J.J. Flinterman

Are petitionary dreams non-predictive? Observations on artemidorus' Oneirocritica 1.6 and 4.2

In two passages of the Oneirocritica, Artemidorus discusses the practice of asking the gods for a dream containing a prediction or an advice. The prevailing opinion among scholars is that Artemidorus rejects this type of dreams categorically. In this article it is argued that, on the contrary, Artemidorus does accept the validity of petitionary dreams, provided that some rules are taken into account. Further, a couple of proposals for improvement of the text are made for a pivotal passage on petitionary dreams, namely 246.15-8 Pack.