oneiromancy

noun

1. (uncountable)Divination by the interpretation of dreams.

   “The absence of oneiromancy among the divinatory techniques is justified by the fact that it occupies in Islam a higher place than that of divination in the sphere of religious inspiration.”

   “7. Did Aristotle's attitude to oneiromancy change? / In the foregoing sections we sketched the consistent and lucid oneirology which various indirect sources attribute to Aristotle.”

   “2. Deductive Oneiromancy / This form of oneiromancy aims to decipher the messages contained in ordinary, everyday dreams, messages thought to presage future events in the life of the dreamer.”

2. (broadly, uncountable)The interpretation of dreams.

   “The general tenor of ideas in dreaming is the same as that with which the mind is occupied awake; and thus may be revealed, in dreams, the state of the mind, the secret hopes and wishes, the profoundly hidden thought, and often the circumstances of the dreamer. The knowledge of this fact, and its dextrous application, by an acute observer, with the credulous, compose the art of oneiromancy.”

3. (countable)An act of such divination or dream-interpretation.

   “[…] Minerva must never be confused with Santa Maria, for all that they occupy the same discursive space, for all that they must occupy the same position in [Sigmund] Freud's account of the mind, any more than The Interpretation of Dreams can be confused with oneiromancies and dream-books of the past, or Freud's account of the Eternal City with [René] Descartes's.”