Diary & poem of record · Nature & weather
The changing forest
Changing forest, location unstated · July 1877
I found myself--accompanied by a guide, a young man of Oriental aspect and habit--passing through long vistas of trees which, as we advanced, continually changed in character. Thus we threaded avenues of English oaks and elms, the foliage of which gave way as we proceeded to that of warmer and moister climes, and we saw overhead the hanging masses of broad-leaved palms, and enormous trees whose names I do not know, spreading their fingered leaves over us like great green hands in a manner that frightened me.
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- Source
- Dreams and Dream-Stories, Part I: Dreams — Anna Bonus Kingsford; edited by Edward Maitland, posthumous edition; dreams recorded c. 1876–1887. Part I, VII. The Forest Cathedral
- Record type
- Diary & poem of record
- Place
- Changing forest, location unstated · British
- Date
- July 1877
- Uncertainty
- Low — Dated first-person diary dream; the guide and forest belong to the dream scene.
- Imagery
- Forest · Tree · A stranger
- Feelings
- Wonder · Fear
Another way to look at this dream
Notes on the images in this dream from psychology, myth, folklore and semiotics. Each names its source.
Tree
What kind of tree was it, and was it alive, bare, or in bloom? Does it remind you of a particular place?
Jung · The philosophical tree
Jung collected trees drawn by his patients and found in alchemy, and read them as images of slow growth — rooted below, reaching up.
C. G. Jung, “The Philosophical Tree”, Collected Works 13
Norse myth Myth & scripture
Yggdrasil, the world-ash, holds the nine worlds in its roots and branches.
Poetic Edda, “Völuspá”
Tang tale Literature
Chunyu Fen falls asleep under an old pagoda tree and dreams of a kingdom; on waking he finds it was an ants’ nest among its roots.
Li Gongzuo, “The Governor of Nanke” (c. 802)
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
Exploration notes, not a diagnosis, a prediction, or evidence of real events.
Dreams that share its images
- Step in my tracks, up through the clouds Shores of Lake Huron · traditional (recorded c. 1820s–1850s)
- A knife opened his heart, and he could learn Eastern Han China · c. 150 (as told)
- Ask what I shall give thee Gibeon · undated narrative
- Carving the guardian out of the wood Tokyo, Japan · 1908
- Walking Between the Dining Hall and Lakeside Not stated · Date unknown · contemporary study
- Into the Land of Illusion Beijing, China · c. 1760 (novel)