Oneiroi

The Oneiroi (Dreams) were the personified dreams of Greek myth. In Hesiod they are a whole tribe born from Night without a father, siblings of Sleep and Death. Later poets gave names to some of them, and Homer and Virgil describe the gates through which true and false dreams reach the sleeper.

Parents and Siblings

Hesiod says that Night bore hateful Moros (Doom), black Ker and Thanatos (Death); she also bore Hypnos (Sleep) and the tribe of the Oneiroi, and she bore them without lying with any god (Hesiod, Theogony 211–213). Night then bore Momus (Blame) and painful Oizys (Distress), the Hesperides, the Fates (Moirai) and the Keres, Nemesis, Apate (Deceit), Geras (Old Age) and Eris (Strife) (Theogony 214–225). Hesiod does not list the dreams by name. Night herself came from Chaos (Theogony 123).

Hesiod also places Night’s sons Sleep and Death in her house in the dark underworld, where the sun never shines on them. Sleep is gentle and kind to men; Death has a heart of iron and one of bronze in his breast (Theogony 756–766).

Dreams in Homer

In the Iliad, Zeus sends a single Dream (Oneiros), a “baneful” one, to Agamemnon. The Dream takes the shape of Nestor and tells the king to arm the Achaeans, because Zeus has decided that Troy will fall (Homer, Iliad 2.5–34). Here the Dream is a messenger sent by Zeus.

In the last book of the Odyssey, Hermes leads the souls of the dead suitors past the streams of Oceanus, the White Rock, the gates of the Sun and the people of dreams (Homer, Odyssey 24.11–14).

The Gates of Horn and Ivory

Penelope tells the disguised Odysseus that dreams are hard to interpret, and that not all of them come true: there are two gates for fleeting dreams, one of horn and one of ivory. Those that come through the sawn ivory deceive and bring words that are not fulfilled; those that come through the polished horn bring true things to pass for the mortal who sees them (Homer, Odyssey 19.559–567).

Virgil uses the same image at the end of the sixth book of the Aeneid. There are two gates of Sleep, one of horn, through which true shades are given an easy way out, and one of shining white ivory, through which the spirits of the dead send false dreams up to the world. Anchises takes the Sibyl and Aeneas out through the ivory gate (Virgil, Aeneid 6.893–898). Elsewhere in the underworld Aeneas sees a great shady elm, where vain dreams are said to dwell, clinging under every leaf (Aeneid 6.282–284).

Morpheus, Phobetor and Phantasos

In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the dreams are the thousand sons of Sleep (Somnus), not of Night. Sleep wakes one of them, Morpheus, an artist at imitating human shape, walk, face, voice and even clothes. Another takes the form of a wild beast, a bird or a snake, and is called Icelos by the gods and Phobetor by mortals. A third, Phantasos, turns himself into earth, rock, water and trees, things without life. These three show themselves to kings and leaders; other dreams visit the common people. Sleep chooses Morpheus to carry the message to Halcyone (Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.633–649).

Dreams in Tragedy

Euripides, in the Hecuba, calls Earth the “mother of black-winged dreams” (Euripides, Hecuba 68–72), where Hecuba, frightened by a vision in the night, calls on Earth to send her dream away.

Oneiroi Sources

Hesiod, Theogony 211–225, 756–766; Homer, Iliad 2.5–34; Homer, Odyssey 19.559–567, 24.11–14; Virgil, Aeneid 6.282–284, 6.893–898; Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.633–649; Euripides, Hecuba 68–72.

See Also: Nyx, Hypnos, Thanatos, Morpheus, Moirai, Nemesis, Eris, Erebus