Diary & poem of record · Cities & buildings
Turning to face the lion
Precipitous path, location unstated · 15 November 1877
I found myself on the same narrow, rugged, and precipitous path described in my last dream, and confronted by a lion. Afraid to pass him I turned and fled. On this the beast gave chase, when, finding escape by flight hopeless, I turned and boldly faced him. Whereupon the lion at once stopped and slunk to the side of the path, and suffered me to pass unmolested, though I was so close to him that I could not avoid touching him with my garments in passing.
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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, XI. A Lion in the Way
- Record type
- Diary & poem of record
- Place
- Precipitous path, location unstated · British
- Date
- 15 November 1877
- Uncertainty
- Low — Dated first-person diary dream and a continuation in imagery, not a duplicate, of the previous cliff-path dream.
- Imagery
- Animals · Road · Heights
- Feelings
- Fear · Relief
Another way to look at this dream
Notes on the images in this dream from psychology, myth, folklore and semiotics. Each names its source.
Animals
What was the animal like — wild or tame, chasing you or keeping you company? Have you known an animal like it?
Jung · Instinct
In the Jungian book Man and His Symbols, animals in dreams are often read as instinct given a body — a part of us that is older than words.
Aniela Jaffé, “Symbolism in the Visual Arts”, in Man and His Symbols (1964)
Book of Songs Classical text
A Zhou-dynasty song records a dream reading: bears foretell sons, snakes foretell daughters. It shows how early animal dreams were read as signs about family.
Book of Songs, “Si Gan”
Hebrew Bible Myth & scripture
Pharaoh dreams of seven fat cows eaten by seven lean ones; Joseph reads them as years of plenty and famine — and says interpretation “belongs to God”, not to him.
Genesis 41; 40:8
Road
Were you heading towards somewhere or leaving somewhere? Did you choose this road?
Jung · Individuation as a way
Jung often spoke of individuation as a path one has to walk oneself; no one else’s map fits exactly.
C. G. Jung, “Conscious, Unconscious, and Individuation”, Collected Works 9i
Upanishads Classical text
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says that in dream “there are no chariots, no harnesses, no roads — but he creates chariots, harnesses and roads”: the dreamer builds the way as they go.
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.3.10
Tang tale Literature
In “The World Inside a Pillow”, a young man on the road to Handan lives a whole career in a dream while millet cooks — the source of the idiom “yellow millet dream”.
Shen Jiji, “The World Inside a Pillow” (c. 780)
Falling
Where were you standing before the fall? Were you reaching for something to hold, or letting go?
Jung · Descent
In his memoir Jung describes deliberately “letting himself drop” into an inner depth in 1913, and treated descent as a way of meeting what lies below everyday awareness — frightening, but not only a disaster.
C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962)
Early dream research Dream research
Ellis explained falling dreams through bodily sensations at the edge of sleep. Sleep researchers today describe the related “hypnic jerk”, a sudden start while falling asleep.
Havelock Ellis, The World of Dreams (1911), ch. VI
Classical Chinese medicine Historical medicine
The same passage of the Lingshu pairs flying with falling: when the lower body is in excess, “one dreams of falling”. This is a historical theory about the body, not medical advice and not a way to diagnose anything.
Huangdi Neijing, Lingshu ch. 43 “Yinxie Fameng”
Exploration notes, not a diagnosis, a prediction, or evidence of real events.
Dreams that share its images
- A canoe with ten paddles ready Great Lakes region · traditional (recorded c. 1820s–1850s)
- Pigs on the edge of a cliff Tokyo, Japan · 1908
- A crab hidden in the ford Zurich, Switzerland · c. 1916
- A green lizard fell into my belly Huainan, China · undated (Jin collection)
- A long green dog from the south Liangzhou (Wuwei), China · 376 (as told)
- Arise, and flee into Egypt Bethlehem → Egypt · c. 1st century (narrative)