What famous statement about dreams and their interpretation occurred already in the Babylonian Talmud long before it was made by Sigmund Freud?

Arpeggionist

The Talmud says a lot of very different things about dreams, including that each dream is 1/60th prophecy and that sleep is partly a form of death. But connections between dreams and the subconscious mind was one thing that Talmudic stories focused on, long before Sh'lomo ben Simchah (as the rabbis would have known Sigmund Freud) ever wrote about it. Aug 04 05, 1:26 AM

lanfranco

The most well-known Talmudic statement regarding dreams that I can think of is "A dream that has not been interpreted is like a letter that has not been opened." I haven't read Freud's "The Interpretation of Dreams" since university, but my guess is that it contains some similar remark. Aug 04 05, 7:32 AM

Flem-ish

I found the reference to Freud at http://www.modazone.com/surrealism_about.htm The quotation from the Talmud can be found at http://www.come-and-hear.com/berakoth/berakoth_55.html See line 31. Aug 05 05, 7:42 AM

lanfranco

O.K. Now that I think about it, "read" works rather better than "opened." Aug 05 05, 1:43 PM