Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
ON DREAMS. [1] Here too we are bound to set forth the Christian position on dreams, as one of the events of sleep and among the soul's more considerable exertions — a soul we have already argued is perpetually active and perpetually at work, on account of its unresting motion, which is the very definition of divinity and immortality. So then, when rest comes to bodies, for whom rest is a proper solace, the soul, having no share in that solace which is not its own, does not rest — and if it is deprived of the work of the bodily members, it makes use of its own. [2] Picture a gladiator without weapons, or a charioteer without a chariot, going through all the motions and efforts of his craft: he fights, he competes, but it is an empty display. All the same, things appear to happen which nonetheless are seen not to happen; they occur in the acting of them, but not in any actual effect. [3] This power we call ecstasy — a stepping-outside of the senses, akin to madness. So it was that from the very first, sleep was paired with this ecstasy: "and the Lord cast a trance over Adam, and he was made to sleep." For rest comes upon the body, while ecstasy befalls the soul in opposition to rest; and from that point on, a single pattern has blended sleep with ecstasy, and nature has taken its form from that pattern. [4] Hence we are both delighted and saddened and terrified in our dreams, and how deeply we feel it, how anxiously, how passively — even though nothing has actually moved us — mere empty images though they be, if we dreamed with our full faculties intact. Hence too, good deeds performed in dreams are without merit, and offenses committed there are without guilt; we shall no more be condemned for a vision of fornication than we shall be crowned for one of martyrdom. [5] "But how," you ask, "does the soul remember its dreams, seeing that it cannot be said to be in full possession of itself?" This will be the peculiar mark of this kind of madness: that it does not arise from any corruption of sound health, but from the very reason of nature; for it does not banish the mind but merely calls it away. To shake is one thing, to move another; to overturn is one thing, to stir up another. [6] So then, that memory remains available is a mark of a sound mind; that a sound mind, with memory intact, should nonetheless be stunned, is a kind of madness. That is why we are said not to rave but to dream; and that is also why we are sometimes, even then, sensible. For our wits, though overshadowed, are not extinguished — except that this too can seem, at such a time, to lie idle, while ecstasy for its own part still works upon it, so as to bring us images of wisdom in just the same way as it brings us images of error.