Dream interpretation

Ron Weasley: "I never remember my dreams, you say one!"

Harry Potter: "You must remember one of them."

Ron Weasley: "Well, I dreamed I was playing Quidditch the other night. What d'you reckon that means?"

Harry Potter: "Probably that you're going to be eaten by a giant marshmallow or something."

— Harry Potter and Ron Weasley in Divination class, discussing dream interpretation

A book on the subject of dream interpretation

Dream interpretation was a method of divination that involved analysing dreams. It was one of the oldest forms of divination. It was covered at Hogwarts in fifth-year Divination class, as well as the sixth-year. The textbook for this subject was The Dream Oracle by Inigo Imago. Professor Sybill Trelawney considered dream interpretation to be "a most important means of divining the future".

However, Harry Potter didn't seem to think it was particularly useful, as he usually made up dreams in the classes and also thought dream interpretation couldn't tell him what his dreams meant. Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown, on the other hand, appeared to consider this particular subject very useful, and were seen discussing their dreams very seriously in the first class they had on this subject. This was not surprising, though, as Divination was their favourite class and they were usually the most diligent students in it.

History

"Ah, I had a feeling I would be seeing you all soon... it seems I was correct. Today, we will be delving into the enimagtic science of dream interpretation. As you'll soon come to understand, a dream is never only a dream. Dream interpretation is one of the oldest forms of divination..."

— Professor Trelawney to her sixth-year students regarding dream interpretation

Dream interpretation was taught to sixth-year Divination students, at least in the 1989–1990 school year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry by Sybill Trelawney.

A few times, on the first night at Hogwarts after the Start-of-Term Feast, Harry Potter had dreams that gave hints about significant events that would happen over that school year. In his first year, he dreamt he was wearing Proffesor Quirrell's turban, and it was talking to him, telling him that Slytherin was his destiny. When he tried to pull the turban off, it got tighter and heavier. Harry's archenemy, Lord Voldemort, was hiding under Quirrell's turban as a parasitic entity, using Quirrell as a pawn to retrieve the Philosopher's Stone. In his fourth year, Harry dreamt that he had fooled the impartial judge, became the Hogwarts champion in the Triwizard Tournament, and went on to win the whole thing, impressing Cho Chang. The judge was fooled, and Harry did indeed become a champion, though not by his own doing, and Harry was declared the winner of the tournament. He also did have a relationship with Cho the following year.

In September 1995, Harry and Ron had to keep a dream diary for a month as a part of their Divination homework, because neither of them could remember or want to discuss their dreams. Neither of them took this serious enough, and wrote down made up dreams, most of which are tragic events of themselves, due to Trelawney's liking of predicting Harry's death. She later told them to do it again for the next month.

Behind the scenes

• Dream interpretation is also known as oneiromancy in the real world, but it has never been referred to by this name in the Harry Potter universe.

Appearances

• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (First appearance)
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film) (Appears in deleted scene(s))
• Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery