guided until awakened. abrahamic jacob's dream of a ladder of angels, c. 1690. michael willmann in judaism, dreams are considered part of the experience of the world that can be interpreted and from which lessons can be garnered. it is discussed in the talmud, tractate berachot 55–60. the ancient hebrews connected their dreams heavily with their religion, though the hebrews were monotheistic and believed that dreams were the voice of one god alone. hebrews also differentiated between good dreams (from god) and bad dreams (from evil spirits). the hebrews, like many other ancient cultures, incubated dreams in order to receive a divine revelation. for example, the hebrew prophet samuel would "lie down and sleep in the temple at shiloh before the ark and receive the word of the lord". most of the dreams in the bible are in the book of genesis. christians mostly shared the beliefs of the hebrews and thought that dreams were of a supernatural character because the old testament includes frequent stories of dreams with divine inspiration. the most famous of these dream stories was jacob's dream of a ladder that stretches from earth to heaven. many christians preach that god can speak to people through their dreams. the famous glossary, the somniale danielis, written in the name of daniel, attempted to teach christian populations to interpret their dreams. iain r. edgar has researched the role of dreams in islam. he has argued that dreams play an important role in the history of islam and the lives of muslims, since dream interpretation is the only way that muslims can receive revelations from god since the death of the last prophet, muhammad. according to edgar, islam classifies three types of dreams. firstly, there is the true dream (al-ru’ya), then the false dream, which may come from the devil (shaytan), and finally, the meaningless everyday dream (hulm). this last dream could be brought forth by the dreamer's ego or base appetite based on what they experienced in the real world. the true dream is often indicated by islam's hadith tradition. in one narration by aisha, the wife of the prophet, it is said that the prophet's dreams would come true like the ocean's waves. just as in its predecessors, the quran also recounts the story of joseph and his unique ability to interpret dreams. buddhist in buddhism, ideas about dreams are similar to the classical and folk traditions in south asia. the same dream is sometimes experienced by multiple people, as in the case of the buddha-to-be, before he is leaving his home. it is described in the mahāvastu that several of the buddha's relatives had premonitory dreams preceding this. some dreams are also seen to transcend time: the buddha-to-be has certain dreams that are the same as those of previous buddhas, the lalitavistara states. in buddhist literature, dreams often function as a "signpost" motif to mark certain stages in the life of the main character. buddhist views about dreams are expressed in the pāli commentaries and the milinda pañhā. other dreaming of the tiger spring (虎跑夢泉) statue at hupao spring (hupaomengquan) in hangzhou, zhejiang, china. in chinese history, people wrote of two vital aspects of the soul of which one is freed from the body during slumber to journey in a dream realm, while the other remained in the body. this belief and dream interpretation had been questioned since early times, such as by the philosopher wang chong (27–97 ce). the babylonians and assyrians divided dreams into "good," which were sent by the gods, and "bad," sent by demons. a surviving collection of dream omens entitled iškar zaqīqu records various dream scenarios as well as prognostications of what will happen to the person who experiences each dream, apparently based on previous cases. some list different possible outcomes, based on occasions in which people experienced similar dreams with different results. the greeks shared their beliefs with the egyptians on how to interpret good and bad dreams, and the idea of incubating dreams. morpheus, the greek god of dreams, also sent warnings and prophecies to those who slept at shrines and temples. the earliest greek beliefs about dreams were that their gods physically visited the dreamers, where they entered through a keyhole, exiting the same way after the divine message was given. antiphon wrote the first known greek book on dreams in the 5th century bce. in that century, other cultures influenced greeks to develop the belief that souls left the sleeping body. hippocrates (469–399 bce) had a simple dream theory: during the day, the soul receives images; during the night, it produces images. greek philosopher aristotle (384–322 bce) believed dreams caused physiological activity. he thought dreams could analyze illness and predict diseases. marcus tullius cicero, for his part, believed that all dreams are produced by thoughts and conversations a dreamer had during the preceding days. cicero's somnium scipionis described a lengthy dream vision, which in turn was commented on by macrobius in his commentarii in somnium scipionis. herodotus in his the histories, writes "the visions that occur to us in dreams are, more often than not, the things we have been concerned about during the day." the dreaming is a common term within the animist creation narrative of indigenous australians for a personal, or group, creation and for what may be understood as the "timeless time" of formative creation and perpetual creating. some indigenous american tribes and mexican populations believe that dreams are a way of visiting and having contact with their ancestors. some native american tribes have used vision quests as a rite of passage, fasting and praying until an anticipated guiding dream was received, to be shared with the rest of the tribe upon their return. interpretation further information: psychoanalysis and precognition joseph interprets pharaoh's dream c. 1896–1902. jacques joseph tissot (1836–1902). beginning in the late 19th century, austrian neurologist sigmund freud, founder of psychoanalysis, theorized that dreams reflect the dreamer's unconscious mind and specifically that dream content is shaped by unconscious wish fulfillment. he argued that important unconscious desires often relate to early childhood memories and experiences. carl jung and others expanded on freud's idea that dream content reflects the dreamer's unconscious desires. dream interpretation can be a result of subjective ideas and experiences. one study found that most people believe that "their dreams reveal meaningful hidden truths". the researchers surveyed students in the united states, south korea, and india, and found that 74% of indians, 65% of south koreans and 56% of americans believed their dream content provided them with meaningful insight into their unconscious beliefs and desires. this freudian view of dreaming was believed significantly more than theories of dreaming that attribute dream content to memory consolidation, problem-solving, or as a byproduct of unrelated brain activity. the same study found that people attribute more importance to dream content than to similar thought content that occurs while they are awake. americans were more likely to report that they would intentionally miss their flight if they dreamt of their plane crashing than if they thought of their plane crashing the night before flying (while awake), and that they would be as likely to miss their flight if they dreamt of their plane crashing the night before their flight as if there was an actual plane crash on the route they intended to take. participants in the study were more likely to perceive dreams to be meaningful when the content of dreams was in accordance with their beliefs and desires while awake. they were more likely to view a positive dream about a friend to be meaningful than a positive dream about someone they disliked, for example, and were more likely to view a negative dream about a person they disliked as meaningful than a negative dream about a person they liked. according to surveys, it is common for people to feel their dreams are predicting subsequent life events. psychologists have explained these experiences in terms of memory biases, namely a selective memory for accurate predictions and distorted memory so that dreams are retrospectively fitted onto life experiences. the multi-faceted nature of dreams makes it easy to find connections between dream content and real events. the term "veridical dream" has been used to indicate dreams that reveal or contain truths not yet known to the dreamer, whether future events or secrets. in one experiment, subjects were asked to write down their dreams in a diary. this prevented the selective memory effect, and the dreams no longer seemed accurate about the future. another experiment gave subjects a fake diary of a student with apparently precognitive dreams. this diary described events from the person's life, as well as some predictive dreams and some non-predictive dreams. when subjects were asked to recall the dreams they had read, they remembered more of the successful predictions than unsuccessful ones. images and literature graphic artists, writers and filmmakers all have found dreams to offer a rich vein for creative expression. in the west, artists' depictions of dreams in renaissance and baroque art often were related to biblical narrative. especially preferred by visual artists were the jacob's ladder dream in genesis and st. joseph's dreams in the gospel according to matthew. nicolas dipre. le songe de jacob. c.1500 avignon, petit palais. josé de ribera (1591–1652). el sueño de jacob, from prado in google earth raphael. jacob's dream (1518) rembrandt. dream of joseph (1645) anton raphael mengs. traum des hl. joseph (1773 or 1774) many later graphic artists have depicted dreams, including japanese woodblock artist hokusai (1760–1849) and western european painters rousseau (1844–1910), picasso (1881–1973), and dali (1904–1989). in literature, dream frames were frequently used in medieval allegory to justify the narrative; the book of the duchess and the vision concerning piers plowman are two such dream visions. even before them, in antiquity, the same device had been used by cicero and lucian of samosata. the cheshire cat, john tenniel (1820–1914), illustration in alice's adventures in wonderland, 1866 edition. dreams have also featured in fantasy and speculative fiction since the 19th century. one of the best-known dream worlds is wonderland from lewis carroll's alice's adventures in wonderland, as well as looking-glass land from its sequel, through the looking-glass. unlike many dream worlds, carroll's logic is like that of actual dreams, with transitions and flexible causality. other fictional dream worlds include the dreamlands of h. p. lovecraft's dream cycle and the neverending story's world of fantastica, which includes places like the desert of lost dreams, the sea of possibilities and the swamps of sadness. dreamworlds, shared hallucinations and other alternate realities feature in a number of works by philip k. dick, such as the three stigmata of palmer eldritch and ubik. similar themes were explored by jorge luis borges, for instance in the circular ruins. modern popular culture often conceives of dreams, as did freud, as expressions of the dreamer's deepest fears and desires. in speculative fiction, the line between dreams and reality may be blurred even more in service to the story. dreams may be psychically invaded or manipulated (dreamscape, 1984; the nightmare on elm street films, 1984–2010; inception, 2010) or even come literally true (as in the lathe of heaven, 1971). lucidity main article: lucid dream lucid dreaming is the conscious perception of one's state while dreaming. in this state the dreamer may often have some degree of control over their own actions within the dream or even the characters and the environment of the dream. dream control has been reported to improve with practiced deliberate lucid dreaming, but the ability to control aspects of the dream is not necessary for a dream to qualify as "lucid"—a lucid dream is any dream during which the dreamer knows they are dreaming. the occurrence of lucid dreaming has been scientifically verified. "oneironaut" is a term sometimes used for those who lucidly dream. in 1975, psychologist keith hearne successfully recorded a communication from a dreamer experiencing a lucid dream. on april 12, 1975, after agreeing to move his eyes left and right upon becoming lucid, the subject and hearne's co-author on the resulting article, alan worsley, successfully carried out this task. years later, psychophysiologist stephen laberge conducted similar work including: using eye signals to map the subjective sense of time in dreams. comparing the electrical activity of the brain while singing awake and while