Dream Galaxy

Research case · Transformation

Already at the hospital, so no need to go

Vienna, Austria · c. 1895

Whereupon the sleeper dreamt of a room in the hospital, a bed in which he was lying, and a chart pinned over his head reading: “Joe H.... cand. med. 22 years old.” He said to himself in the dream: “If I am already at the hospital, I don’t have to go there,” turned over and slept on.

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

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Source
The Interpretation of Dreams (trans. A. A. Brill) — Sigmund Freud; trans. A. A. Brill, 1913. Ch. III
Rights
Public domain (US)
Record type
Research case
Place
Vienna, Austria · Austrian
Date
c. 1895
Uncertainty
Low
Imagery
House · Writing
Feelings
Relief · Calm

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