The text known as Dreams of the Most Holy Theotokos is often referred to as a prayer or cycle of 77 prayers. Each of them is assigned a special action: one relieves of the "servants of Satan", the other heals from all diseases, the third protects the house from fire, and so on. All you need is to rewrite "Dreams" and have it with you or read it 3-7 times a day.
Even a cursory glance at the text of "Dreams of the Most Holy Theotokos" allows us to conclude that it is not a prayer. Prayer always contains an appeal to God - gratitude, request or glorification of Him. In "Dreams" there is nothing of the kind, it is a narrative text.
What is narrated in the "Dreams of the Most Holy Theotokos"
The content of the text boils down to the following: The Mother of God sleeps and sees dreams about the future fate of her Son, about the betrayal of His disciple, the suffering of the Savior and His death on the cross. Gospel events are presented with numerous errors. For example, Judas, who betrayed Jesus Christ, is here called "His first disciple", although such was St. Andrew the First-Called. This suggests that "Dreams" could not have been written by a leader of the Church.
Even more contradict the church decrees of the promises that end each of the "Dreams": "Whoever reads your dream at death will be saved from eternal torment … that person will go to heavenly paradise." No Christian prayer promises anything like that. The maximum that a Christian can do is to pray to God for salvation, the posthumous fate remains in His hands, and is not guaranteed "automatically."
So, "Dreams of the Most Holy Theotokos" could not be written by a priest or monk.
The apocryphal nature of the work
Not only the content of this text speaks of non-church origin, but also the language in which it is presented. “I slept a little, but I saw a lot in my dreams”, “I went to bed, Lady, to sleep and rest”, “Goy thou art, my mother” - such expressions are typical for folk tales, epics and other folklore genres.
Obviously, "Dreams" is also an example of folk art, built on biblical motives. Such works are called apocrypha or "renounced books." Some of the Apocrypha came from Byzantium, others were born on Russian soil. Where could this apocrypha be born?
In 1861, in an article dedicated to this work, included in the collection "Monuments of Ancient Russian Literature", Archpriest I. Panormov draws attention to the similarity of the style of "Dreams" with "South Russian verses" and carols, which allows him to establish the chronological framework for the creation of the text: XVI -XVII centuries. An indirect confirmation of this is a similar Polish literary monument called "The Dream of the Virgin", at the end of which the exact date of its writing is given: August 25, 1546. Probably before that the text existed in the oral tradition.
Thus, "Dreams of the Most Holy Theotokos" is an example of South Russian medieval folklore in the genre of apocrypha. This text has never been canonical.
