Traditions

Dreams are interpreted everywhere on earth, but rarely in the same way. This is what each tradition sees in a dream.

• Akan
  In the Akan tradition of Ghana dreams are a recognised channel between the living, the ancestors and the spirit world. During sleep the sunsum, a person's spirit, is said to travel and meet.
• Buddhist
  In Buddhism a dream above all shows the mind itself: what it clings to, what it fears and what it holds on to. The classical texts are sober about prophetic dreams, and the Tibetan tradition even uses the dream as a place of practice.
• Zhou Gong
  The Chinese dream tradition is thousands of years old. The best-known dream book, the Zhou Gong Jie Meng, is still consulted today. Many readings are surprisingly favourable and play on sounds: fish means abundance, water stands for wealth.
• Christian
  In the Christian tradition dreams appear throughout the Bible as a means of guidance, warning and comfort.
• Hindu
  In Hinduism dreaming is a state of consciousness of its own, svapna, which the Upanishads already reflected on. Dreams can arise from the body and the day, but also from karma, from the ancestors or from the divine.
• Islamic
  Islamic dream interpretation, ta'bir al-ru'ya, has a tradition over a thousand years old, with Ibn Sirin its best-known name.
• Jewish
  In Judaism dreams have a long history, from Jacob's ladder and Joseph's dreams to a whole chapter in the Talmud. A dream counts there as one-sixtieth of prophecy: sometimes meaningful, often simply the thoughts of your own heart.
• Santería
  In Santería, also called Regla de Ocha or Lucumí, dreams are read through the energy of the Orishas and the presence of the ancestors.
• Vodou
  In Haitian Vodou dreams are one of the main ways the lwa and the ancestors speak with the living. A dream is therefore read not only as symbol, but as a possible visit: who is coming, and what is being asked?
• Wicca
  In Wicca and nature-based practice, dreams are read through the elements, the moon's phase and the wheel of the year.
• Winti
  Winti is the Surinamese spiritual tradition in which dreams are one of the ways the ancestors and the winti speak to the living.