Research case · Animals
The poultice became a saddle
Vienna, Austria · c. 1900
This was the means used by one who was troubled by a painful perineal abscess. He dreamt that he was on horseback, and made use of the poultice, which was intended to alleviate his pain, as a saddle, and thus got away from the cause of the trouble.
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- Source
- Dream Psychology: Psychoanalysis for Beginners (trans. M. D. Eder) — Sigmund Freud; translated by M. D. Eder, 1920. Ch. V
- Rights
- Public domain (US)
- Record type
- Research case
- Place
- Vienna, Austria · Austrian
- Date
- c. 1900
- Uncertainty
- Moderate
- Imagery
- Horse · Road
- Feelings
- Relief
How traditions have read this kind of dream
Psychological
Animals in dreams often speak, change form or carry strong feeling. Ellis suggested such dreams may lie behind fables of talking animals; later writers read them as instinct given a face.
Ellis (1911), note 262
Mythological
Messenger animals are everywhere in myth: the eagle in Penelope’s dream, Pharaoh’s seven cows, guardian dogs at the gates of the dead.
Odyssey XIX; Genesis 41
Chinese traditions
In the Liezi’s “deer under banana leaves”, a hunted deer becomes a puzzle about where dreaming ends; Zhuangzi’s butterfly turns the question inside out.
Liezi; Zhuangzi
These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.
Dreams that share its images
- Back in the little town of his birth Russia · 1866 (novel)
- The white horse at dawn Tokyo, Japan · 1908
- Two women yoked to my son’s chariot Susa (setting) · 472 BCE (play)
- Three horses at one trough Luoyang (setting) · novel (printed 1522); set 220
- A snake became an eagle and carried me off Asia Minor · c. 470 BCE
- A man clothed with rags Bedford, England · written c. 1676, pub. 1678