DREAM GALAXY

Diary & poem of record · People & kin

Apollonius spoke of passing souls

Not stated · 11 May 1880

I was visited last night in my sleep by one whom I presently recognised as the famous Adept and Mystic of the first century of our era, Apollonius of Tyana, called the "Pagan Christ." He was clad in a grey linen robe with a hood, like that of a monk, and had a smooth, beardless face, and seemed to be between forty and fifty years of age.

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

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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, XVI. The Metempsychosis
Rights
Public domain (author died 100+ years ago)
Record type
Diary & poem of record
Place
Not stated · British, Ancient Greek
Date
11 May 1880
Uncertainty
Low — Dated first-person diary dream. The identification and doctrine are Kingsford's own historical framing.
Imagery
A stranger · Animals
Feelings
Wonder · Awe

Another way to look at this dream

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

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 →

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

All perspectives on animals →

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

Dreams that share its images