Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius was an early fifth century African-born Roman author and philosopher, remembered for his dialogues entitled Saturnaliorum Conviviorum Libri Septem, among other works.

Macrobius' commentary on Cicero's dream vision in which Scipio Africanus the younger dreams of his adoptive great-grandfather namesake, the hero who defeated Hannibal during the Punic wars. The dream focuses on many things, including the immortality of souls and allocation of the dead to appropriate afterlife homes. The vision itself uses Cicero’s knowledge of Roman history to lend credibility to the dream by having Scipio the elder reveal the "future" to his grandson. This leverages the medieval way of appealing to an authority - Scipio the elder is a military authority of the highest order, so his predictions about military matters are to be taken seriously. Macrobius claims "the purpose of the dream is to teach us that the souls of those who serve the state well are returned to the heavens after death and enjoy everlasting blessedness".

Macrobius presented a plan by which dreams may be classified as significant or insignificant. This plan was widely accepted by peers and theologians of the time and contains the following.

Ø   The enigmatic dream or Somnium. Macrobius thought this to be useful in divination as it consists of strange figures impossible to understand without the intervention of an interpreter of dreams. These dreams can be further subdivided as follows:

Personal - a dream regarding oneself alone

Alien - a dream regarding someone else

Social - a dream regarding oneself in company with others

Public - a dream regarding the city, forum, other public establishment

Universal - a dream regarding the cosmos, a region of the earth, the planets, etc

                Ø   The prophetic dream or Visio. Macrobius thought this to be useful in divination as it occurred when a dream actually came true.

                Ø   The oracular dream or Oraculum. Macrobius considered this to be useful in divination as it consisted of a revered person such as an ancestor or folk hero revealing information about the future and offering advice to the dreamer.

                Ø   The nightmare or Insomnium. This is like the visum below, considered by Macrobius to have "no prophetic significance". It is possible that these dreams may be caused by physical or emotional distress. The dream figures reflect the waking stressors. For example, the lover dreams of his love or the hungry man dreams of eating or starving. As such, this probably means that they are important as they occur but may have no bearing on anything once passed

                Ø   The apparition or Visum. This is like the insomnium in that Macrobius did not think they had any prophetic significance. These dreams occur in the moment between wakefulness and sleep, when the dreamer imagines ghosts or phantoms rushing about. These apparitions seem to have a real physical presence about them. Macrobius thought this might be likened to the incubus and succubus demons in dreaming.

The gates of ivory and gates of horn. In some quarters dreams are supposed to enter the world through one of two gates. The first for true dreams enter through the gate of horn and the false through the gate of ivory. This is because, when thinned, horn is transparent, like a veil that reveals truth, while ivory remains opaque, like a veil that conceals truth.

Looking at the above it can be noted that all of the classifications by Macrobius are useful in today’s dream interpretations one way or another. The enigmatic dream may well be how we describe a past-life memory dream certainly in the personal and social categories. Other classifications such as the apparition are not that far removed from how Freud saw things particularly with the sexual elements. During the time of Macrobius, around 450AD anything complex in nature would be referred to the seers and sages of the day and astrological events were often blended to interpret the dream story. Today the theories put forward by Freud and Jung have all of the dream content validated by the dreamer rather than any external astrological effects. A lot of how Macrobius classified dreams could be used in modern times by dream analysts particularly those who find Freud and Jung too specific in their ways. As already discussed there are no particular ways to dream interpretation and the symbols, more the analysts have to find their own way of working to help the dreamers. I find that Macrobius and his use of classifications useful in determining dream symbols as they cover virtually all aspects that any dream will contain.