Research case · Animals
The dog in the old mangle
England · before 1911
Thus a lady dreamed that her dog was being crushed out flat in a large old-fashioned box-mangle. She awoke to find that water from a burst pipe was falling from the ceiling
Open this dream in the galaxy →
- 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
- Dog · Animals · Machine · Water
- Feelings
- Horror
How traditions have read this kind of dream
Psychological
Animals in dreams often speak, change form or carry strong feeling. Ellis suggested such dreams may lie behind fables of talking animals; later writers read them as instinct given a face.
Ellis (1911), note 262
Mythological
Messenger animals are everywhere in myth: the eagle in Penelope’s dream, Pharaoh’s seven cows, guardian dogs at the gates of the dead.
Odyssey XIX; Genesis 41
Chinese traditions
In the Liezi’s “deer under banana leaves”, a hunted deer becomes a puzzle about where dreaming ends; Zhuangzi’s butterfly turns the question inside out.
Liezi; Zhuangzi
These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.
Dreams that share its images
- Fallen from the bed, eaten by worms Jinyang (Taiyuan), China · 617 (as told)
- Fell in the river, boots still dry Chang’an, China · c. 810
- A crab hidden in the ford Zurich, Switzerland · c. 1916
- A green lizard fell into my belly Huainan, China · undated (Jin collection)
- The scene I had to write England · before 1911
- The animals fell out of Noah’s ark Zurich, Switzerland · c. 1910