Anecdote collection · Death & the departed
His dead mother came to life again
Euesperides (Benghazi), Libya · 372 BCE
And among the Euesperitæ Comon dreamt that he had dealings with his dead mother, and that subsequently his mother came to life again. And he hoped as the Athenians were now powerful at sea that they would be restored to Naupactus: and the dream seemed to indicate that Messene would revive.
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- Source
- Pausanias’ Description of Greece (Shilleto trans.) — Pausanias; trans. A. R. Shilleto, c. 150 / 1886 (trans.). Book IV, ch. 26
- Record type
- Anecdote collection
- Place
- Euesperides (Benghazi), Libya · Ancient Greek
- Date
- 372 BCE
- Uncertainty
- High — From Pausanias’ Description of Greece (A. R. Shilleto trans., 1886); a local tradition recorded by a 2nd-century traveller.
- Imagery
- Mother · The dead
- Feelings
- Longing · Wonder
Another way to look at this dream
Notes on the images in this dream from psychology, myth, folklore and semiotics. Each names its source.
Mother
Was this your own mother as you know her, or someone in her place? What did she do or say?
Jung · The mother archetype
Jung first reads a dreamed mother on the “objective level” — your real mother and your relationship. Only then on the “subjective level”: the mother archetype, which he described as both nourishing and devouring.
C. G. Jung, “Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype”, Collected Works 9i
Early dream research & psychology Dream research
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)
Myth & scripture (several traditions) Myth & scripture
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
The dead
Who was it, and did they seem to know they had died? Was there something you were able to say, or not able to?
Jung · Objective level first
Jung’s memoir records his own dreams of his late father and treats them with seriousness rather than symbol-hunting: a dream of someone who has died is first about that person and that bond.
C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962)
Early dream research Dream research
Ellis devoted a chapter to dreams of the dead, noting how often the dead appear as if alive and how such dreams can bring comfort.
Havelock Ellis, The World of Dreams (1911), ch. VIII
Homeric epic Classical text
Achilles dreams of the dead Patroclus, who asks to be buried; Achilles reaches out to embrace him and grasps nothing.
Homer, Iliad XXIII
Exploration notes, not a diagnosis, a prediction, or evidence of real events.
Dreams that share its images
- Morpheus wears the drowned husband’s face Trachis, Thessaly (myth) · c. 8 CE (poem)
- She was not really dead England · before 1911
- I gave birth to a lion Athens, Greece · c. 495 BCE
- A rope of women’s hair Erythrae, Ionia · archaic period (as told)
- Come over into Macedonia, and help us Troas, Asia Minor · c. 49 (narrative)
- I dreamed of you three times last night Jiangzhou (Jiujiang), China · c. 815