Seventeenth century Jesuit analysis of Indian attitudes toward dreams was largely negative. While Indians looked on their dreams as ordinances and oracles, the Jesuits criticized reliance on such irrational messages. Jesuit critiques fell into three categories: the dream as a sign of diabolical possession, the dream as illusion purporting to be reality, and the dream as a form of madness. Jesuits explained native attitudes toward dreams in terms of their own European epistemology and psychology. To the extent that dreams were not part of a perceptual field, observation and judgment, the Jesuits tended to regard them as unreal. Following an examination of original Jesuit sources, this paper contends that what is offensive about Indian dreams to the Jesuit is not primarily that they are a religious affront to belief and morality, but that their very nature calls into question the rational foundations of belief and morality. To find the basis of truth in dreams is to invert the origin of commonly accepted knowledge, thus questioning the foundations of belief and morality. As a rational critique of dreams, the Jesuit account detached them from their cultural matrix and prejudged their intent and content. Such a critique was appropriate for Jesuits who saw natives driven to fulfill the barbaric imperatives of those dreams. (DHP)