DIVINATION · LESSON 14 OF 16 · 17 MIN
The Dream Books, from Egypt to Freud
What people reached for when a dream needed reading — the papyrus in the British Museum, Artemidorus and his questions, Macrobius's five kinds, Achmet and Daniel, the penny dream-books — and why Freud turned the question round.
Every age has had a book to open when a dream would not let go. The books differ in almost everything, and agree on one thing that is easy to miss: the oldest of them already knew that the same dream does not mean the same for everyone.