The interpretation of dreams by dream experts may be almost as old as dreaming itself. We know that all humans, and many animals, dream every night, and humans have always been fascinated to learn what causes dreams and what they mean. Freud rightly termed dreams "The Royal Road to the Unconscious". In the next few months I am going to build up a section on dreams which will allow you a far greater understanding of them. I begin toay with a basic introduction.

The interpretation of dreams dates back at least as far as 3000-4000 B.C. We know that because the interpretations of dreams were recorded in permanent form on clay tablets. It is thought that many primitive peoples were unable to initially distinguish between the real world and the dream world. In many cases, these people looked upon the dream world as an extension of the physical world around them, and in many cases they saw the dream world as more powerful than the waking one. This of course could be said to have a lot of credibility because what we do not acknowledge in ourselves does tend to come up from the unconscious and affect our lives when we least expect it. Many early societies developed sophisticated ways of working with dreams. This is where the ideas of "creative dreaming" and "lucid dreaming"comes from

Dream interpretation was so important to the ancient Greek and Roman's that dream interpreters often accompanied generals and other military leaders into battles. Dreams were taken extremely seriously, and the Greeks and Romans in particular often viewed dreams as messages sent by their gods. Dreams also had a religious content in ancient Egypt, and priests were alsoskilled dream interpreters. They were among the items recorded by the ancient Egyptians in the form of hieroglyphics. Those whose dreams were especially vivid or significant were thought to be blessed and were given