Ancient Egyptian dream books: letters of the dead from the sleeping kingdom

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Egypt is a country of mysteries and legends, legends and magic, countless tombs and texts captured in papyrus scrolls. It is there, in Egypt, that the origins of modern culture, religion and art lie. From there, images of ancient kings and queens, gods, omnipotent sages and nameless beauties come to our world. It is not surprising that it was there that the first dream books in the history of mankind were created …

For the ancient Egyptians, the dream space is an endless ocean filled with a wide variety of creatures: these are gods, deceased ancestors and other sleeping people - on the one hand, and evil spirits, ghosts and the damned who have not passed the afterlife judgment of the gods, on the other.

In a dream, according to ancient texts, secret and inaccessible areas of the universe were revealed to a person, in a dream the gods-defenders appeared to him, dreams had the most effective influence on a person's daily life, carried information about the future, guided and warned.

Contacts with entities from the world of dreams, often unpredictable, if the dreamer was not prepared for them, were considered quite dangerous: the dream space was directly connected with the forces of night and time, when the established laws of daytime did not rule over the world, and therefore it is very dangerous during many things are unpredictable, even for the gods.

In ancient Egyptian, sleep is resut; this word comes from the root res, meaning "wake up", "get up", because the Egyptians imagined dreams in a completely different way: for them, sleep was a special state of consciousness in which the sleeper "woke up" inside the dream space and saw what was in it going on.

By the time of awakening in the ordinary world, the sleeper "fell asleep" in the dream space and, thus, returned to our waking space. For the Egyptians, the reality contained in the dream space was no less objective and tangible than the physical reality of this world, and therefore in the statement “I saw it in a dream” there was not a single drop of doubt about the reality of what they were able to see.

The dream could be good or bad, however, for the most part it was neutral in relation to the dreamer. Nightmares were a very special category of experiences and were associated with the negative impact of any creature that the dreamer encounters in the dream space, rather than with the very concept of sleep and its reality.

In the most remote depths of antiquity, the Egyptians tried to get in touch with another world. People came to the necropolis, to the tombs, brought food to the dead and left them "letters" asking for help in this or that matter. These "letters to the dead", inscribed on vessels and ceramic bowls, testifies to the belief that the dead are in the immediate vicinity of the gods, can act as mediators in the vital affairs of the living, and call for help.

The requests that were addressed to the other world in such "letters to the dead" are very diverse: basically, these are pleas for healing and the gift of healthy offspring, demands to stop quarrels or misfortunes in the house, to assist in litigation and court cases, or even to do something at the request of the living in the afterlife. Another way of contact with the other world was sleep: it was believed that the sleeper is able to see the deceased and, in turn, the deceased is able to see the sleeper.

In a dream, the living could “control” whether the deceased fulfilled the request, having received the corresponding sacrificial gifts for this. So, a certain Egyptian Merirtifi once wrote to his deceased beloved wife Nebetothef in another world, reminded her of how close their relationship was and asked her to help him get rid of the disease; hoping for healing, Merirtifi asks the deceased to appear to him in a dream - then in the morning she will receive a sacrifice in gratitude.

Another similar text, much more informative, was discovered near the ancient city of Abydos: a papyrus scroll dated to the 21st century. BC, was put in the burial of one of the relatives of the priest Meru, who was buried several years after the death of Meru himself in his tomb and, therefore, was supposed to convey a message to Meru.

All the characters mentioned in the letter are depicted on the walls of the tomb: the priest Meru himself, his son Heni and their house servant Seni. The author of the letter, Henie, who himself became a priest, appeals to his deceased father with a request to help him cope with the harmful spirit of the long-dead Senya, who comes to him in his dreams, worries and even injures him. Most of all, Henie insists that his father prevent Seni from following him in the dream space from now on.

The gaze of a dead person directed at a dreamer from another reality could lead to the most terrible health results and was the Egyptian version of the ubiquitous belief about the "evil eye". To combat the gaze of the dead, special texts were used, which dealt with the sacrifice made to God in order for him to act as the protector of the sleeping, often a child.

Such texts were written out on papyrus, which was then rolled up into a tube and placed in a miniature wooden case worn around the neck as a preventive measure against bad influences. According to the surviving ancient texts, gods, spirits, living people, the cursed dead, all snakes, the great serpent Apop himself, the spirit of chaos that lives in another world and tries to destroy the sun god Ra, were endowed with the ability to harm with a glance.

The idea of a piercing, destructive gaze is especially well shown in chapter 108 of the famous "Book of the Dead", where Apopus turns his gaze to Ra, which even stops the sun boat floating on the water. God Seth, who here acts as the protector of the solar deity, turns to the serpent of chaos with the demand to turn away: "… you, looking from afar, close your eyes!"

The eye of the serpent Apop, directed at the sun from the depths of another world, could cause irreparable harm to the deity, just as the “evil eye” of the deceased servant Seni pursued the priest Heni in a dream.

The sleeping space opens to the sleeper, regardless of what time of day he fell asleep. Most of the extant texts do not indicate the time of sleep, but it seems that naturally most of the dreams occurred at night.

Dead midnight was that part of the night when the consciousness was considered the most acute and ready to perceive visions, revelations and dreams. According to Egyptian ideas, at this time the sun boat was floating on the waters of the underworld; in the deepest darkness, which resembled the darkness in which the world was once created by the gods, at the moment when complete silence came, the voice of the creator god was heard. At this moment, you can hear, see and even invoke the desired deity, being heard.

The reverse side to midnight was noon, also a very special time when the gates between the worlds reopened and the spaces interacted. Once the king's son Thutmose stopped to rest after a hunt at the pyramids of Giza and fell asleep at noon, i.e. at the moment when, according to Egyptian ideas, the sun stops its movement across the heavens for a few moments. In this dream, he dreamed of the Great Sphinx, one of the incarnations of the sun god, who asked the prince to cleanse him of the advancing desert sands and promised in return for the throne of Egypt.

Waking up, the prince complied with the request and soon became pharaoh. The text of a stone stele installed in the 15th century tells about this. BC.by order of the reigning Thutmose IV between the paws of the Sphinx. However, noon was also considered a time when magical rituals become especially effective, and therefore just as dangerous for ordinary people as midnight. There were special spells to protect against midday spirits.

The dream space was the source of symbolic visions with hidden meaning, which the ordinary Egyptian needed to interpret in order to understand their true meaning. Several large-scale Egyptian dream books have survived to this day; the oldest of them dates back to the 13th century. BC. - the time of the reign of Pharaoh Ramses II.

A unique scroll of papyrus was discovered in 1928, together with other magical, administrative, everyday and literary texts in the area of Deir el-Medine, on the western bank of the Nile opposite Luxor, in a cache built in the mass of a small pyramid installed above the tomb in the necropolis of the craftsmen who built tombs of the pharaohs in the Valley of the Kings.

These papyrus scrolls were part of the archives of the well-known tsarist scribe Kenkhepeshef, a very educated man whom the tsarist masters feared and highly respected, since the scribe, according to rumors, often practiced witchcraft.

The interpretation of dreams in Kencherhepeshef's dream book is based in most cases on wordplay, mythological episodes, the experience of ritual practice and the ethical norms of the era. The text is very large and man-centered: male and female dream books in Egypt differed, but not significantly. What is especially curious, the text contains interpretations of some dreams very close to

Seth, beating the demon-snake Apophis at the nose of the Solar boat in another

those that are known in the Russian tradition. Here are some excerpts from the translation of the text:

“If a person sees himself in a dream chewing lotus leaves, it’s good, it means something that he will be happy about.

If a person sees himself shooting at a target in a dream, it is good, it means that something good will happen to him.

If a person sees himself in a dream looking out the window, it is good, this means that his call will be heard by his god.

If a person sees himself in a dream on the roof, it’s good, it means that something will be found.

If a person sees himself in a dream with lengthened hair, it’s good, it means something that will make his face shine.

If a person sees himself in a dream crossing by boat, it is good, it means overcoming all disputes.

If a person sees himself in a dream killing a bull, it is good, this means that his enemies will be killed.

If a person sees himself tearing his clothes in a dream, it is good, this means that he will be freed from everything bad.

If a person sees himself dead in a dream, it is good, it means that a long life is in front of him.

If a person sees himself in a dream sitting in a garden under the rays of the sun, it is good, it means pleasure.

If a person sees himself in a dream looking at the moon when it shines, it is good, it means that his god will be merciful to him.

If a person sees himself burying an elderly person in a dream, it is good, it means prosperity.

If a person sees himself buried alive in a dream, it is good, it means joyful prosperity.

If a person sees himself drinking warm beer in a dream, it is bad, it means that suffering will spread over him.

If a person sees himself in a dream looking at his face in the mirror, it is bad, it means another wife.

If a person sees himself copulating with a woman in a dream, it is bad, it means sadness.

If a person sees himself bitten by a dog in a dream, it is bad, it means that he will be touched by magic.

If a person sees himself bitten by a snake in a dream, it is bad, this means that the dispute will turn against him.

If a person sees himself rushing about in his house in a dream, it is bad, this means that he will be sick.

If a person sees himself in a dream as a prickly thorny plant, it is bad, it means uttering a lie.

If a person sees himself in a dream looking into a deep well, it is bad, it means that he will be sent to prison.

If a person sees himself in a dream filling pots (?), It is bad, this means that he will be in pain.

If a person sees in a dream his teeth falling out in front of him, it is bad, it means that one of his loved ones will die.

If a person sees himself closing his house in a dream, it is bad, it means rejection.

If a person sees himself in a dream as an appointed official, it is bad, it means that death is approaching and is near.

If a person sees himself in a dream seeing the sky with rain, it is bad, this means that quarrels will begin against him.

If a person sees a burning fire in a dream, it is bad, it means that his son or his brother will be taken away.

If a person sees himself drinking blood in a dream, it is bad, it means that a struggle is coming for him.

If a person sees himself in a dream extinguishing a fire with water, it is bad, it means that his property will run out."

Especially significant and rare were dreams in which deities appeared in front of the sleeper. Such a dream carried the fulfillment of desires, healing or some important information. For example, the nobleman Jhutiemkhebu, who lived in Thebes in the XIII century. BC. and who fell asleep near the sacred mountain of the goddess of love Hathor, the goddess not only appeared, but also honored the rare honor of hearing her speech and showed the man the location of his future tomb, advising him not to move from the place where he slept “when the earth was in silence, in deep in the night."

Dreams seen in sacred places, or in the premises of the temple, have always been considered especially significant in Egypt. Ancient Egyptian culture was well aware of the incubation rituals, during which a person who wanted to receive an answer to his question or healing directly from the deity spent the night in a special place, be it a temple or some other shrine.

The key to success in the ritual was both the sanctity of the chosen place, and the person's faith and his persistent desire to get in touch with the deity. The place of incubation was most often temples or special underground “sleep galleries” in necropolises, on the walls of which inscriptions were found left by pilgrims grateful for the desired appearance of a deity in a dream.

If we only guess about many rituals of interpreting good dreams due to the rarity and complexity of translating complex texts, then quite a lot is known about the methods of expelling nightmares. However, steles are not mentioned about them and we know about them from papyri with texts of amulets-prayers or indirect material: a bad dream or the horrors of the night in no case could be immortalized in stone; on the contrary, they had to be destroyed and destroyed with the help of magic and the power of the gods.

The earliest mention of how to defeat a bad dream is contained in the famous private library of a magician buried under the Ramesseum and dates back to the 18th century. BC. The papyrus is badly damaged, but it is clear that it contains a spell against "all bad dreams seen at night."

Other texts mention the merciful goddess Isis, who ruled over spells and could protect the sleeping person like her own child. Isis calls on the awakened from a bad dream not to move, since, probably, his reason may still be nearby and, which is very important, not to talk about what disturbed the sleeper, i.e. not translating the dream into reality with words. Isis, according to the text, summons fire, destroying evil spirits and dispelling darkness. A bad dream is withdrawn, and in its place the goddess places a good one.

The Leiden Museum contains a scroll called "The Book of Deliverance from the Nightmares That Come to Fall on a Man in the Night". It is curious that the nightmares were presented as a kind of mass that can "fall" on a person, "suppress" him. The cause of the nightmare lay outside the world of the living, in areas inhabited by spirits and aggressive dead that touched a person during his stay in the dream space. The most important thing was to prevent the nightmare from looking at the sleeping person, to make him turn away, and therefore not to reward him with the "evil eye".

On the other hand, the demons of the night, according to other texts, for example, in the "Spell for Mother and Child", on the contrary, sometimes come, turning away, so as not to be recognized; the demon is described as "one who comes in pitch darkness, who enters creeping - his nose behind him, his face tilted back." Protecting the sleeping person, all bodies, forms and constituent parts of the demonic essence are banished and cursed.

Fire was considered an important weapon against the nightmares of the night. The already cited text of the Leiden papyrus describes a universe engulfed in fire, in which nightmares have no place of salvation and no refuge.

An additional means of protection against bad dreams were magical images on the headrests, curly legs of the beds and their footboards. Despite the fact that the inscriptions on these objects do not directly mention nightmares, we are clearly talking about them, since these objects were intended primarily for sleep.

Especially popular in this context were the images of the dwarf Bes exorcising evil spirits, which, as already mentioned, was associated in Egypt with the rituals of the sacred sleep. Texts that complement the images of Bes and others armed with knives, spears and snakes of the guardian spirits on the headrests often wish the sleeper good dreams. The goddess Neith was also considered the protector of the sleeping people, shooting nightmares with her arrows.

Dreams, judging by the few and very poorly preserved texts, could be seen by the gods. It is worth mentioning the fact that in Ancient Egypt there was no special deity responsible for sleep and the space of sleep; this wonderful world, where the forces of the gods, living and dead people interact, was in many ways unknowable and endless. The world of sleep has no limits, like the ocean, from which the gods rose, who created the world and gave people magic and intuition so that they could defend themselves from the space of night.