These meaning correspond with those listed in Egyptian dream interpretation books of 3,000 years ago. Both the ancient Greeks and Romans believed that dreams were messages from the gods. Hannibal and Julius Ceasar were guided by their dreams in some of their military strategies. In general, the ancient civilizations taught that dreams were God-given whereas the more primitive societies believed they were conveyed by good or evil spirits, depending on the nature of the dream. In Biblical tradition dreams were either a prophetic revelation or a warning from God.
Many items have an interpretive meaning which are different to their face value.
A few items undergo a reversal in meaning. Sometimes you may recognize something in your dream which happened very recently, so you assume this item precipitated the dream. This assumption is not necessarily correct, the item in question could indicate a point of reference or time frame for the overall interpretation. A dream in which you were an invisible spectator can become more revealing if you insert yourself into the role of each individual character. The sum of the details as a whole is influenced by the quality of each detail and the proximity of one detail to another as they occur within the dream.