The Dream as Foetus | Biomedgrid

Nanshe, the Babylonian Goddess of dream interpretation is at the same time the Goddess of water and fertility; “her symbol a vessel with water and a fish in it, symbolising her gravid womb”. There is no better support of such a view than a woman's dream announcing her pregnancy by means of a fish floating in her swimming pool. The symbol for Nanshe testifies to the Babylonian's perfect understanding of the pathway and function of the dream. Today dreams are generally disregarded, but when a nightmare disturbs us and when in the end we realise that it disappears when it is understood, we see that dreams influence waking life. Nanshe's fishbowl has its counter part in the Vesica Piscis, ‘vessel of the fish'. It was an unequivocally genital sign of the sheila-na-gig figures of old Irish churches. While Nanshe's fishbowl represents the gravid womb, the Vesica Piscis stands for the birthing process. Nanshe and her fishbowl are also associated with an Abyss or Abaton. Also called a mundus or earth-womb, the Abaton was a real pit, standard equipment in a pagan temple. Those who entered it to ‘incubate', or to sleep overnight in magical imitation of the incubatory sleep in the womb, were thought to be visited by an ‘incubus' or spirit who brought prophetic dreams. Nanshe's priests underwent a death and resurrection ritual by descending into the pit in order to emerge as qualified dream interpreters.