Enhypnion and Oneiros: The Two Types of Dream According to Artemidorus

[Persephone [NG]]

In his work, Artemidorus divides the interpretation of dreams into the appropriate categories:


1. Enhypnion: which indicates the present state. This category tells you more about what you already are (present state), what you feel, what your body or mind is experiencing at that moment. It tells you nothing you do not already know. It arises with sleep and fades with waking. It can be defined as a mirror in which one sees exactly one's own reflection.


2. Oneiros: which indicates a future state. This is the category that changes everything (future state). It survives sleep, awakens and stirs the soul, and brings information that the dreamer does not yet consciously possess. It is a dream that points forward, toward something that has not yet happened, toward a truth that has not yet been seen.


Both words mean "dream" in Greek, but carry a substantial difference. This distinction is fundamental to the construction of dream interpretation.

The Enhypnion​

The enhypnion, or present time, is composed of three sources:

1. Irrational desire: an ardent longing for something you cannot have. The dream does nothing other than show you what you already know during the day: the lover yearning for his beloved.
2. Excessive fear: whoever fears something dreams of exactly that thing. Whoever is terrified of a situation relives it in sleep. Here the dream is processing anxiety, not announcing anything new.
3. Physical state of the body: the hungry man dreams of eating. The thirsty man dreams of drinking. Whoever has eaten too much dreams of vomiting or choking. The body, during sleep, translates its own needs or excesses into images.

Furthermore, these concepts can be subdivided into three subtypes based on their origin:

1. Enhypnia belonging only to the body: eating, drinking, sleeping, etc. They arise directly from physical needs.
2. Enhypnia belonging only to the mind: feeling joy, feeling sadness, feeling fear. They arise from the emotional state.
3. Enhypnia common to both: the sick person who dreams of being under medical care, the lover who dreams of the beloved. Here body and mind merge in the same image.

In every case, the sensations and experiences lived in that moment vanish immediately upon waking, and there are no messages to decipher.


The noise-dream, the dream that means nothing, is proportional to the inner disorder of the dreamer. Whoever spends most of their time hungry, whoever spends most of their time afraid, whoever is driven by uncontrolled desires, will produce many enhypnia (and few oneiroi).

The Oneiros​

Artemidorus defines the oneiros as "a movement or condition of the mind that assumes many forms and indicates good or bad things that will happen in the future." Pay attention here to three words in this definition:

1. Movement: the oneiros is not a static image, it is an activity of the soul. There is something moving within the dreamer.
2. Many forms: the oneiros is polymorphic. It can appear in countless ways, and part of the interpreter's work consists in recognizing the same message in different forms.
3. Future: the oneiros always points toward something not yet conscious, not yet happened, not yet seen. It is not a mirror of the present; it is a window onto something that is about to arrive.

There are, in any case, three signs that help recognize an oneiros:

• The oneiros survives waking: you wake up and the feeling remains. It persists through breakfast, through work, through the day. The enhypnion dissolves within minutes. The oneiros persists.
• The oneiros stirs the soul: it is not merely a memory, it is an active sensation. It makes you think, makes you feel, makes you reflect. There is a force the dream has left in the dreamer, an intensity that demands attention.
• The oneiros does not directly correspond to the state of the day before: if the dream mirrors precisely what you were living the day before, it is probably an enhypnion. If the dream shows something that has no direct connection with yesterday's state, something that seems to come from outside or from deeper down, then it is probably an oneiros.

These are some details to help us understand when a dream deserved attention and when, instead, it is simply a dream. The example Artemidorus gives here is very clear. A trained interpreter in love does not dream of the woman he loves. He dreams of a horse, a mirror, a ship, the sea, a female animal — something that symbolizes the woman. If he is about to depart, he does not dream of luggage and carriages. He dreams of terrain, of war, of lightning. This means that if you are not a trained interpreter and you have a symbolic dream, that dream is almost certainly an oneiros, not an enhypnion.


The capacity to transform desires into symbols during sleep is an acquired capacity, not a natural one. If it appears in you without your having developed it, it comes from elsewhere.

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Summarizing all of this in a practical question: is the dream reflecting you, or is it telling you something?


If it directly reflects your current condition, it is an enhypnion. If it persists after waking, if it stirs you, if it shows something that has no direct correspondence with yesterday's state, then it is an oneiros. And it is there, and only there, that it is worth beginning the work of interpretation.


Everything else we will see about dream interpretation only makes sense after this first distinction is clear. There is no possible interpretation without first knowing exactly what we are interpreting.

 

[TheVoiceOfVictory]

Thank you for posting this NG Persephone, I actually had something click in the part on defining Enhypnion dreams that needs a bit of resolution, now I can go handle it accordingly. Though I will say I surprise myself with my great appetite I have had to snap into line that I DO NOT dream of grand feasts and stuffing my face in my dreams every night.