Research case · Cities & buildings
A hotel I could see into
England · before 1911
I dreamed that I saw the hotel in question; its façade was not unlike that of a common type of hotel, but the roof was flat and at no very great height from the ground, so that I was able to overlook the building and see into all the windows
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
- House · City · Heights · Friend
- Feelings
- Wonder
How traditions have read this kind of dream
Psychological
Houses, corridors and endless stairs are frequent dream settings. Some writers read buildings as figures for the self; others note simply that dreams rebuild the spaces we move through every day.
cf. Stevenson, A Chapter on Dreams (1888)
Mythological
Labyrinths, towers and underground cities appear in myths from Crete to Babel — built places where people lose their way, reach too high, or find hidden kingdoms.
Greek myth; Genesis 11
Chinese traditions
Tang tales like “The Governor of Nanke” place a whole kingdom of palaces inside a dream, only to reveal it as an ants’ nest — a lasting image for the brevity of worldly glory.
Li Gongzuo, c. 802
These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.
Dreams that share its images
- Snow at the top of the hotel England · before 1911
- Rome half veiled in mist Vienna, Austria · c. 1897
- Six mirrors in the barber’s shop Tokyo, Japan · 1908
- The acrobat who never touched the floor England · before 1911
- The millet was not yet cooked Handan, China (story setting) · c. 780
- The scene I had to write England · before 1911