Did Rhaegar have dragon dreams?

[Belgarad]

While there is not much textual evidence to back up this idea I think it is an interesting idea to consider and it seems to make sense of Rhaegar's actions if you view them with that lens.  

Rhaegar was always described as a sad, melancholy child which makes you wonder why someone born into the height of privilege would feel that way.  One of the few, if not only other, Targaryens who show similar emotions is Daeron the Drunk, oldest brother of Egg.  It was Daeron's dragon dreams that caused his depression and alcoholism, maybe those prophetic dreams caused Rhaegar's perpetual sadness.

We always assume that it was something he read that caused Rhaegar to take a sudden, unexplained interest in martial combat.  What if, instead of reading a prophecy, he had a prophetic dream of himself fighting a great battle and losing.  This could have spurred an interest in warfare in an effort to change the future.

[honorable men]

Its always bloodraven messing with people's heads. Someone should go and shoot that guy! 

Fire 

And

Blood

[Alexis-something-Rose]

One of the thing that struck me in a recent re-read is that Aemon tells Sam to tell the maester's at the Citadel about his brother's dream. Whichever brother he is talking about, this dream he referred to (and that Sam now knows all about) could be anywhere between 80 and 100 years old. So it would have taken near a century for this dream to come to pass. 

It's possible that Rhaegar had dreams like that, and that they just haven't come to fruition just yet. If he had dreams, Jon Conn is still around and he might be able to shed some light.

[chrisdaw]

Yeah he will have, that he dreamt of sacrifices waking dragons will become a thing in the next books. First he thought it was himself, then Aegon, then he needed three.

[Bowen 747]

Daeron got all depressed and took to the bottle because his dreams never came into fruition.  It's the call of the dragons.  Always dreaming of grandeur and might but condemned to live in the shadow of his great ancestors.  Rhaegar, as far as we know, did not have these kinds of dragon dreams.  Prince Viserys never had them.  Only Daenerys of the three siblings had these dreams.  Which is really more than a dream in her case.  

[Bowen 747]

3 hours ago, honorable men said:

Its always bloodraven messing with people's heads. Someone should go and shoot that guy! 

Fire 

And

Blood

Spray his tree with herbicide. 

[Alexis-something-Rose]

16 minutes ago, Bowen 747 said:

Daeron got all depressed and took to the bottle because his dreams never came into fruition.

We know of at least one dream that came true in The Hedge Knight. He dreamt of a great dragon falling on Dunk dead and that Dunk would walk away alive. Baelor Breakspear ended up dying after the trial of seven and Dunk walked away. That was the reason he freaked out when he saw him at the inn. He recognized him from his dream.

He also dreamt of the dragons would return. 

[300 H&H Magnum]

Did Rhaegar have dragon dreams?

I do not believe so.  He was suffering from being self-centered.  A man like that thinking he's more than he is gets to think he's special.  

[One-eyed Misbehavin]

2 hours ago, Bowen 747 said:

Daeron got all depressed and took to the bottle because his dreams never came into fruition.  It's the call of the dragons.  Always dreaming of grandeur and might but condemned to live in the shadow of his great ancestors.  Rhaegar, as far as we know, did not have these kinds of dragon dreams.  Prince Viserys never had them.  Only Daenerys of the three siblings had these dreams.  Which is really more than a dream in her case.  

I’m pretty certain Daeron told dunk his dreams were different and came true (paraphrasing) 

[Ygrain]

Certainly possible, and very much so. Another option is that he may have met, or have been meeting, the Ghost of the High Heart at Summerhall and paid with songs for her visions.

[Wight_wolf]

7 hours ago, 300 H&H Magnum said:

Did Rhaegar have dragon dreams?

I do not believe so.  He was suffering from being self-centered.  A man like that thinking he's more than he is gets to think he's special.  

This is my understanding of Rhaegar also.

[Ygrain]

Self-centered people don't tend to be dutiful, though, nor doom-and-gloom about their future role.

[kissdbyfire]

13 hours ago, Belgarad said:

While there is not much textual evidence to back up this idea I think it is an interesting idea to consider and it seems to make sense of Rhaegar's actions if you view them with that lens.  

Rhaegar was always described as a sad, melancholy child which makes you wonder why someone born into the height of privilege would feel that way.  One of the few, if not only other, Targaryens who show similar emotions is Daeron the Drunk, oldest brother of Egg.  It was Daeron's dragon dreams that caused his depression and alcoholism, maybe those prophetic dreams caused Rhaegar's perpetual sadness.

Well, Rhaegar "hatched" amidst the tragedy at Summerhall, and that alone might explain his melancholy. Of course, we cannot safely rule out that he had dragon dreams as well, but so far we've heard nothing pointing to that. 

13 hours ago, Belgarad said:

We always assume that it was something he read that caused Rhaegar to take a sudden, unexplained interest in martial combat.  What if, instead of reading a prophecy, he had a prophetic dream of himself fighting a great battle and losing.  This could have spurred an interest in warfare in an effort to change the future.

I think we assume it because the only info we have on that says it was something he read that made him realise he must become a warrior.

ASoS, Daenerys I

“As you wish,” said Whitebeard. “As a young boy, the Prince of Dragonstone was bookish to a fault. He was reading so early that men said Queen Rhaella must have swallowed some books and a candle whilst he was in her womb. Rhaegar took no interest in the play of other children. The maesters were awed by his wits, but his father’s knights would jest sourly that Baelor the Blessed had been born again. Until one day Prince Rhaegar found something in his scrolls that changed him. No one knows what it might have been, only that the boy suddenly appeared early one morning in the yard as the knights were donning their steel. He walked up to Ser Willem Darry, the master-at-arms, and said, ‘I will require sword and armor. It seems I must be a warrior”

[Ckram]

I had been thinking if dragon dreams weren't exactly what gave Barristan the impression that Rhaegar's songs of "twilights and tears and the death of kings" were about himself.

It's like Rhaegar was an myopic Jojen that always had strange dreams about his life ending in some inescapable tragedy. Hence his "sense of doom".

Stretching a little further, maybe Rhaegar's wish to became a knight may have arisen because of a dangerous combination: interpretation of dreams and deciphering of prophecies. Let's say that Rhaegar dreamed a lot with been killed in battle and then read the prophecy about the prince that was promised. He could, at a young age, have associated the dreams that prophesied his death in the Trident to the Battle for the Dawn and so chose to become a warrior.

[Ckram]

14 hours ago, Belgarad said:

maybe those prophetic dreams caused Rhaegar's perpetual sadness.

Stretching even more my previous post, perhaps these same dragon dreams may have given him hope and joy in the end of his life.

On the one hand, it may have dreamed of a tower where he would taste some happiness, and then he found this same tower while traveling the Prince's Pass and named it after the dreamed one.

On the other hand, it may could have been a more literal dream, on his third child and the wild girl that would give birth to him. At first, he could have thought that it would be Elia's, after all the dornish are known by hot temper. However, not only Elia was the softer dornish ever, the maesters told him that she couldn't bare another pregnancy. Then, when he met Lyanna, he changed his mind.

A sidenote: what a weird love triangle - a soft dornish, a hot stark and a cold dragon.

[Bael's Bastard]

It's certainly possible that Rhaegar had dreams like other Targaryens before him did.

15 hours ago, Widow's Watch said:

One of the thing that struck me in a recent re-read is that Aemon tells Sam to tell the maester's at the Citadel about his brother's dream. Whichever brother he is talking about, this dream he referred to (and that Sam now knows all about) could be anywhere between 80 and 100 years old. So it would have taken near a century for this dream to come to pass. 

It's possible that Rhaegar had dreams like that, and that they just haven't come to fruition just yet. If he had dreams, Jon Conn is still around and he might be able to shed some light.

Maester Aemon's talk of the prophecy and his brother's dream in AFFC is reminiscent of Prince Aegon's statement in TMK: 

I'm not stupid, ser." Egg lowered his voice. "Someday the dragons will return. My brother Daeron's dreamed of it, and King Aerys read it in a prophecy. Maybe it will be my egg that hatches. That would be splendid."

Eventually Egg himself dreamed of dragons (TWOIAF):

As he grew older, Aegon V had come to dream of dragons flying once more above the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. In this, he was not unlike his predecessors... The last years of Aegon's reign were consumed by a search for ancient lore about the dragon breeding of Valyria, and it was said that Aegon commissioned journeys to places as far away as Asshai-by-the-Shadow with the hopes of finding texts and knowledge that had not been preserved in Westeros.

It remains to be seen if the rebirth of the dragons and TPTWP are understood to be related, but it seems plausible that Rhaegar read something along the lines of the prophecy King Aerys I read about the rebirth of the dragons (ASOS):

Until one day Prince Rhaegar found something in his scrolls that changed him. No one knows what it might have been, only that the boy suddenly appeared early one morning in the yard as the knights were donning their steel. He walked up to Ser Willem Darry, the master-at-arms, and said, 'I will require sword and armor. It seems I must be a warrior.'"

[Bael's Bastard]

13 hours ago, Bowen 747 said:

Daeron got all depressed and took to the bottle because his dreams never came into fruition.  It's the call of the dragons.  Always dreaming of grandeur and might but condemned to live in the shadow of his great ancestors.  Rhaegar, as far as we know, did not have these kinds of dragon dreams.  Prince Viserys never had them.  Only Daenerys of the three siblings had these dreams.  Which is really more than a dream in her case.  

The opposite is true (THK):

"Did I? Well, it's so. My dreams are not like yours, Ser Duncan. Mine are true. They frighten me. You frighten me. I dreamed of you and a dead dragon, you see. A great beast, huge, with wings so large they could cover this meadow. It had fallen on top of you, but you were alive and the dragon was dead."

We certainly don't know whether Rhaegar had such dreams, but we know that his great-grandfather Aegon V dreamed of dragons as he got older, and Alester's statement in ASOS: Davos III can be read as implying that Aegon's attempts to hatch dragons at Summerhall and Aerion's infamous wildfire stunt were based on dragon dreams. We also know that Aerys II himself attempted to hatch dragons, so it is not inconceivable that he had experienced dreams of some sort.

[Alexis-something-Rose]

41 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

It's certainly possible that Rhaegar had dreams like other Targaryens before him did.

Maester Aemon's talk of the prophecy and his brother's dream in AFFC is reminiscent of Prince Aegon's statement in TMK: 

I'm not stupid, ser." Egg lowered his voice. "Someday the dragons will return. My brother Daeron's dreamed of it, and King Aerys read it in a prophecy. Maybe it will be my egg that hatches. That would be splendid."

Eventually Egg himself dreamed of dragons (TWOIAF):

As he grew older, Aegon V had come to dream of dragons flying once more above the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. In this, he was not unlike his predecessors... The last years of Aegon's reign were consumed by a search for ancient lore about the dragon breeding of Valyria, and it was said that Aegon commissioned journeys to places as far away as Asshai-by-the-Shadow with the hopes of finding texts and knowledge that had not been preserved in Westeros.

It remains to be seen if the rebirth of the dragons and TPTWP are understood to be related, but it seems plausible that Rhaegar read something along the lines of the prophecy King Aerys I read about the rebirth of the dragons (ASOS):

Until one day Prince Rhaegar found something in his scrolls that changed him. No one knows what it might have been, only that the boy suddenly appeared early one morning in the yard as the knights were donning their steel. He walked up to Ser Willem Darry, the master-at-arms, and said, 'I will require sword and armor. It seems I must be a warrior.'"

I think the point is that all these dreams of Aemon's brothers are coming to pass decades later. 

The dragons will return can be interpreted two ways (and this one is reminiscent of Jojen's greendream that the wolves will return).

We have the winged dragons that Dany hatched and we have the two-legged dragons. A Storm of Swords is choke full of symbolism about dragons emerging from the shadows. Daeron and Aegon had no way of knowing that their family would be cast down and how close it came to being exterminated. 

Even Egg's attempt at hatching dragons. What he does at Summerhall is similar enough to what Dany does with her eggs after her fever dream, so one has to wonder if they did not have the same dream. Maybe he wasn't meant to hatch dragons, because it was something that was going to happen decades down the line. I mean imagine Aerys if he had dragons. 

In a way, it almost feels like the dreams are meant to prepare them for what's to come as opposed to forcing it to happen now. And Aemon's talk of his brother's dream must be key for something that's rather important if he wants Sam to tell the maesters. 

As far as Rhaegar goes, it is possible he dreamed of his own death. And we know it's possible through Jojen. Jojen falls into some kind of a depression after his group arrived at the cave. He is resigned to his own death because green dreams don't lie. It doesn't seem like dragon dreams lie either. 

And if Rhaegar did dream of such a thing, it might explain not just his character, but some of his actions as well.

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, Bael's Bastard said:

It remains to be seen if the rebirth of the dragons and TPTWP are understood to be related, but it seems plausible that Rhaegar read something along the lines of the prophecy King Aerys I read about the rebirth of the dragons (ASOS):

Until one day Prince Rhaegar found something in his scrolls that changed him. No one knows what it might have been, only that the boy suddenly appeared early one morning in the yard as the knights were donning their steel. He walked up to Ser Willem Darry, the master-at-arms, and said, 'I will require sword and armor. It seems I must be a warrior.'"

Rhaegar would have read whatever version of the prophecy of the promised prince the Targaryens had - Marwyn and Aemon knew versions of that prophecy, too, as would Jaehaerys II (or else he would just have shrugged when the Ghost of High Heart told him from the line of his son and daughter would come the promised prince) and, presumably, also King Aerys I (the fact that Jaehaerys named his only son after his scholarly royal granduncle might be interesting in that context, too).

In light of what we learned in ADwD and TWoIaF about continued Targaryen obsession with prophecy it seems very likely to me that Prince Rhaegar did not, in fact, stumble on some dusty old scroll in the archives everybody had forgotten. Aemon, Jaehaerys II, and presumably Aerys and Rhaella, too, would have believed that Rhaegar was the promised prince. That means Aerys/Rhaella would eventually have told their young son about that, showing him the prophecy that reveals (or hints at) his destiny.

And that would be the moment where Rhaegar thought he has to be a warrior.

The idea that a young child reads some dusty old scroll and then thinks he is the guy talked about in that scroll makes no sense at all.

Rhaegar himself may not have been obsessed with prophecy and destiny at all, actually. He may have just gone through the motions to please his parents.

And that could also explain why he jumped on the comet idea, freeing himself from the burden of being a hero and attaching it to his unborn son (other factors might have contributed, too - the lack of living siblings, Viserys' late birth, etc.).

At this point I find it more interesting if Aerys II himself may have had weird prophetic dreams rather than Rhaegar - although Rhaegar's late and weird decisions may certainly also have been motivated by dreams.

[Megorova]

I think, that he did had dragondreams, at least when he visited ruins of Summerhall. My guess, is that he recorded, what he has seen in those visions, in his songs. So the sad song, that made Lyanna cry at Harrenhal, was a prophecy.