Research case · Animals
A scarlet insect as large as a lobster
Southern Spain · before 1911
I fell asleep again and dreamed that a huge insect--as large as a lobster, but flat like a cockroach, and scarlet in colour--had alighted on my hand.
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
- Southern Spain · British
- Date
- before 1911
- Uncertainty
- Moderate — Reported in Havelock Ellis’s study of dreams.
- Imagery
- Insects · Animals
- Feelings
- Horror · Fear
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)
- A long green dog from the south Liangzhou (Wuwei), China · 376 (as told)
- A green lizard fell into my belly Huainan, China · undated (Jin collection)
- Pigs on the edge of a cliff Tokyo, Japan · 1908
- The animals fell out of Noah’s ark Zurich, Switzerland · c. 1910
- Fell in the river, boots still dry Chang’an, China · c. 810