On Dreams (Aristotle)
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~4,840 words · 23 passages
Cite this work
- APAAristotle. (n.d.). On Dreams (Aristotle). Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/aristotle/on-dreams-aristotle
- MLAAristotle. On Dreams (Aristotle). Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/aristotle/on-dreams-aristotle.
- ChicagoAristotle. On Dreams (Aristotle). Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/aristotle/on-dreams-aristotle.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
What a dream is, if it is neither perception nor thought. The answer: residual movements of the senses continuing when the object is gone.
Context and history
Notable for its sobriety: in a world that read dreams as messages, Aristotle gives a purely physiological account. The image of ripples still moving after the stone has sunk is his. Part of the Parva naturalia, the eight short works that continue the De anima by applying its theory to particular phenomena of the living body. They are transmitted as a group and read best together.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
were when first started, but often, too, broken into other forms by collisions with obstacles. This [last mentioned point], moreover, gives the reason why no dreams occur in sleep immediately after meals, or to sleepers who are extremely young, e.g. to infants. The internal movement in such cases is excessive, owing to the heat generated from the food. Hence, just as in a liquid, if one vehemently disturbs it, sometimes no reflected image appears, while at other times one appears, indeed, but utterly distorted, so as to seem quite unlike its original; while, when once the motion has ceased, the reflected images are clear and plain; in the same manner during sleep the phantasms, or residuary movements, which are based upon the sensory impressions, become sometimes quite obliterated by the above described motion when too violent; while at other times the sights are indeed seen, but confused and weird, and the dreams which then appear are unhealthy, like those of persons who are atrabilious, or feverish, or intoxicated with wine. For all such affections, being spirituous, cause much commotion and disturbance. In sanguineous animals, in proportion as the blood becomes calm, and as its purer are separated from its less pure elements, the fact that the movement, based on impressions derived from each of the organs of sense, is preserved in its integrity, renders the dreams healthy, causes a [clear] image to present itself, and makes the dreamer think, owing to the effects borne in from the organ of sight, that he actually sees, and owing to those which come from the organ of hearing, that he really hears; and so on with those also which proceed from the other sensory organs.…