Father, don’t you see that I am burning?

Central Europe · before 1900

After sleeping a few hours the father dreamed that the child stood near his bed clasping his arms and calling out reproachfully, “Father, don’t you see that I am burning?” The father woke and noticed a bright light coming from the adjoining room.

Original text — The Interpretation of Dreams (trans. A. A. Brill), Sigmund Freud; trans. A. A. Brill

Open this dream in the galaxy →

Source: The Interpretation of Dreams (trans. A. A. Brill) — Sigmund Freud; trans. A. A. Brill, 1913. Ch. VII
Rights: Public domain (US)
Record type: Research case
Place: Central Europe · Austrian
Date: before 1900
Uncertainty: Moderate — Reported to Freud second-hand by a patient, who had heard it in a lecture.
Imagery: Child · Father · Fire · Light · The dead
Feelings: Grief · Horror

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

The third day hence to fertile Phthia Athens, Greece · 399 BCE
The moon, then the sun, entered my bosom Wu (Zhejiang), China · c. 175–182
A thunderbolt fell on my father’s house Mesopotamia · 401 BCE
Living pictures in magnesium light Germany · before 1911
Where she was, there was I also Thagaste, North Africa · c. 373
Who is dead in the White House? Washington, D.C., USA · early April 1865 (as reported)