Literary dream · Falling & stuck
Thornfield Hall a dreary ruin
England · 1847 (novel)
I dreamt another dream, sir: that Thornfield Hall was a dreary ruin, the retreat of bats and owls. … I climbed the thin wall with frantic perilous haste, eager to catch one glimpse of you from the top
Open this dream in the galaxy →
- Source
- Jane Eyre — Charlotte Brontë, 1847. Ch. XXV
- Record type
- Literary dream
- Place
- England · British
- Date
- 1847 (novel)
- Uncertainty
- Moderate
- Imagery
- House · Bird · Moon · Child · Heights · Falling · Horse
- Feelings
- Unease · Longing · Fear
How traditions have read this kind of dream
Psychological
Sensations of falling or being unable to move are often reported near the edges of sleep. Ellis described them in terms of the body’s signals reaching the dreaming mind; sleep researchers today discuss related experiences such as hypnic jerks and sleep paralysis.
Ellis (1911), ch. V
Mythological
Falls mark thresholds in many myths — the fall from paradise, Phaethon tumbling from the sun chariot, descents into the underworld — moments when one order of things gives way to another.
Comparative mythology
Chinese traditions
Classical dream books such as the tradition attributed to the Duke of Zhou catalogued falling and climbing among common dream images; their readings were folk conventions rather than fixed meanings.
Folk dream-book traditions
These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.
Dreams that share its images
- Snow at the top of the hotel England · before 1911
- Stairs that end in the abyss Rome, Italy · c. 1750 (visions), retold 1821
- The acrobat who never touched the floor England · before 1911
- Stair after stair in endless series Edinburgh, Scotland · c. 1867–1871
- A hotel I could see into England · before 1911
- Two boys said: move your bed Jiankang (Nanjing), China · c. 480 (Southern Qi)