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Dreams have been interpreted for four thousand years, and the old dream books agree more than you would expect. Search below for what you dreamed — a snake, a flood, a lost tooth, a flight — and read its traditional meaning. This is the folklore of dreams, offered as the almanacs offered it: for reflection and entertainment.
Dream interpretation is one of the oldest written arts. The Egyptians kept a dream book — the Chester Beatty papyrus, copied around 1275 BC, lists dreams and whether each is good or bad. The Assyrians compiled theirs on clay tablets. And the classic of the whole tradition is Greek: the Oneirocritica of Artemidorus of Daldis (2nd century AD), a working interpreter's handbook in five books — the only ancient manual of its kind to survive whole, and the direct ancestor of every dream dictionary since, including this one.
Artemidorus's own rules are still the sensible ones: the same symbol means different things to different dreamers (a sea-voyage dream matters more to a sailor), the whole dream matters more than one image, and a dream usually speaks about the dreamer's present life, not the distant future. The entries above follow the consensus of the tradition — Artemidorus, the medieval dream books, and the Victorian almanac dictionaries that carried the lore into ordinary homes.
Modern psychology reads dreams differently — as the mind processing memory and feeling rather than sending coded messages — and nothing here is a prediction or a diagnosis. Treat the entries the way readers have for centuries: as a mirror to think with. If a reading rings true, the truth it rings is yours.
It is the most commonly reported dream in the world. The traditional reading, from Artemidorus onward, ties teeth to your household, your standing and your resources — so the dream speaks of anxiety about loss, appearance or security. It is a report of a worry, not a prediction of an event.
The classical interpreters were more cautious than their reputation: Artemidorus distinguished dreams that picture the present from the rare "theorematic" dreams that show things directly. Modern science treats dreams as the sleeping brain sorting experience and emotion. The dictionary here gives the traditional meanings for reflection and entertainment.
Because interpreters always adjusted for the dreamer — Artemidorus insisted on it. This dictionary prints the mainstream traditional reading and, where the tradition itself splits (fire, snakes, gold), it says so in the entry.
A bright rising sun, a rainbow after storm, and calm clear water head almost every list from the Egyptian book onward. If you dreamed one of those, the old interpreters would simply congratulate you.