Gjornâl Furlan des SiencisFriulian Journal of Science

No. 19 (2015): GFS
RICERCJIS

The dreams of Aelius Aristides: A neuropsychological analysis of the Sacred Tales

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  • ANASTASIA FABBRO,
  • FRANCO FABBRO
ANASTASIA FABBRO
Department of Psychology, University of Rome “La Sapienza
FRANCO FABBRO
Department of Medical and Biological Sciences, University of Udine.

Peraulis clâf

  • Dreams, neuropsychology, ancient literature, Iliad, Aelius Aristides.

Cemût citâ

[1]
FABBRO, A. and FABBRO, F. 2015. The dreams of Aelius Aristides: A neuropsychological analysis of the Sacred Tales. Gjornâl Furlan des Siencis - Friulian Journal of Science. 19, 19 (May 2015), 77–90.

Ristret

The Sacred Tales is a sort of dream diary, written by a famous Greek orator, Aelius Aristides (117-181 CE). The dreams of Aelius Aristides have been object of many psychological interpretations, that have focused on their content, in order to sound out the neurosis and the psychological problems of the orator. The aim of the present work is to analyze the form of Aristide’s dreams: while the dream content can tell us something about the psychology of the dreamer, the form of dreams concerns their phenomenology, some typical characteristics related to neurological bases. These characteristics (as bizarreness, detailed images, illusion of being awake…) allows us to recognize an experience as a dream. So, the final purpose of this work is to define if the experiences described by Aristides can be considered genuine or if they are more probably a literary invention. The dreams of Aristides are presented within a comparison with the dreams that occur in Iliad, the so called “objective dreams”, that present a different and particular phenomenology; at the same time, anyway, as the Sacred Tales, the Homeric dreams reveal the extraordinary and important functions that dreams assumed among Greek people and the ancient cultures

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