Research case · People & kin
Irma’s injection
Bellevue, near Vienna · 23–24 July 1895
A great hall—many guests whom we are receiving—among them Irma, whom I immediately take aside, as though to answer her letter, to reproach her for not yet accepting the “solution.”
Open this dream in the galaxy →
- Source
- The Interpretation of Dreams (trans. A. A. Brill) — Sigmund Freud; trans. A. A. Brill, 1913. Ch. II
- Rights
- Public domain (US)
- Record type
- Research case
- Place
- Bellevue, near Vienna · Austrian
- Date
- 23–24 July 1895
- Uncertainty
- Low — Freud’s own dream, the first he analysed in full.
- Imagery
- Crowd · House · A stranger · Faces
- Feelings
- Unease · 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
- The scene I had to write England · before 1911
- My friend, alive, no longer editing England · before 1911
- The millet was not yet cooked Handan, China (story setting) · c. 780
- Already at the hospital, so no need to go Vienna, Austria · c. 1895
- Stair after stair in endless series Edinburgh, Scotland · c. 1867–1871
- A tall man spoke to him in riddles Athens, Greece · 514 BCE