DREAM GALAXY

Diary & poem of record · Transformation

Seven readers debate perfection

London · April 9, 1877

I dreamed that I was in a large room, and there were in it seven persons, all men, sitting at one long table; and each of them had before him a scroll, some having books also; and all were greyheaded and bent with age save one, and this was a youth of about twenty without hair on his face. One of the aged men, who had his finger on a place in a book open before him, said: "This spirit, who is of our order, writes in this book,--'Be ye perfect, therefore, as your Father in heaven is perfect.' How shall we understand this word `perfection'?"

Original text — Dreams and Dream-Stories, Part I: Dreams, Anna Bonus Kingsford; edited by Edward Maitland

Open this dream in the galaxy →

Source
Dreams and Dream-Stories, Part I: Dreams — Anna Bonus Kingsford; edited by Edward Maitland, posthumous edition; dreams recorded c. 1876–1887. Part I, III. The Counsel of Perfection
Rights
Public domain (author died 100+ years ago)
Record type
Diary & poem of record
Place
London · British
Date
April 9, 1877
Uncertainty
Low — First-person dream transcribed from Kingsford's diary; the source supplies the place and date.
Imagery
Book · Crowd · Father · House
Feelings
Wonder

Another way to look at this dream

Notes on the images in this dream from psychology, myth, folklore and semiotics. Each names its source.

Book

Could you read the book? Did it belong to you, or did someone hand it over?

Hebrew prophets Myth & scripture

In a vision Ezekiel is handed a scroll written inside and out with “lamentations, and mourning, and woe”, told to eat it, and finds it “as honey for sweetness”. Taking a text into the body is how the message is received. (A vision, not a dream.)

Ezekiel 2:9–3:3 (King James Version)

Christian scripture Myth & scripture

In Revelation John is told to take a little book from an angel’s hand and eat it: sweet as honey in the mouth, bitter in the belly. The same book is both. (A vision, not a dream.)

Revelation 10:9–10 (King James Version)

All perspectives on book →

A stranger

Did the stranger remind you of anyone, even slightly? What did they want from you?

Jung · Shadow, anima and animus

Jung read unknown figures as possible parts of the dreamer: a same-sex stranger may carry the shadow; an other-sex figure what he called the anima or animus. These are offered as lenses, not labels — and his gender framing reflects his time.

C. G. Jung, “Aion, ch. 2–3”, Collected Works 9ii

Homeric epic Classical text

In Homer, gods and dreams arrive in borrowed shapes: Athena visits Nausicaa disguised as her friend; Zeus sends a Dream to Agamemnon looking like Nestor.

Odyssey VI; Iliad II

All perspectives on a stranger →

Father

Was this your own father as you know him, or a father-like figure? Was there something unsaid between you?

Jung · Objective and subjective level

Jung suggested reading a dream figure twice: as the actual person, and as part of yourself. A dreamed father may be about him — or about your own sense of authority.

C. G. Jung, “On the Psychology of the Unconscious”, Collected Works 7

Confucian classics Classical text

Confucius, growing old, lamented that he had not dreamed of the Duke of Zhou — his model and spiritual forebear — for a long time.

Analects 7.5

Psychoanalysis Depth psychology

The night after his father’s funeral, Freud dreamed of a notice reading “You are requested to close the eyes” — a dream he connected to duty and self-reproach.

Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), ch. VI

All perspectives on father →

Exploration notes, not a diagnosis, a prediction, or evidence of real events.

Dreams that share its images