Oneiroscopist

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person skilled in interpreting the meanings of dreams
2. An individual who analyzes dreams to understand their significance
3. Someone who studies and explains what dreams symbolize or represent

Etymology: Ancient Greeks had a word for a professional dream interpreter, and it was built from the same pieces as this one. "Oneiroskopos" joined "oneiros", meaning "dream", with "skopos", meaning "watcher" or "one who looks at", so the literal sense is something like "dream-watcher." The oneiroscopist's trade was to watch dreams closely and read them for what they signified about the future or the dreamer's state of mind. The English word follows the same path. It is formed from the Greek roots "oneiro-", "dream", and "-scopist", from "skopos", the root that also gives "microscope" and "telescope." The "-ist" ending marks a person who practises the activity, so the word names someone who does the watching and interpreting as a profession. The prefix "oneiro-" appears in few other English words, but "oneirism", a term for dreamlike hallucinatory states, shares it, so the root is the same across that small group.