I've just started reading "The Interpretation of Dreams" by Artemidorus. It is such a fascinating glimpse into ancient Greek attitudes and practices of divination. The thing I love most about it so far is that Artemidorus stresses the importance of understanding the culture and context of the dreamer themself. What wearing the color white, for instance, means may differ from person to person based on the culture they hail from, as well as their personal associations with such dress. So the meaning of wearing white in a dream is different for someone who wears white clothing everyday versus someone who always wears colorful patterns.
I love this acknowledgment and this approach to divinatory work, even beyond dream interpretation. In my own experience, I think of my work as a rune reader. The runes all have general associations or meanings that are largely agreed upon, but each reader has their own relationship and associations with each rune. My interpretation of ingwaz may read a little differently than it would for someone else. That's not to say either interpretation is more "correct" than the other. It's sort of like speaking with a regional accent. The meaning of the words is the same, it just sounds different coming from people from different regions. Equally, the specific associations the reader has may vary slightly from the querent's understanding of the rune. But the more information we know about someone, the more specific we can get in interpreting the rune's significance in regards to their particular situation. That's not to say our general reading without knowledge of the situation is incorrect or not useful. It just means it's harder to offer a more detailed reading. Though I think dream interpretation, more so than sortilege systems like runes, relies much more heavily on the knowledge of detail for the message to be understood.
Artemidorus also emphasizes the importance of recording the outcomes of interpreted dreams and relying on personal experience to inform your practice, which also very much resonates with my personal practices of divination. I always journal my readings so I can reflect on them and see how things came to pass. I refer to the divination I do for the year frequently because as each month passes, I see just how relevant the cards were to those months. And I build trust that the months ahead will come to pass as predicted. It's that experience that not only informs my continued practice (like certain tarot cards become associated with certain things), but also builds my confidence in my abilities which also helps others to be confident in your abilities, too.
This is such a fascinating text. I cannot wait to read more.
