Thee I invoke, blessed power of Oneiroi divine, messengers of future fates, swift wings are thine. Great source of oracles to humankind, when stealing soft and whispering to the mind, through sleep’s sweet silence, and gloom of night… - The Orphic Hymn to the Oneiroi, trans. Taylor.
These are the children of Nyx or Erebos and Nyx or even of Hypnos (Sleep). Their names vary, but the most common attribution are Morpheus, Ikelos-Phobetor, and Phantasos. And of course there is also the Dream God who is simply Oneiros.
Morpheus translates as “Form, Shape,” and he is the most well known of these Daemones, thanks in part to Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series. Phantasos means “imagine.” Ikelos suggests resemblance. Phobetor has the root of phobia - fear. Another lesser known name for one of the Oneiroi is Ephialtes (On-Leaper), and he brings nightmares and can be described as more an incubus than a dream. Ovid calls the Oneiroi (Latin, Somnia) countless as grain at harvest or sand on the shore.
The Oneiroi are described with bird like turns of phrase by Homer. They perch, swoop, and have great wings. Dreams pass from the land of dreams via a gate of horn or one of ivory. The ivory gate turns the Dreams into lies, but the Dreams that come through the horn gate are true. Sometimes They work on behalf of the Gods, and other times they seem free agents.
They are described by one fragment as ‘Rock-sheltered’ and we are told that they dwell under a rock. They were said to live in a cave on Lemnos, or else in the Demos Oneiroi, or at the gates of Hades.
Aeschylus tells us that Clytemnestra was haunted by Oneiroi and that they drove her to leave offerings to her dead husband. Aesop reminds us that Zeus created the prophetic Dreams during an argument with Apollo that we might know something True, and that He created the other Dreams afterward.
Oneiros is described wearing a black and white robes, holding a horn in one hand, lounging relaxed.
Pausanias includes a description of a statue of Oneiros (Dream) in his telling of the Sanctuary of Asklepios in Sikyon. The Oneiroi were prayed toward for good dreams, for true dreams, to keep the nightmares at bay. They seem to have been a central participant in the ritual of dream incubation, in which a person seeking healing would sleep in the sanctuary of Asklepios and receive dreams with healing instructions.
There are numerous philosophical ideas about the oneiroi. Artemidoros claimed that moral rectitude would not be visited by irrational fantasies but would only have clear and true dreams. He separates the dreams into enhypnia (anxiety dreams and wishful dreams) and oneiroi (true dreams). He pulled this idea largely from the Stoics. He further divided oneiroi into two categories: those that predict the future directly and those who imply it. He is not the only person to divide dreams thus, but it is uncertain where the origin lay.
Brooten, Bernadette J. Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism, Univ. Chicago, 2009.
Halperin, David M. and John J. Winkler. Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World, Princeton, 1990.
Osborne, Robin. Studies in Ancient Greek and Roman Society, Cambridge 2004.
Oswalt, Sabine G. Concise Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology, Collins, 1969.
Image: Henry Fuseli. The Nightmare, 1781. at the Detroit Institute of Arts. oil on canvas.
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