Walking ahead with immense effort

England · before 1911

I dreamed that I was walking with a friend, that we quarrelled, and that thereupon I crossed the road, and walked on ahead of him. These actions seemed entirely effortless. Gradually, however, I became conscious of immense and ineffectual effort in keeping in front, and slowly began to experience, as I awakened, a feeling of lassitude in my actual and motionless limbs.

Original text — The World of Dreams, Havelock Ellis

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Source: The World of Dreams — Havelock Ellis, 1911. Ch. V
Rights: Public domain (US)
Record type: Research case
Place: England · British
Date: before 1911
Uncertainty: Low
Imagery: Road · Friend
Feelings: Helplessness

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

Endless platforms on the way to Berlin England · before 1911
A plague of certainty Siberia, Russia · 1866 (novel)
A friend at the bedside, like a breath of wind Scheria (setting) · c. 8th century BCE
Swimming out with the teacher to a wedding Switzerland · c. 1910
A man clothed with rags Bedford, England · written c. 1676, pub. 1678
Defeated in an argument by myself London, England · 18th century