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happy_birthday's review against another edition
funny
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
5.0
I'd like to see more books by random weirdos survive 1800 years into the future.
steven_nobody's review against another edition
5.0
My entire life I've been obsessed by my dreamlife. At various times, I've kept a dream diary, all typed and bound in notebooks, and numbered. There are 7,000 dreams, and most from the past five years. I'm only writing so much about myself because I want credit for being familiar with the topic. Artemidorus used dreams as divination. He said "the interpretation of dreams is really no more than the comparison of similarities" between the symbols in the dreams and the outcomes of the interpretation. Like, if you have hairy palms, you'll be unemployed because "nothing grows hair unless it is idle and unused." Or, if you're on trial and dream about a baby, you'll be found innocent because who doesn't love a baby?
The bulk of the book is a dream dictionary, but is also a catalog of attitudes, beliefs, behavior, and the hierarchy of social and familial domination in Ancient Rome. For example:
"To wear one's cloak to the left, or dress in any other laughable or improper way, is malign for all, and signifies that in addition to unemployment the dreamer will have to endure ridicule and mockery."
Some of it is kind of funny:
"All fingers additional to the natural number are not only useless themselves but they make the other fingers out of which they grow equally useless."
The last chapter has 95 dreams and what happened to the dreamer. I was reminded the random fatalities to be found in the stories and poems of Edward Gorey.
"A man dreamt that he had been transformed and had a bear’s paws instead of hands. He was condemned to death in a wild-beast show, tied to a stake, and eaten by a bear."
"A woman dreamt that her lover made her a present of a pig’s head. Her love turned to hate, and she left him. A pig has nothing to do with Aphrodite."
The bulk of the book is a dream dictionary, but is also a catalog of attitudes, beliefs, behavior, and the hierarchy of social and familial domination in Ancient Rome. For example:
"To wear one's cloak to the left, or dress in any other laughable or improper way, is malign for all, and signifies that in addition to unemployment the dreamer will have to endure ridicule and mockery."
Some of it is kind of funny:
"All fingers additional to the natural number are not only useless themselves but they make the other fingers out of which they grow equally useless."
The last chapter has 95 dreams and what happened to the dreamer. I was reminded the random fatalities to be found in the stories and poems of Edward Gorey.
"A man dreamt that he had been transformed and had a bear’s paws instead of hands. He was condemned to death in a wild-beast show, tied to a stake, and eaten by a bear."
"A woman dreamt that her lover made her a present of a pig’s head. Her love turned to hate, and she left him. A pig has nothing to do with Aphrodite."
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