations. Heraclitus (c. 535475 BC) the obscure seemed to emphasize the subjective nature of dreams in his memorable phrase, for those who are awake there is a single, common universe, whereas in sleep each person turns away into his own private universe [13]. The Pythagoreans appear to have supported the divine origin of dreams as they believed that the air was full of souls capable of aecting dreams [14]. Empedocles (c. 490430 BC), on the other hand, felt that dreams depended on the dreamer [14]. He also described sleep as occurring from a moderate cooling of heat in the blood, with death being the result of a total cooling [15]. A similar cooling hypothesis for sleep was also ascribed to Parmenides [16]. Leucippus, the rst atomist and the teacher of Democritus, described sleep as something that happened to the body, and not the soul, and which occurred when the excretion of ne-textured atoms exceeds the accretion of psychic warmth [17]. 4. Democritus It is with Democritus of Abdera (460370 BC) that we see the rst systemic theory with respect to dreams. Democritus is best known as one of the founders of Atomism, the belief that the universe consisted of an innite number and variety of immutable atoms whose continual motion and interaction were responsible for the varied and ever changing nature of the world. Atomism informs Democrituss theories of perception,

thought and ultimately dreams. According to Democritus, all objects emit a continuous stream of eid ola, fast-moving lms of atoms or euences. Perception results from the impact of eid ola on the sensory organs with subsequent transmission to the soul (Democritus considered the soul and mind be equivalent and constituted by ne spherical atoms permeating throughout the body). Thought (at least in the form of mental imagery) occurred by way of eid ola penetrating the pores of the body, thus bypassing the sensory organs and having a direct impact on the soul. The direct impact of eid ola on the soul was also held by Democritus to be responsible for dreams: la penetrate bodies through their pores and The eido when they come up again cause people to see things in their sleep; they come from things of every kind, artifact, clothes, plants, but especially from animals, because of the quantity of motion and heat they contain. (Plutarch Convivial Questions VIII.10.2) [17, p. 126127]. Such a process, which occurs best in smooth air, and can be obstructed by such things as falling leaves, would account for dream imagery in sleep. Democritus, however, granted such incoming euences a greater signicance: They do not merely reproduce the shape of the body. . .but they also pick up images of each persons psychic motions, desires, habits, and emotions, and when, together with these images, they collide with people they talk as if they were alive, and tell those who receive them the opinions, words and actions of those who emitted them. . . (Plutarch Convivial Questions VIII.10.2) [17, p. 127]. For Democritus dreams are externally generated phenomena resulting from the impact of euences emitted by objects that come to impact on the soul, but such euences, coming form other individuals, still contain the attributes of the persons who emitted them and, in a way, have a life of their own bearing upon the dreamer. Thus, Democritus provides us with the rst naturalistic account of dreaming; but it is one that is not inconsistent with the passive, externally derived, objective reality that Greeks attributed to dreams. Democrituss theory of dreams would prove to be inuential in the thinking of subsequent scholars including Aristotle and Epicurus who would develop or build on his theory. 5. Plato For the most part Plato (427347 BC) supports the divine origin of dreams as in Charmides [18] where he makes reference to the Gates of Horn and Ivory, and in the Crito [19] where he has Socrates divining the timing of his own death based on a dream.

908

J. Barbera / Sleep Medicine 9 (2008) 906910

In the Timaeus [20], however, Plato oers a naturalistic explanation for both sleep and dreaming which is related to his theory of vision. According to Plato, vision is the product of a non-burning, light giving, pure re which streams out from the eyes and strikes external objects. The subsequent motions produced are transmitted back to the soul where visual perception occurs. At night the external and kindred re departs with a subsequent cessation of vision and a resultant induction of sleep. With the eyelids closed the internal re is directed inward to equalize the inward motions, where such equalization occurs there is quiet sleep and where it does not there is dreaming. Despite this naturalistic account Plato still allows for the possibility of divination through dreams, ascribing the site of dream prophecy to the liver. Plato also allows for a psychological component in dreams. In a well known passage from the Republic [21] he discusses the idea that . . .in all of us, even the most highly respectable, there is a lawless wild beast nature, which peers out in sleep. In dreams one expresses the bestial desires (including incest with ones mother) that are normally repressed in wakefulness. Plato thus presages Freuds wish-fulllment theory of dreaming [22], falling short primarily by allowing dreams to express forbidden wishes in an overt rather than disguised form. 6. Aristotle Aristotle provides us with the most systemic study of sleep and dreaming in the ancient world which is contained in three full essays on the subject including On Sleep and Waking (De Somno et Vigilia), On Dreams (De Insomniis) and On Divination Through Sleep (De Divination per Somnum) [23,24]. Aristotles perspective in these essays is single-mindedly rationalistic. In On Sleep and Waking [19] he identies sleep and waking as diametrically opposed phenomena characterized, respectively, by the absence or presence of perception. Physiologically, Aristotle posits, sleep and waking result from the disabling and activation of the bodys primary sense-organ, which Aristotle took to be the heart. He describes how sleep is induced by the exhalations of ingested foods which thicken and heat the blood, rising to the brain where they are cooled before coalescing in the heart. Similar eects are ascribed to soporic agents, states of fatigue and certain illnesses. Aristotle distinguishes sleep from temporary incapacities of perception, such as fainting, and describes sleep as a form of seizure. In On Dreams [23] Aristotle suggests that dreams are neither the work of judgment nor of perception in an unqualied way. Rather, dreams are the work of perception, but only of its imagining (phantastikon) capacity. While this distinction is somewhat vague,

Aristotles general meaning is that the appearances (phantasamata) that characterize dreams are the result of the perceptual mechanism being activated, but in the absence of external stimulation. According to Aristotle, sensory stimulation in wakefulness produces movements within the body (presumably in the bloodstream) which persist for a time after the external stimulation has ceased. Such persisting sense impressions may give rise to delayed or false perceptions in wakefulness, particularly in emotional states or illnesses (as in illusions). It is these perceptual remnants that also give rise to dreaming. As he states: From the above it is plain that the movements arising from sense impressions, both those coming from outside and those from within the body, are present not only when people are awake, but also whenever the aection called sleep comes upon them, and that they are especially apparent at that time. For in the day-time, while the senses and the intellect are functioning, they are pushed aside or obscured, like a smaller re next to a larger one, or minor pains and pleasures next to big ones, though when the latter cease, even the minor ones come to the surface. By night, however, owing to the inactivity of the special sense and their inability to function because of the reversed ow of heat from the outer parts to the interior, they are carried inward to the starting-point of perception, and become apparent as the disturbance subsides [23, p. 97]. Dreams are thus, for Aristotle, the result of persistent sense impressions traveling in the blood stream and activating perceptions in the heart. This activity occurs during wakefulness, but is more apparent in sleep due to a suspension of normal perception and judgment. The variable turbulence of blood in sleep also accounts for why dream appearances may at times be coherent and akin to reality, while at other times are incomplete and distorted. The suspension of judgment in sleep, however, also results in the acceptance of such perceptual remnants as real, even in distorted form (an observation which nds its modern neurophysiologic basis in the form of neuroimaging studies demonstrating decreased frontal lobe functioning in REM sleep [25]). Aristotle also makes a distinction between dreams, proper and extraneous perceptual remnants occurring in wake, in the process giving the earliest descriptions of hypnopomic/hypnogogic hallucinations. In On Divination through Sleep [13], Aristotle rmly rejects the traditional view of the divinatory power of dreams. He explains away the foretelling of future events based on dreams as mere coincidences. However, Aristotle oers a few exceptions in which dreams may hold some prognostic capacity. One such exception occurs in cases where dreams act as early signs of medical illness. The physical changes produced by such ill-

J. Barbera / Sleep Medicine 9 (2008) 906910

909

ness he argues lead to movements or abnormal sensory impressions from within, impressions that can be more readily observed in dreaming than in waking. The view that dreams could signify humoral imbalances or other changes in the body was likewise held by Hippocrates [26] and later by Galen [27]. It is noteworthy that for Aristotle a philosopher who claimed that nature does nothing in vain [23] dreams hold no purpose or function, being merely an epiphenomenon resulting from residual perceptual activation. 7. Hellenistic philosophy According to Cicero (On Divination) [28], the Stoics, including Chrysipuus (c. 280207 BC), and Posidonius (c. 15351 BC), were very much supportive of divination in all its forms, including that by dreaming. In contrast to the Stoics, Epicurus (341270 BC) rejected the divine nature of dreams. Epicurus, heavily inuenced by Democritus in his metaphysics, postulated the existence of euences or lms exuding from the surfaces of bodies and penetrating the sensory organs or going directly into the mind in waking thought and in sleep. However, he fell short of granting such dreams the independent reality that Democritus did [17,29]. This theory was further expanded upon by Lucretius (9449 BC) in his On the Nature of the Universe [30]. According to Lucretius, the bizarre nature of dreams arises from the intermingling of surface lms in the air prior to their entering the mind. The image of a Centaur, for example, arises from the amalgamation of surface lms from a man and a horse. Lucretius also allows for the succession of images received by the mind to be inuenced by what it is prepared to see, i.e., by waking preoccupations. Sleep, according to Lucretius, is caused by the vital spirit (the soul atoms diused throughout the body) becoming bombarded from without by the air to which it is exposed and from within by respiratory motions. As a result the vital spirit is fragmented with part of it forced out and lost and part of it compressed and driven into the inner depths. The result is a weakening of the limbs and loss of senescence. It is the part of the spirit forced inward that prevents outright death, with its rekindling producing wakefulness. In approximately 200 AD, Diogenes of Oenoanda, Oenoanda (Turkey), carving out his Epicurean teachings on a stone wall reiterated Epicuruss views on dreaming [31]. Diogenes criticized the stoics for characterizing dreams as empty, illusory paintings of the mind but also criticized Democrituss view that dreams possess sensation and the power to reason and can actually chat with us. [31, p. 358]. Perhaps the best testament to Democrituss inuence is that his views should be cited, even in criticism, over 500 years after his death.

8. Cicero Cicero (10643 BC) examines the issue of dreams with regard to their divinatory power in his treatise On Divination [28] (De Divinatione) along with other popular forms of divination in the ancient world such as astrology, haruspicy, and augury. The treatise is divided into two books, following the sceptical tradition of discussing both sides of an argument. In the rst book Cicero casts his brother, Quintus, in the role of arguing the case for divination. Quintus, however, oers few logical arguments in support of divination but simply appeals to the universal acceptance of its validity based on experience. With respect to dreams in particular, he oers many examples in which dreams have proven to be prophetic throughout Greek and Roman mythology. In the second book of On Divination, Cicero oers several logical counterarguments against divination, and like Aristotle, ascribes the veridical power of dreams to coincidence (the exception again being the use of dreams in medicine). Of more interest to the present discussion is Ciceros conceptualization of the psychophysiology of dream phenomenon. He expressly rejects Democrituss purely physical, externally driven account of dreaming, instead arguing for a view of dreams as being the result of an intrinsic internal energy. In this vein, even as he moves more towards Aristotles view of dream phenomenon, he also adds an active cognitive component, as various reminiscences and daytime preoccupations come to bear on the mind in a weak and relaxed state. 9. Macrobius Macrobius (c. late third Century AD) in his Commentary on the Dream of Scipio [32] classies dreams into ve categories: the enigmatic dream, the prophetic vision, the oracular dream, the nightmare, and the apparition. The latter two, he notes, have no prophetic signicance. Nightmares, rather, are caused by mental and physical distress, or anxiety about the future with daytime concerns reecting themselves in nocturnal dreams. His description of apparitions amount to hypnogogic hallucinations, occurring as they do, in the moment between wakefulness and slumber. It is to this phenomenon that Macrobius ascribes the popular belief of the incubus. Thus, at the beginning of the fourth century the veridical power of dreams was still upheld (as testied by Marcobius rst three categories); although there was also room for both cognitive and physiologic explanations of specic dreams. Macrobius was considered a leading authority on dreams in the Middle Ages, despite the fact that only a single chapter in his book was specically devoted to the topic.

910

J. Barbera / Sleep Medicine 9 (2008) 906910 [7] Dodds ER. The Greeks and the irrational. Berkely: University of California Press; 1951. [8] Harris WV. Roman opinions about the truthfulness of dreams. J. Roman Stud. 2003;XCIII:1834. [9] Hughes JD. Dream interpretation in ancient civilizations. Dreaming 2000;10(1):718. [10] Ogden D. Greek and Roman necromancy. Princeton: Princeton University Press; 2001. [11] Artemidorus D. The interpretation of dreams (Oneirocritica) [White, RJ, Trans.]. Torrance: Original Books Inc.; 1990. [12] Barnes J. Early Greek philosophy. London: Penguin Group; 2001. [13] Robinson TM. Heraclitus. Fragments: a text and translation with a commentary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press; 1987. [14] Freeman K. The pre-socratic philosophers. Oxford: Basil Blackwell; 1959. [15] Inwood B. The poem of Empedocles. A text and translations with an introduction. Toronto: University of Toronto Press; 2001. [16] Gallop D. Paramenides of Elea. Fragments. A text and translation with an introduction. Toronto: University of Toronto Press; 2000. [17] Taylor CCW. The atomists Leucippus and Democritus. Fragments: a text and translation with a commentary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press; 1999. [18] Plato. Charmides. In: Jowett B, editor. The dialogues of Plato (trans.), vol. 1. 4th ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press; 1953. p. 137. [19] Plato. Crito. In: Jowett B, editor. The dialogues of Plato (trans.), vol. 1. 4th ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press; 1953. p. 367384. [20] Plato. Timaeus. In: Jowett B, editor. The dialogues of Plato (trans.), vol. 3. 4th ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press; 1953. p. 631780. [21] Plato. The Republic. In: Jowett B, editor. The dialogues of Plato (trans.), vol. 2. 4th ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press; 1953. p. 1499. [22] Freud S. The interpretation of dreams. Modern Library Edition. Toronto: Random House Inc.; 1994 [originally published 1900]. [23] Gallop D. Aristotle on sleep and dreams. Warmisnster: Aris & Phillips Ltd.; 1996. [24] Gallop D. Aristotle on sleep, dreams and nal causes. In: Clearly JJ, Shartin DC, editors. Proceedings of the Boston area colloquium in ancient philosophy. Lanham; 1989. p. 25790. [25] Hobson JA, Pace-Schott, Stickgold R. Dreaming and the brain: toward a cognitive neuroscience of conscious states. In: PaceSchott EF, Solms M, Blagrove M, Harnard S, editors. Sleep and dreaming: scientic advances and reconsiderations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2003. p. 150. [26] Lloyd GER, editor. Hippocratic writings. London: Pelican Books; 1978. [27] Oberhelman SM. Galen, on diagnosis from dreams. J. Hist. Med. Allied Sci. 1983;38:3647. [28] Cicero MT. On divination. In: Younge CD, editor. The nature of the Gods and on divination. Amherst: Prometheus Books; 1997. p. 141263. [29] Epicurus. Epicurus to Herodotus. In: Oates WJ, editor. The stoic and epicurean philosophers. New York: The Modern Library; 1940. p. 318. [30] Lucretius Carus T. On the nature of the universe [Latham RE, Trans.]. London: Penguin Group; 1994. [31] Clay C. An epicurean interpretation of dreams. Am. J. Philol. 1980;101(3):34265. [32] Macrobius AAT. Commentary on the dream of Scipio [Stahl WH, Trans.]. New York: Columbia University Press; 1952.

10. Conclusion Ancient philosophers concerned themselves mainly with the nature of dreaming, as opposed to sleep per se, likely because of the cultural and religious value given to dream experiences by the societies in which they lived. The explanations of dream experiences by these philosophers were often given peripheral to other broader metaphysical and psychophysiological concerns. However, during this time period we begin to see the rst naturalistic accounts of dreaming as a challenge to the then standard view of their divine origin. Democritus, with his rst naturalistic theory of dream experiences, seems to have had a prominent inuence on subsequent philosophers in both the Greek and Roman worlds, whose work may be seen as renements to Democrituss initial, atomist theory. Dreams move from being viewed as externally driven phenomenon (Democritus, Epicurus) to being the result of residual perceptions (Aristotle), to expressing the intermingling of such residual perceptions and cognitive factors (Leucippus, Cicero, Macrobius). While such theories may appear na ve or overly simplistic to the modern reader, in many respects they have proven to be remarkably perceptive. Indeed, it has been argued, with respect to Aristotles theory of dreams in particular, that little further progress had been made in understanding dream phenomena until the discovery of REM sleep [7,23].

References
[1] Aserinsky E, Kleitman N. Regular occurring periods of eye motility and concomitant phenomena, during sleep. Science 1953;118:2734. [2] Neilson TA. A review of mentation in REM and NREM sleep: covert REM sleep as a possible reconciliation of two opposing models. In: Pace-Schott EF, Solms M, Blagrove M, Harnard S, editors. Sleep and dreaming: scientic advances and reconsiderations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2003. p. 5974. [3] Oppenheim L. The interpretation of dreams in the Ancient Near East, with a translation of an Assyrian dream-book. Transaction of the American Philosophical Society. New Ser. 1956;46(3):179373. [4] Noegel S. Dreams and dream interpreters in mesopotamia and the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). In: Bulkeley K, editor. Dreams: a reader on the religions, cultural and psychological dimensions of dreaming. New York: Palgrave; 2001. p. 4571. [5] Szpakowska K. Through the looking glass. Dreams in Ancient Egypt. In: Bulkeley K, editor. Dreams: a reader on the religions, cultural and psychological dimensions of dreaming. New York: Palgrave; 2001. p. 2943. [6] Homer. The Odyssey of Homer [Lattimore R, Trans.]. New York: Harper and Row; 1975.