ABSTRACT
Dreams in the miracle collections not only have a narrative significance; they are also esthetic vehicles that provide spirituality and religious instruction which function as remedies for both bodily and psychic illness. In the extract from On Being Ill Virginia Woolf refers to the spiritual change that it [illness] brings. At the very center of an early Byzantine healing miracle story lies the ill protagonist's dream, or a series of dreams, through which he or she is cured, and as a result the narrative reaches its closure. Some healing saints, such as Artemius and Photeine, specialize in particular illnesses; the former cured hernias and testicular and genital diseases, the latter eye problems. Healing dreams, like all dreams incorporated in Byzantine literature, are independent narrative units with a beginning, middle, and end. The healing dreams structure includes various dramatic elements: exposition, role playing, dialogues, peripeteia, tragic irony, crisis, anagnrisis, and lysis.
