Research case · Light & dark
My own vast shadow
England (countryside) · before 1911
Thus, on the night after a pleasant walk in a country lane through which the setting sun shone, I dreamed that I was walking along a lane in which I saw a bright light and my own vast shadow in front of me.
Open this dream in the galaxy →
- Source
- The World of Dreams — Havelock Ellis, 1911. Ch. IV
- Rights
- Public domain (US)
- Record type
- Research case
- Place
- England (countryside) · British
- Date
- before 1911
- Uncertainty
- Low
- Imagery
- Light · Shadow · Road · Sun
- Feelings
- Calm · Wonder
How traditions have read this kind of dream
Psychological
Dreamers often report vivid light, shadow and colour. Ellis observed that vision dominates dreams even though the eyes are closed; some later writers treat light and dark as figures for knowing and not-knowing.
Ellis (1911), ch. IV
Mythological
Sun, moon and stars bow to Joseph in his dream; across cultures celestial lights mark rank, destiny and the order of the cosmos.
Genesis 37
Chinese traditions
The moon in Chinese poetry is a shared light across distance — the same moon seen by people far apart — which is why it appears so often in dreams of absent loved ones.
Su Shi; Du Fu
These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.
Dreams that share its images
- The third day hence to fertile Phthia Athens, Greece · 399 BCE
- Driving an ox cart that carried the sun Chang’an, China · spring 846
- A thunderbolt fell on my father’s house Mesopotamia · 401 BCE
- Swallowing the sun Guangling (Yangzhou), China · c. 920 (Wu kingdom)
- As in a mirror, as in a dream Ancient India · c. 5th c. BCE (text)
- Evensong without light England · before 1911