Dream Galaxy

Research case · Death & the departed

My dead brother with bleeding fingers

England · before 1911

A farmer’s daughter--a bright girl of twenty-one, with quick nervous reactions, but untrained mind--dreamed that she saw her brother (dead some years previously) with blood streaming from his fingers.

Original text — The World of Dreams, Havelock Ellis

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Source
The World of Dreams — Havelock Ellis, 1911. Case report
Rights
Public domain (US)
Record type
Research case
Place
England · British
Date
before 1911
Uncertainty
Moderate — Reported in Havelock Ellis’s study of dreams.
Imagery
The dead · Friend · A stranger
Feelings
Fear · Grief

How traditions have read this kind of dream

Psychological

Dreams of the dead returning are widely reported after bereavement. Ellis noted how such dreams often move, over years, from disbelief to quiet acceptance; many people describe them as comforting rather than frightening.

Ellis (1911), ch. VIII

Mythological

In Homer, dreams pass through gates of horn and ivory; across many cultures the dead were believed to visit the living in sleep, and dreams were a place where the two could meet.

Odyssey XIX

Chinese traditions

Chinese poets wrote dreams of the departed as acts of remembrance: Su Shi’s “Ten years, living and dead” and Du Fu’s “My old friend entered my dream” are read to this day as elegies.

Su Shi (1075); Du Fu (759)

These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.

Dreams that share its images