Dream interpretation in the context of "The Interpretation of Dreams"

A dream is a succession of images, dynamic scenes and situations, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around 5–20 minutes, although the dreamer may perceive the dream as being much longer.

The content and function of dreams have been topics of scientific, philosophical and religious interest throughout recorded history. Dream interpretation, practiced by the Babylonians in the third millennium BCE and even earlier by the ancient Sumerians, figures prominently in religious texts in several traditions, and has played a lead role in psychotherapy. Dreamwork is similar, but does not seek to conclude with definite meaning. The scientific study of dreams is called oneirology. Most modern dream study focuses on the neurophysiology of dreams and on proposing and testing hypotheses regarding dream function. It is not known where in the brain dreams originate, if there is a single origin for dreams or if multiple regions of the brain are involved, or what the purpose of dreaming is for the body (or brain or mind).

Joseph (/ˈdʒoʊzəf, -səf/; Hebrew: יוֹסֵף, romanized: Yōsēp̄, lit. 'He shall add') was a dream interpreter and considered an important Hebrew figure in the Bible's Book of Genesis.

Joseph was the first of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel, making him Jacob's twelfth named child and eleventh son. He is the founder of the Tribe of Joseph among the Israelites. His story functions as an explanation for Israel's residence in Egypt. He is the favourite son of the patriarch Jacob, and his envious brothers sell him into slavery in Biblical Egypt, where he eventually ends up incarcerated. After correctly interpreting the dreams of Pharaoh, he rises to second-in-command in Egypt and saves Egypt during a famine. Jacob's family travels to Egypt to escape the famine, and it is through him that they are given leave to settle in the Land of Goshen (the eastern part of the Nile Delta).

Dreamwork is the exploration of the images and emotions that a dream presents and evokes. It differs from classical dream interpretation in that it does not attempt to establish a unique meaning for the dream. In this way the dream remains "alive" whereas if it has been assigned a specific meaning, it is "finished" (i.e., over and done with). Dreamworkers take the position that a dream may have a variety of meanings depending on the levels (e.g. subjective, objective) that are being explored.

A belief of dreamwork is that each person has their own dream "language". Any given place, person, object, or symbol can differ in its meaning from dreamer to dreamer and also from time to time in the dreamer's ongoing life situation. Thus someone helping a dreamer get closer to their dream through dreamwork adopts an attitude of "not knowing" as far as possible.

In the field of psychology, the subfield of oneirology (/ɒnaɪˈrɒlədʒi/; from Ancient Greek ὄνειρον (oneiron) 'dream' and -λογία (-logia) 'the study of') is the scientific study of dreams. Research seeks correlations between dreaming and knowledge about the functions of the brain, as well as an understanding of how the brain works during dreaming with respect to memory formation and mental disorders. The study of oneirology can be distinguished from dream interpretation in that the aim is to quantitatively study the process of dreams instead of analyzing the meaning behind them.