Deriving Dreams from the Divine

As in many traditional societies, the inhabitants of Hittite Anatolia regarded dreams as potentially powerful portents. Although some of them were attributed to other sources, numerous dreams were seen as coming straight from the gods. As such, they were scrutinized and their content duly taken into account in order to avoid the gods' wrath. Hittite cuneiform texts (historical records, oracular reports, accounts of vows, prayers, etc.) illustrate this phenomenon in great detail: the occurrence of such dreams either spontaneously or after an incubation ritual, the oracular inquiries performed in an attempt to better understand them and thus better satisfy the divine sender's demand. Sometimes, the message-dream (after A.L.

He Has Opened Nisaba's House of Learning, 2013

He has opened Nisaba's house of learning : studies in honor of Åke Waldemar Sjöberg on the occasion of his 89th birthday on August 1st 2013 / edited by Leonhard Sassmannshausen in collaboration with Georg Neumann. p. cm.-(Cuneiform monographs ; v. 46) Includes bibliographical references and index.

2010

ipamati kistamati pari tumatimis Luwian and Hittite StudieS preSented to J. david HawkinS on tHe occaSion of HiS 70 tH birtHday itaMar SinGer editor eMery and cLaire yaSS pubLicationS in arcHaeoLoGy inStitute of arcHaeoLoGy teL aviv univerSity teL aviv 2010 iv under the auspices of the friends of the institute of archaeology of tel aviv university with the support of the israel Science foundation published by the emery and claire yass publications in archaeology (bequeathed by the yass estate, Sydney, australia) of the institute of archaeology, tel aviv university iSbn 965-266-026-4 © copyright 2010 all rights reserved printed in israel by top print John david Hawkins photograph by takayuki oshima, courtesy of the Middle east cultural centre of Japan.

Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics, 2017

This paper aims to investigate the relevance of metaphor and metonymy to ancient dream interpretation in Islamic-Iranian culture. To this end, a most-referenced book of dream interpretation is analysed according to the conceptual metaphor theory. The results show that metaphor and metonymy play an important role in this ancient discourse. The metaphorical dream is based either on a resemblance between the dream as the source domain and its interpretation as the target domain, or on some symbolic metaphors arising from cultural conventions. The metonymic dream is formed by a contiguous relationship between the dream as the vehicle entity and its interpretation as the target entity. Concerning metaphorical dream interpretation, it can be argued that the overt content of the dream is mapped onto the latent content by resemblance or cultural convention. As regards metonymic dream interpretation, it can be said that the overt content of the dream is mapped onto the latent content by a conceptual metonymy based on socio-physical context. In addition, there are two other procedures of dream interpretation based on realistic representation and the technique of reversion. These cases do not apply figurative devices like metaphor and metonymy. Also, the dreamer’s personal knowledge of his or her life does not play a significant role in the discourse of dream interpretation in Islamic-Iranian culture.

Zeitschrift der Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft Bd. 168, 2018, PP. 301-332, 2018

The paper assesses two markers of a Hittite dream narratives, indefinite mān “like, kind of” and imma “even”. Their status as markers of dreams is somewhat illusory— both mān and imma were used inhomogenously in dreams, they cannot be reduced to one function or even part of speech, their frequency in this genre of Hittite literature is an incidendal by-product of their semantics. Another result is the reinterpretation of part of the evidence of mān and imma as indefinite mān and indefinite imma, similar in function to the marker of indefinite pronouns (existential quantifiers and NPIs) -ki/ka. If interpreted as indefinite in part of its attestations, imma fits very well into the general evolution of Hittite indefinite pronouns.

2021

There is something literary about dreams when they are written down. Dreams and literature intersect in wonder, imagination, and freedom. The excerpts translated here are dream writings from Khābguzārī by an anonymous writer in the twelfth or thirteenth century, and ʿAjā'ib al-makhlūqāt wa gharā'ib al-mawjūdāt by Muḥammad b. Maḥmūd Hamadānī (also known as Ṭūsī) (circa 1161–1178). Translated here for the first time into English, the two excerpts provide examples of how dreams shaped literary imagination in medieval Persian dream interpretation manuals (khāb-nāma) and anthologies of wondrous things (ʿajāyib-nāma).

ib: B. Becking and H.M. Barstad, Prophecy and Prophets in Stories. Papers Read at the Fifth Meeting of the Edinburgh Prophets Network Utrecht, October 2013, (OTS , 65), Leiden?Boston 2015, 11-25

Early Christian and early Islamic texts on dreams and dream interpretation have come under increased scrutiny in recent decades. Dream literature from pagan and Jewish antiquity to the early medieval period demonstrates that dreams, especially prophetic dreams, were used to establish spiritual authority, enforce compliance, and justify violence in a religious context. The common cultural roots of Christi-anity and Islam emerge when we recognise the crucial role played by dreams and prophecy in the two traditions. The various methodologies used in recent scholarship on dreams and their interpretation are surveyed with a view to identifying those most relevant to the analysis of first-millennium CE literary sources in Latin, Greek, Syriac, and Arabic. The key texts from the three major religious traditions in this period (Western Christian, Eastern Christian, and Islamic) are then analysed with a view to assessing whether early Christians and Muslims understood and taxonomised dreams differently. Literary genre and audience (lay, clerical, or monastic) are revealed as the key determinants of difference, rather than religious origins.

2020