DREAM GALAXY

Literary dream · People & kin

The dead king advises his son

Egypt · c. 1950 BCE (Middle Kingdom)

He appeared to his son in a dream, and thus admonished him: “Hearken unto my words!—Thou art king over the two worlds, prince over the three regions. Act still better than did thy predecessors.—Let there be harmony between thy subjects and thee,—lest they give themselves up to fear; keep not thyself apart in the midst of them

Original text — History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Vol. II (McClure trans.), Gaston Maspero; trans. M. L. McClure

Open this dream in the galaxy →

Source
History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Vol. II (McClure trans.) — Gaston Maspero; trans. M. L. McClure, 1903–06. Vol. II, ch. II
Rights
Public domain (US)
Record type
Literary dream
Place
Egypt · Egyptian
Date
c. 1950 BCE (Middle Kingdom)
Uncertainty
High — The “Instruction of Amenemhat”, a Middle Kingdom text cast as a dead king’s dream-speech; quoted by Maspero (McClure trans.).
Imagery
Father · Ruler · Writing
Feelings
Awe · Grief

Another way to look at this dream

Notes on the images in this dream from psychology, myth, folklore and semiotics. Each names its source.

Father

Was this your own father as you know him, or a father-like figure? Was there something unsaid between you?

Jung · Objective and subjective level

Jung suggested reading a dream figure twice: as the actual person, and as part of yourself. A dreamed father may be about him — or about your own sense of authority.

C. G. Jung, “On the Psychology of the Unconscious”, Collected Works 7

Confucian classics Classical text

Confucius, growing old, lamented that he had not dreamed of the Duke of Zhou — his model and spiritual forebear — for a long time.

Analects 7.5

Psychoanalysis Depth psychology

The night after his father’s funeral, Freud dreamed of a notice reading “You are requested to close the eyes” — a dream he connected to duty and self-reproach.

Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), ch. VI

All perspectives on father →

Exploration notes, not a diagnosis, a prediction, or evidence of real events.

Dreams that share its images