Ever since the beginning of written records, dreams by members of the ruling elite have been preserved for political and religious purposes. The use of dreams for the communication between gods and kings persisted through the ages, and left a tangible cultural legacy. This use is well documented in the largest Sumerian clay cylinders ever discovered, made around 2125 BCE by King Gudea of Sumer, with cuneiform inscriptions representing the longest known Sumerian text as well as one of the oldest written records in all human history.

When he actually did wake up the following day, Gudea was confused about the meaning of the dream. He decided to consult Nanshe, the Sumerian goddess of prophecy and dream interpretation. He performed a series of rituals on his way to the goddess's temple, and when he arrived there, he recounted his dream.

He received the explanation that the giant represented the god Ninurta ordering the construction of a temple in honor of the god Eninnu. The woman represented the goddess Nidaba, who recommended that the temple be aligned astronomically according to the sacred stars. The warrior was the architect-god Nindub, with specific instructions for the plan of the building. The donkey was Gudea himself, impatient to raise up the architectural work that had been thus revealed.

The details of the foundations and the construction materials were specified in subsequent dreams, which were incubated through propitiatory rituals. The temple was constructed in the city of Girsu, and it was under its ruins, which still exist in Iraq, that the Gudea cylinders were found.

SOURCE: Sidarta Ribeiro's The Oracle of Night: the History and Science of Dreams p.53.

EDITOR'S NOTE

Twenty-plus years ago when I was expanding this site beyond my own dreams, I recall finding Gudea's dream online... and rejecting it. Ancient, full of strange gods... but with all the excitement and wonder of a building contract. Of course, that's exactly what it was. Gudea saw himself not as a king but a mediator between the real executive branch (the gods) and local contractors who need clear job specs to actually build the project.

This view of ruler's responsibilities was widespread--Pharaoh's dreams help guide Egypt through famine in the Biblical tale of Joseph; Pu Songling tells how Viceroy Zhou incubated a dream to catch a murderous gang. I still find Gudea stodgy next to such dramatic cases.

Stodgy but practical. Gudea got the job done.

He scores at least one 'first'. This is the earliest recorded false waking or nested dream--and the second 'awakened' dream does its best to clarify the cryptic earlier dream-within-the-dream. Not quite what we'd call lucid or self-flagging or self-interpreting; but close. All his gods clearly cooperated to get the message through. Including Nanshe, goddess of dream interpretation. Her temple's reading makes sense--though with symbols as blatant as architectural plans and a brick-mold, it's hard to misread.

And Gudea has a sense of humor. The gods may have wings or a glowing stylus or lapis tablets, but he dreams himself as... an ass. Purebred, an aristocratic ass, but just a bearer of burdens ready to get on with a job.

To us, Mesopotamian civic planning based on dreams may look asinine (sorry), but the system worked. 4000 years from now, will we be remembered?

--Chris Wayan--

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