Last Sanctum of Archetypes

Abstract

Despite numerous attempts to integrate dream research into a vast array of scientific disciplines, there appears to be no consensus on why and how we dream. This millennia-old universal human phenomenon appears to be too elusive to be thoroughly understood by a single scientific discipline and too complex and data-rich to be studied only theoretically. However, another dimension to dreams and dreaming could promise an integrative approach: the culture-historical component that merges with recent advances in Artificial Intelligence. This paper briefly examines conceptual understandings of dreams before the dawn of modern science – specifically, the Native American, Mesopotamian, ancient Greek, and Hippocratic principles of dream practices and knowledge – in an attempt to understand the contemporary dream research field better and to outline future avenues for a data-driven approach while remaining grounded in its epistemological foundation.