Anecdote collection · Cities & buildings
His head touched the heaven
Egypt · 522 BCE (as told)
Being in Egypt I saw a vision in my sleep, which I would I had never seen, and it seemed to me that a messenger came from home and reported to me that Smerdis was sitting upon the royal throne and had touched the heaven with his head. Fearing then lest I should be deprived of my power by my brother, I acted quickly rather than wisely
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- Source
- The History of Herodotus (trans. G. C. Macaulay) — Herodotus; trans. G. C. Macaulay, 1890 (translation). Book III, ch. 65
- Record type
- Anecdote collection
- Place
- Egypt · Persian, Egyptian
- Date
- 522 BCE (as told)
- Uncertainty
- High — From Herodotus’ Histories (G. C. Macaulay trans., 1890); a dream as reported by Egyptian priests to Herodotus.
- Imagery
- Ruler · Sky · Heights · A stranger
- Feelings
- Unease · Fear
Another way to look at this dream
Notes on the images in this dream from psychology, myth, folklore and semiotics. Each names its source.
Sky
What colour was the sky, and how far away? Were you under it, or up inside it?
Daoist classic Classical text
In the Liezi, King Mu of Zhou is carried up into a magician’s palace in the sky. He returns to find he never left his seat: “we were wandering in spirit,” the magician says — “why would the body move?”
Liezi, “King Mu of Zhou”
Roman philosophy Philosophy
In Cicero’s “Dream of Scipio”, the dreamer is taken up among the heavens and looks back at an Earth so small that Rome’s empire seems a speck.
Cicero, De re publica VI (“Dream of Scipio”)
Falling
Where were you standing before the fall? Were you reaching for something to hold, or letting go?
Jung · Descent
In his memoir Jung describes deliberately “letting himself drop” into an inner depth in 1913, and treated descent as a way of meeting what lies below everyday awareness — frightening, but not only a disaster.
C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962)
Early dream research Dream research
Ellis explained falling dreams through bodily sensations at the edge of sleep. Sleep researchers today describe the related “hypnic jerk”, a sudden start while falling asleep.
Havelock Ellis, The World of Dreams (1911), ch. VI
Classical Chinese medicine Historical medicine
The same passage of the Lingshu pairs flying with falling: when the lower body is in excess, “one dreams of falling”. This is a historical theory about the body, not medical advice and not a way to diagnose anything.
Huangdi Neijing, Lingshu ch. 43 “Yinxie Fameng”
A stranger
Did the stranger remind you of anyone, even slightly? What did they want from you?
Jung · Shadow, anima and animus
Jung read unknown figures as possible parts of the dreamer: a same-sex stranger may carry the shadow; an other-sex figure what he called the anima or animus. These are offered as lenses, not labels — and his gender framing reflects his time.
C. G. Jung, “Aion, ch. 2–3”, Collected Works 9ii
Homeric epic Classical text
In Homer, gods and dreams arrive in borrowed shapes: Athena visits Nausicaa disguised as her friend; Zeus sends a Dream to Agamemnon looking like Nestor.
Odyssey VI; Iliad II
Exploration notes, not a diagnosis, a prediction, or evidence of real events.
Dreams that share its images
- Chased round the stove by the devil Mission school, Wabash, Indiana · c. 1884–87
- Angina, angina! England · late 19th century
- Thornfield Hall a dreary ruin England · 1847 (novel)
- A young man with wings over Asia and Europe Land of the Massagetae (Central Asia) · 530 BCE (as told)
- A sky like cracked ice England · before 1911
- Pulled from her bed on her wedding night Greece (story setting) · c. 170 CE (novel)