Literary dream · People & kin
I woke up — but woke up in the dream
Russia · 1877 (novel)
He was fumbling and kept talking quickly, quickly in French, you know: Il faut le battre, le fer, le broyer, le pétrir.... And in my horror I tried to wake up, and woke up ... but woke up in the dream.
Open this dream in the galaxy →
- Source
- Anna Karenina (trans. Constance Garnett) — Leo Tolstoy; trans. Constance Garnett, 1877 / 1901 (translation). Part IV, Ch. 3
- Rights
- Public domain (US)
- Record type
- Literary dream
- Place
- Russia · Russian
- Date
- 1877 (novel)
- Uncertainty
- Moderate — Anna’s recurring dream in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (Garnett translation).
- Imagery
- A stranger · Machine
- Feelings
- Horror · Unease
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
- The pale student of unhallowed arts Near Geneva, Switzerland · June 1816
- A stranger asked to swap heads Langya, China · 4th century (Jin)
- The governor who spoke English Spain (dreamed) · before 1911
- The shop assistant who had moved England · before 1911
- Charged one franc of interest Zurich, Switzerland · c. 1914
- A mouth full of broken glass England · before 1911