Religious narrative · People & kin
Thou art but a dead man
Gerar, Canaan · undated narrative
But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man’s wife.
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- Source
- The Bible, King James Version — Various, 1611. Genesis 20:3
- Record type
- Religious narrative
- Place
- Gerar, Canaan · Hebrew Bible
- Date
- undated narrative
- Uncertainty
- High — Religious narrative; not a historical dream report.
- Imagery
- A stranger · Partner · Ruler
- Feelings
- Fear
How traditions have read this kind of dream
Psychological
Family members, friends and strangers populate most dreams. Freud read many such dreams as wishes in disguise; contemporary researchers emphasise continuity with waking relationships and concerns.
Freud, Dream Psychology (1920)
Mythological
Dreams in epic and scripture are often addressed to someone — a wife waiting for a husband, a son receiving a vision for his family — and are told aloud to be understood.
Odyssey XIX; Genesis 37
Chinese traditions
Confucius lamented that he no longer dreamed of the Duke of Zhou; in Chinese letters, dreaming of someone is a measure of how much they are on one’s mind.
Analects 7.5
These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.
Dreams that share its images
- A spirit passed before my face Land of Uz · undated narrative
- A fire in a hotel in a strange city Zurich, Switzerland · c. 1913
- Angina, angina! England · late 19th century
- Swallowing a burned book of Go Chang’an, China · c. 873
- I had swallowed molten lead United States · before 1911
- I no longer dream of the Duke of Zhou State of Lu, China · c. 5th century BCE