Ancient Egypt for Kids: Foretelling the Future, Dreams & Oracles Illustration

Ancient Egypt for Kids
Dreams

Dreams were very important to the ancient Egyptians. They believed the gods could communicate with you through your dreams. They also believed that dreams could foretell the future. For example, if an ancient Egyptian dreamed of drinking warm beer, he or she could expect to have something unfortunate happen to them quite soon. A dream like that would send an ancient Egyptian hurrying to an amulet maker, in the hopes of warding off this future evil.

For a while, people slept now and then in the temples so the gods could speak to them in their dreams, and give them clues to future events. This fad had to be discouraged finally by the temple priests because too many people wanted to sleep in the temples at the same time. Instead, the concept of oracles sprang up. Ancient Egyptians could sleep in their own home, have a dream, and then bring their dream to a priest who could interpret it for them. This worked much better, and gave the priests added payment in the form of food or goods.

Tall Tale #1

Ancient Egyptian Temples

Amulets

Cats

Magic and Spells