Research case · People & kin
Where she last saw him
Vienna, Austria · c. 1900
A girl dreamt that she saw lying dead before her the only surviving child of her sister amid the same surroundings as a few years before she saw the first child lying dead. She was not sensible of any pain… Years ago it was at the funeral of the child that she had last seen and spoken to the man she loved.
Open this dream in the galaxy →
- Source
- Dream Psychology: Psychoanalysis for Beginners (trans. M. D. Eder) — Sigmund Freud; translated by M. D. Eder, 1920. Ch. IV
- Rights
- Public domain (US)
- Record type
- Research case
- Place
- Vienna, Austria · Austrian
- Date
- c. 1900
- Uncertainty
- Moderate
- Imagery
- Child · The dead · A stranger
- Feelings
- Longing · Confusion
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
- You sleep, Achilles, and have forgotten me Troy (setting) · c. 8th century BCE
- Cut in two down the middle United States · before 1911
- A masked man asked for his bone back Huangkeng, China · c. 795
- A tall man spoke to him in riddles Athens, Greece · 514 BCE
- I no longer dream of the Duke of Zhou State of Lu, China · c. 5th century BCE
- My dead brother with bleeding fingers England · before 1911