Approved directions for health, both naturall and artificiall deriued from the best physitians as well moderne as auncient. Teaching how euery man should keepe his body and mind in health: and sicke, how hee may safely restore it himselfe. Diuided into 6. sections 1. Ayre, fire and water. 2. Meate, drinke with nourishment. 3. Sleepe, earely rising and dreames. 4. Auoidance of excrements, by purga. 5. The soules qualities and affections. 6. Quarterly, monethly, and daily diet. Newly corrected and augmented by the authour.

Of Dreames. CHAP. 3.

What are Dreames?

DReames are either tokens of things past, or significants of things to come. And surely if a mans minde be free from cares, and he dreame in the morning, there is no doubt, but the affaires then dreamed of will truely come to passe.

How many sorts of dreames be there?

There be three sorts of Dreames.

To wit, diuine, supernaturall, and naturall.

Diuine dreames, are they which were sent by inspiration from God to his Prophets, and faithfull seruants, and as God is the Author of trueth, so are they true and certaine.

Supernaturall dreames are placed in the middest, betweene the diuine dreames and the naturall, for they may happen without being precisely sent from God, and their cause comes not onely by the sole deprauation of humours, as naturall dreames doe, but by the rauishment of the spirit, which wakes, while the body reposeth, and which being

oftentimes holpen by the inspiration of some good Angel or Genius, doth represent by such Dreames, things which commonly come to passe. These kind of dreames chance in the morning, when the braine is more free from the vapours of the meate, which before had dulled it: Among many examples which I haue read of, this one seemes most strange vnto me.

Two friends trauailing together to a cer∣taine Citie, by the way at a little village, par∣ted the one to his friends house, and the other to an Inne. Hee which lodged at his friends house, saw in his dreame, his companion de∣firing him, that he would come to help him, or else he was to be killed by his hoast, which when he saw, he awaked, & rose out of his bed and was about to goe to the Inne, but com∣ming to himselfe, and thinking how it might be a false dreame, returned to his bed, and slept; then againe his friend appeared vnto him, and seemed to request him more ear∣nestly that he would succour him, but he ma∣king no account likewise of this dreame, slept againe; to whom in like manner the third time, his companion with a great complaint

desiring him because hee had neglected to helpe him in his life time, that now he would at last, not denie to seeke reuenge on the mur∣therer, saying, that his murthered body was brought out of the gate of the Citie vpon a Cart, couered ouer with dung to hide the of∣fence. By this meanes God disclosed the mur∣ther, which well might be termed sera numi∣nis vindicta.

Naturall dreames are they which repre∣sent the passions of the soule and body, the imaginations of such dreames come to passe, either by reason of outward causes, or inward; the outward, are vaporous meates, which in∣gender corrupt and burnt bloud: For the vse of Coleworts, Beanes, Pease, and Pottage, cau∣seth sorrowfull and troublesome dreames, like as Garlick and Onions, being eaten at supper, doth make a man to dreame of terrible things. The inward causes of which dreames, are euill humours, specially melancholicke, which through the blacknesse thereof, doth darken the light of the vnderstanding (which is seated in the braine, and there-hence as a candle imparts light vnto the whole body) and there they imprint troublesome dreames.

To hinder a man from dreaming, let him a∣uoid bad and windie meates, let him purge melancholy, and at conuenient season, if neede be, let him bleed. Likewise it is expe∣dient to temper and correct the humours by sound antidotes and preparatiues, to vse re∣vulsions and deriuations to withdraw some of the fumes and vapours, which ascend vp in∣to the head, filling the braine with many such troublesome conceits.