ABSTRACT
Over the centuries, dreamers in different historical contexts have wrestled with questions about the meaning of their own dreams and those of other people. This chapter focuses on the dreams of early modern women, and raises questions about how we as historians can use their recounted dreams to gain insights into their lives. For many years I have been interested in exploring the potential of different kinds of sources for understanding women’s lives and have been collecting records of their dreams. Here I will focus on dreams that were linked with sleep, that women labelled as dreams, and that were not products of their waking minds. Thus some visions will be included, but day-dreams will be excluded, although women’s fantasies are a fascinating subject in their own right.1
