List No. 017
THE DREAM BOOK
author Unknown
Circa 1220 bc
Discovered in the ancient Egyptian village of Deir el-Medina and dating back to approximately 1220 bc, this intriguing papyrus document is particularly notable for a section known as The Dream Book – a list, written in Middle Egyptian hieratic by an unknown scribe, which offers interpretations for a wide variety of dream scenarios and classifies each as either good or bad. It is likely to have been copied from an earlier version and is now held at the British Museum.
If a man sees himself in a dream:
| sitting in a garden in the sun demolishing a wall | GOOD: it means pleasure |
| demolishing a wall | GOOD: it means purification from evil |
| [eating] excrement | GOOD: consuming his property in his house |
| mating with a cow | GOOD: spending a happy day in his house |
| eating crocodile-[meat] | GOOD: [becoming] an official among his people |
| offering water (?) | GOOD: it means prosperity |
| drowning in the river | GOOD: it means purification from every evil |
| sleeping on the ground | GOOD: consuming his property |
| seeing carobs (?) | GOOD: finding a happy life |
| [seeing] the moon shining | GOOD: pardoning him by his god |
| veiling himself [...] | GOOD: his enemies flee before him |
| falling [...] | GOOD: it means prosperity |
| sawing wood | GOOD: his enemies are dead |
| burying an old man | GOOD: it means prosperity |
| cultivating vegetables | GOOD: it means finding victuals |
Inauspicious dreams:
If a man sees himself in a dream:
| seizing one of his own legs | BAD: a report about him by those who are yonder (i.e. the dead) |
| seeing himself in a mirror | BAD: it means another wife |
| god has dispelled his weeping for him | BAD: it means fighting |
| while he sees himself suffering (in) his side | BAD: extracting his property from him |
| eating hot meat | BAD: it means not being found innocent |
| shod with white sandals | BAD: it means roaming the earth |
| eating what he abominates | BAD: it means a man eating what he abominates in ignorance |
| copulating with a woman | BAD: it means mourning |
| he is bitten by a dog | BAD: he is touched by magic |
| he is bitten by a snake | BAD: it means the arising of words against him |
| measuring barley | BAD: it means the arising of words against him |
| writing on a papyrus | BAD: reckoning his wrongs by his god |
| stirring up his house | BAD: [it means] being ill |
| suffering through another’s spell (?) | BAD: it means mourning |
| being a steersman in a ship | BAD: every time he is judged, he will not be found innocent |
| his bed catching fire | BAD: it means driving away his wife |
