ABSTRACT
Alongside the idea that the dream provided insight into individual health, the belief that dreams were predictive and could offer glimpses of the future of dreamers and their families was persistent in English culture throughout the early modern period. This chapter presents a more nuanced understanding of the major frameworks used to understand, decode and ascribe meaning to the dream − prediction or oneiromancy. By examining early modern English dreambooks and other works featuring oneiromancy, it traces the practice of oneiromancy from its classical and medieval roots and highlights the major techniques of divination used to decode the dream. Additionally, to shed new light on early modern understandings of dreams and people's predominant daily concerns, the prominent dream symbols and their corresponding interpretations are discussed, including the prevalent themes of death and the dead, love and sexuality, the dream body and gender. The time, day and season in which dreams occurred were important indicators of the truth-value of the dream.
