Oneiroi
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| Greek deities series |
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In Greek mythology, the Oneiroi were the brothers (According to Hesiod) or sons (according to Ovid) of Hypnos, the god of sleep. They were personifications of dreams—black-winged daemons—and were said to live on the shores of the Ocean in the far West, in a cavern near the border of Hades. The gods sent dreams to mortals from one of two gates located there: true dreams emerged from a gate made of horn, whereas false dreams threaded their way from a gate fashioned of ivory. They are described in the Odyssey, Hesiod's Theogony, and Ovid's Metamorphoses, and are briefly mentioned in Vergil's Aeneid when Aeneas is coming back from the Underworld. Hesiod establishes them in his Theogony as sons of Nyx either through parthenogenesis (Hesiod Theogony 212; Sappho Frag 63, Statius Thebaid 10.112) or with Erebus (Hyginus Preface, Cicero De Natura Deorum 3.17). According to Euripides, their mother was Gaea.
The most powerful Oneiros was Morpheus. His brothers Phobetor and Phantasos crafted parts of dreams, while he formed the dream in general. Morpheus shaped human figures, Phobetor animal, while Phantasos shaped inanimate objects.
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[edit] Oneiroi in Pop Culture
- Fates Warning, a progressive metal band, has a side long epic on their 1988 release No Exit titled The Ivory Gate of Dreams which touches on this myth.
- In the Dark Hunter series by Sherrilyn Kenyon, the Oneiroi are the Dream Hunters and responsible for patrolling the dream world, as well as assisting the Dark Hunters by healing them in their sleep. This is why the "Dark Hunters" feel the need to sleep whenever they are injured.
- In the video game EVE Online, the Oneiros is one of the ship designs in the Logistics class.
- In the video game Clive Barker's Undying, the name of one of the areas (a hidden dimension) is Oneiros, the City of Dreams.
- Oneiroi was a black metal band formed in Portland, Oregon and active around 1999--2000. The band borrows some aspects of its lyrical content from the ancient Greek.
- Oneiroid Psychosis, a darkwave band, derive the first part of their name from the Greek word oneirois.
- The name "Oneiros" is used to refer to Dream (aka Morpheus) in Calliope, a story arc that is part of The Sandman series written by Neil Gaiman. And, in fact, the entire series could be seen to be about Morpheus. The gates of horn and ivory also make an appearance.
- Oneiros is the name of a subzone in the computer game World of Warcraft.[1]
- The Oneiromancer is an NPC in charge of the Waking Dream ceremony in the popular MMORPG RuneScape
- Oneiroi is currently the band name for a solo instrumentalist musician from Australia. The music contains themes linking to the greek mythology of dreaming and the subconcious.[2]
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[edit] References
[edit] Sources
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. C19th Classics Encyclopedia.
