A miracle drug called selvdrolla

England · before 1911

the one word I actually seemed to see, letter by letter, was the name of the drug, and that changed and fluctuated beneath my vision as I gazed at it, the final impression being selvdrolla.

Original text — The World of Dreams, Havelock Ellis

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: Writing · A stranger · Food
Feelings: Confusion · Wonder

How traditions have read this kind of dream

Psychological

Dreams of becoming someone or something else, or of not knowing whether one is awake, have long interested writers on lucid dreaming; Stevenson credited such night work with parts of Jekyll and Hyde.

Stevenson (1888)

Mythological

Metamorphosis is one of mythology’s oldest engines — Ovid’s Metamorphoses gathers hundreds of beings changed into trees, birds and stars.

Ovid, Metamorphoses

Chinese traditions

Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream gave Chinese thought the idea of wuhua, “the transformation of things”, and the phrase “Zhuang Zhou dreams of the butterfly” remains shorthand for the blurred line between self and world.

Zhuangzi, Qiwulun

These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.

Dreams that share its images

The millet was not yet cooked Handan, China (story setting) · c. 780
Dreaming within a dream State of Song, China · c. 4th–3rd century BCE
Charged one franc of interest Zurich, Switzerland · c. 1914
Bottom’s dream, which hath no bottom Athens (setting) · c. 1595 (play)
The scene at the window Bournemouth, England · 1885
Cherry stones beside the pillow Tang China · c. 850