Macrobius Commentary calls a dream a prophetic vision if it actually comes true. “For example, a man dreams of the return of a friend who has been staying in a foreign land, thoughts of whom never enter his mind. He goes out and presently meets his friend and embraces him. Or in his dream, he agrees to accept a deposit and early the next day a man approaches him anxiously, charging him with the safekeeping of his money and committing secrets to his trust”. In reality, the prophetic dream has a benefit from information advantage. It is the most surprising of the dreams if it spontaneously comes true, but it is also the dream variant that contains within itself the substrates of grifting, con men, lies and deception. Magicians and other visual trickery falls under this dream too, albeit for the wrong reasons. It is after all a dream, which offers a malleable outcome. Visio is always told best from a point of hindsight.
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FLEMISH SCHOOL, Tricephfalous Christ (The Trinity), c. 1500
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SALVATOR ROSA, The Fall of the Giants, 1663
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WILLIAM BLAKE, Illustrations to 'The Book of Job', Line Engravings,, 1825
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JAMES SMETHAM, Tarry ye here and watch with me’ Matthew 26:38
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ROULLET & DECAMPS, French cat automaton, 19th century
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SALVADOR DALÍ, What the countryside will look like in 1987, 1937
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JOHN MINTON, London, 1941
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EVELYN DUNBAR, Joseph in Prison, 1949-50
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RAQIB SHAW, The Martyrdom of Icarus
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