Niels Bohr
That's Who!
In each of these lives a dream made a difference. Or more accurately, the dreaming mind is credited with being the source of the ideas, insights, revelations and guidance. History is replete with examples. The Bible operates on dreams and visions. Great inventions have been attributed to dreams. The dream mind is a font of insight.
Now about those stories:
- Ceasar
- Julius Ceasar's decision to cross the Rubicon is attributed to a dream in which he saw himself in bed with his mother (Mother Rome, the seers told him) His assasination was foretold in his wife's Calpurnia's dream. "She held him in her arms, bleading and stabbed." Another Ceasar, Ceasar Agustus, is said to have walked the streets as a beggar because of instructions he received in a dream.
- Constantine
- Constantine was in Trier Germany in 312 AD when he had a dream of Jesus Christ on the Cross with the sign In Hoc Signum (By this sign.) He issued the Edict of Milan that established tollerance for the Christians.
- Homer
- Homer reports on Agamemnon's dream from Zeus carried by Hermes. It was the battle plan that came from the Demios Oneiron, the village of dreams on the way to Hades.
- Hypocrates
- The father of medicine was an early practitioner at the temples of Æ sculapius. The Hypocratics developed the idea that the dream was a window on illness, reflecting the body's state. Bizarre dream content was indicative of illness, normal content bode for wellness.
- Artemadorius Daldianus
- In the second century BC Artemidorius had written an Oneirocritica, a dream intrepretation aid with 3000 dreams in his database. He had intrepretation tools, stock questions to ask, and deciphering tools. He wanted to know the dreamers name, mood, situation in life, character, whether the dream was plausable or bizarre and whether the dream elements were appropriately connected to each other. He explored Symbolic dreams, daytime visions, oracles, nightmares and daytime fantassies. Centuries later, when Guttenberg finished printing the first Bible, the next book was the Oneirocritica of Artemadorius.
- Hannibal
- Hannibal attributed the battle plan to attack Rome over the Alps with Elephants as something that came to him in a dream. Figures. What a crazy idea!
- St. Frances of Assisi
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St Francis of Assisi founded the Franciscan Order because of a dream in which Jesus Christ spoke from the cross telling him to "go set my house in order"
- Dante Alligeheri
- Dante relates that the whole story of the Divine Comedy was related to him in dream on Good Friday in 1300. When he died in 1321, part of the manuscript was lost. His son Jocojso found the manuscript after a dream in which his father showed him where to look.
- Ghengis Khan
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The great Khan is reported to have received his battle plans from his dreams. He is also reported to have been told in a dream that he was a chosen one.
- Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette had a dream on Dec 12 1793 of a red sun and pillar. The sun rose and then suddently set. This just preceeded her beheading.
- Rene Descrates
- On November 10, 1619, Descartes has three dreams. two of them full of violence sex and religion. In the third the Spirit of Truth showed him the Treasury of Science from which he developed his ideas for the Cartesian plain and the geometry of the coordinates.
- Robert Louis Stephenson
- Stephenson believed that his best stories came from his dreams. He reported that the theme for Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde was derived from a dream. He also reported other breakthroughs in his writing that came from his dreams. He suffered as a child from nightmares and learned to control his dreams to change the nightmares. He says he used his dreams to revise plays and stories while asleep.
- General George McClelland
- General McClelland had a dream of George Washington who said,"George do you sleep at your post? Rouse yourself and ere the sun of tomorrow had set, the Conferderate flag would have waved above the Capitol and your grave, but, note what you see, your time is short." Washington rolled out a living map of the troop positions of the confederates for a march on Washington. McClelland is reported to have taken notes on the presentation and won the battle.
- Friedrich August Kekule von Stradonitz
- Kekule was a chemist working on the chemical structure of Benzene. He reports that he got fed up with his data which made no sense as a "long string" molecule. He was dozing in his comfy chair when we was startled by the image of a snake biting its own tail. He woke and worked out the mathmatics the Benzene molecure as a ring rahter than a long string.
- General George Patton
- General George Patton, when at the battlefield on Langres France, said to his driver that he already knew the place. He told his driver where to go and said it was as if someone were wispering directions in his ear. He correctly went to the Ancient Roman Amphitheater, The Drill Grounds, The Forum and even correctly went to the spop where Caesar had pitched his tent. "You see, I've been here before"
- Adolph Hitler
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Hitler was sleeping in a fox hole during the first war, when her was awakened by a nightmare of his mouth full of dirt. Choking, he got up and walked away from the fox hole to "get some air." Then a shell made a direct hit on his foxhole. All hands were killed except Hitler. He concluded that he had been spared by divine intervention. The rest is history!
- Napoleon Bonaparte
- Napoleon is reported to have had a dream of a black cat on the night before the battle of Waterloo.
- Elias Howe
- Howe, the inventor of the sewing machine, wrote that he got the core idea, the breakthrough concept, from a dream. It was a nightmare. He had been captured by canibals. They were preparing to cook him and they were dancing around the fire waving their spears. Howe notivced at the head of each spear there wasa small hole through the shaft and the up and down motion of the spears and the hole remained with him when he woke. The idea of passing the thread through the needle close to the point, not at the other end was a major innovation in making mechanical sewing possible.
- Niels Bohr
- Niels Bohr reports that he developed the model of the atom based on a dream of sitting on the sun with all the planets hissing around on tiny cords.
- Harriet Tubman
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Tubman had a head injury and was prone to fainting spells. She awoke from one with a dream of soldiers capturing her. She avoided the place she had seen and avoided an ambush.
Are these stories real?
Does it really matter how real they are? What they tell us is that throughout history people have seen dreams as important sources of novel ideas. It delivers battle plans, new ideas, creative solutions, fearsome premonitions. The dreaming mind is an extraordinary repository of information. It is a place from which revelations come. It is a remarkable synthesizing tool that operates on the edges of creativity.
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Last revised: June 15, 1996
Copyright © Dr. Alexander Randall 5th, 1996 All Rights Reserved