Research case · People & kin
The tenor climbing ladders to reach the high notes
Germany · before 1911
dreamed that in order to reach the notes the performer was climbing up ladders and stairs on the stage.
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
- Germany · German
- Date
- before 1911
- Uncertainty
- Moderate — Reported in Havelock Ellis’s study of dreams.
- Imagery
- Music · Ladder · Stairs · A stranger
- Feelings
- Wonder
How traditions have read this kind of dream
Psychological
Family members, friends and strangers populate most dreams. Freud read many such dreams as wishes in disguise; contemporary researchers emphasise continuity with waking relationships and concerns.
Freud, Dream Psychology (1920)
Mythological
Dreams in epic and scripture are often addressed to someone — a wife waiting for a husband, a son receiving a vision for his family — and are told aloud to be understood.
Odyssey XIX; Genesis 37
Chinese traditions
Confucius lamented that he no longer dreamed of the Duke of Zhou; in Chinese letters, dreaming of someone is a measure of how much they are on one’s mind.
Analects 7.5
These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.
Dreams that share its images
- A ladder set up on the earth Bethel, Canaan · undated (text c. 6th c. BCE)
- A hotel I could see into England · before 1911
- Snow at the top of the hotel England · before 1911
- The acrobat who never touched the floor England · before 1911
- Heaven lent us a stranger’s fortune China · undated (Jin collection)
- Swallowing a burned book of Go Chang’an, China · c. 873