ABSTRACT
Ancient and medieval dream interpreters were concerned only with the here and now or with the impending future. They would have found odd the modern notion that dreams can shed light on a dreamer's past. Nearly every person, no matter his or her educational training, philosophical tenets, religion, social status, and cultural background, accepted this concept. Cultural appreciation of dreams may also explain the repeated use of dreams and visions in the New Testament apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, works that were meant for a wide-reading, popular audience, primarily Gentile in background. Dreams had a checkered history throughout the formation and growth of Christianity. The Orthodox Church did not trust dreams for reasons other than fear that heretics could use them to advance and validate their false doctrines and theology. During the Byzantine period, the Eastern Greek Church held, at first, a very favorable attitude toward dreams for several reasons: dreams were too much a part of Greek cultural heritage dismissed out.
