What is Oneiromancy?

The study of dreams and their divinatory interpretation. From ‘oneiros’ a Greek word meaning dreams and ‘mancy’ meaning divination. The Oneiroi were winged spirits of the realms of sleep. They lived in Erebos, Land of Darkness, and contacted sleepers through one of two gates. One gate was made of horn, the other of ivory. Prophecy and prediction came through the horn gate, fantasy and delusion through the ivory gate.

Quote: I do not hesitate to affirm at the outset that occurrence of dreams foretelling a future event with accuracy must be accepted as certain. Camille Flammarion. Premonitory Dreams and Divination of the Future. 

Quote: Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than in the imagination while awake? Leonardo da Vinci.

Quote: Man is a genius while he is dreaming. Akira Kurosawa.



The most frequent way in which we are notified about future events is whilst we are sleeping. It is not known what mechanism is at work. Some believe that when our conscious mind closes down during sleep that our unconscious mind opens to influences from the Spirit World. Others believe that time is not a straight line but revolves in circles.

In the ancient world, special temples were dedicated to Gods who provided dreams giving warning of future events. The Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans and Druids were especially interested in prophetic dreams.

Many dreams foretelling the future have hidden messages that need interpretation, such as the dreams from Biblical sources. The Pharaoh of Egypt dreamt of seven fat and seven lean cows. Joseph had had a traumatic life. He had been sold into slavery by his eleven older brothers. During his time in slavery he dreamed that he saw eleven stars bow to a twelfth star and he knew that his brothers would one day respect him. When Joseph heard of Pharaoh’s dream, he interpreted that the seven fat and seven lean cows meant that there would be seven years of plentiful harvests followed by seven years of famine. The Pharaoh was informed and stocked-piled enough grain during seven years to provide the country with sufficient food during the following seven years of famine. 

Quote: If there be a prophet among you, I, the Lord, will make myself known in a vision and will speak in a dream. Bible. Numbers 12.6.

The Emperor Marcian dreamt he saw his enemy’s ship wrecked. On the same night Atilla the Hun, his enemy, died.

Cicero and his friend were travelling and decided to stay in separate inns. That night Cicero dreamt that his friend was in trouble and begging for help. Cicero ignored this dream and went back to sleep. Again he dreamt that his friend was calling for him and this time said it would soon be too late. Then Cicero saw his friend’s body in a cart covered with manure. The next day, his friend was missing from the inn and when Cicero searched the area, he found a cart with manure, and his dead friend inside. Quote: The soul in sleep gives proof of its divine nature. Cicero.

In 1927, J. W. Dunne, a British aviation engineer was having so many precognitive dreams that he decided to write a book on the subject entitled “An Experiment with Time”.
In October 1980 the Times newspaper conducted a survey about dreams. 42% of those who answered the questionnaire had experienced a dream that came true.

In this explicit dream, one person has a warning dream for another person:      
In William Shakespeare’s play of the life of Julius Caesar, Caesar’s wife, Calpurnia has a dream that a statue of Caesar flows with blood and many men soak their hands in it. She tries to persuade him not to go to the Senate the following day but Caesar ignores his wife’s warning and is assassinated by many of his political enemies.

The American writer Mark Twain saw his brother dead in a casket in a dream. One week later his brother was killed in a massive boat explosion that caused the loss of 150 lives.
When the boxer Sugar Ray Robinson was preparing for a title fight against Jimmy Doyle in 1947, Sugar Ray dreamt that he killed his opponent. His Manager and a priest were called, but both convinced Sugar Ray to ignore the warning. In the eighth round, Doyle was knocked out, never to return to consciousness and he died 17 hours later.

During the winter of 1914, Cassie Brown reported that his friend John Howlet told him of a nightmare where he saw a mountain of ice and he was freezing and lost. He saw many heaps of white mounds and was counting and counting them. Later that winter, 120 sailors were sealing off the Newfoundland coast and were abandoned on an ice floe by their Captain who did not notice they were missing for two days. John realised that the white mounds he was counting in his sleep were the ice-impacted mounds of his dead fellow sailors. Fortunately, John Howlet was one of the 55 survivors who lived to tell this extraordinary tale.  

Graham Greene the author wrote in his 1971 book “A Sort of Life” that he often had dreams predicting the future. When he was five years old, he dreamt of a great shipwreck. That night the Titanic went down with the loss of more than 1,500 lives. 

Sometimes when a dream gives foreknowledge of a future event, the dreamer takes avoiding action. Plutarch reported that Augustus had a friend who dreamt that Augustus was in grave danger. Augustus went into hiding. That night, the enemy captured his army and entered his tent and pierced his bed with their swords.

In this explicit warning dream, action was taken:    
In the First World War Adolf Hitler was fighting in the trenches. He fell asleep and dreamt that his trench came under mortar attack and all soldiers were killed. Adolf Hitler immediately abandoned his post and left the trench, and within minutes, the trench came under mortar attack with all killed.

Many dreams of the future are quite explicit:
On 20 October 1966 Margaret Stewart woke after a horrendous night of disrupted sleep repeating the words “Aberfan” over and over. The same morning a 47 year old woman from Plymouth spoke at a church meeting of a dream she had on the previous night. It was of a school building in a valley and she saw a coal miner and a lost child, then a great avalanche. Mrs Sybil Brown also reported a dream that morning of a black billowing mass. On the same morning of 20 October 1966, Eryl Mai Jones, a ten year old girl from the small Welsh mining village of Aberfan, woke and told her mother “I dreamed I went to school and there was no school there, something black had come down all over it.”  The following day, 21 October 1966, a huge coal tip above the village of Aberfan became unstable and slid down the mountainside destroying the junior school beneath it. 116 children and 28 adults were killed. Eryl Mai Jones was one of its victims.

The British Premonitions Bureau was set up in January 1967 as a direct result of the numbers of people who had fore-warning of the Aberfan disaster. The Central Premonitions Bureau in New York was set up a year later. They seek to contact anyone who thinks they might have received an insight foretelling a future event. The registry will confidentially record the precognitive event.

Some precognitive dreams leave unanswered questions:
In her communications to me Catherine Andrew reports, “I was living in Lincoln last year and I dreamed of a large house on a hill, almost like a castle with a tower and a dome at the top. In the dream I felt that I needed to deliver a message to a man who lived there. I managed to do so by taking an elevator to the dome of this great house. I recorded this dream in my journal but forgot all about it until I visited Greenwich Park last week with my boyfriend. Suddenly I saw this house and immediately my dream from last year came back to me. It was exactly the same house and the feeling of the dream once again rushed over me. It was the emotion that accompanied the dream that was so extraordinary. It was a real sense of déjà vu. I have unanswered questions, like what kind of message do I need to give the man who lives there?” 

Common themes in predictive dreams:
I have found in communications with clients, that many women have recognised the face of their future partner because they have seen them in a dream. Many mothers dream the sex of their unborn child. 

How to have a dream which foretells the future:
In ancient days, Greek seekers attended the Temple of Delphi requiring a dream of the future. They would meditate and take no food for two days in preparation.
You can find out if you are able to have a dream that foretells the future too.
By following these instructions, you give yourself the best opportunity to have a prophetic dream.
Buy a special book and a special pen to write down your dream as soon as you awake. If you have a cassette recorder, keep this beside your bed and use it as soon as you wake in the morning.
Choose a full moon for the purpose.
Take one 250mg tablet of Kava Kava two hours before sleep and eat plenty of watercress and green bananas. (Kava Kava is a potent herb and should not be used on a daily basis.)
Make a herbal eye pillow from a face flannel. Fold, then sew two edges together and fill the pillow with a mixture of rice, dried peppermint and artemesia. Sew the last edge together to form an eye shield that will keep out the light. Wear ear plugs to reduce disturbances. 
If you wish to sleep in a natural setting, select a secluded and private place where you will not be disturbed. If you are sleeping indoors, clean your bedroom of any dust and clutter.
Incorporate into your room some blue or purple furnishing or fabrics.
Before and while you sleep play some harp music or baroque music, both these are known to stimulate dreams. 
Take a warm bath and place a few drops of oil in the bath water. Choose from the following: Cedarwood, chamomile, cinnamon, eucalyptus, frankincense, lavender, lotus, musk, myrrh, patchouli, pine, rosemary, sage, sandalwood or valerian.
As you prepare for sleep, ask the spirits of sleep known as the Oneiroi to take you through the Gate of Horn and bestow upon you an explicit dream about a particular matter. Upon waking, immediately write it in your dream journal detailing colours, names, places, numbers, emotions and event in detail. www.wendystokes.co.uk