Diary & poem of record · Animals
The cart-horse spoke
Not stated · 28 October 1879
I saw in my sleep a cart-horse who, coming to me, conversed with me in what seemed a perfectly simple and natural manner, for it caused me no surprise that he should speak. And this is what he said:-- "Kindness to animals of the gentler orders is the very foundation of civilisation. For it is the cruelty and harshness of men towards the animals under their protection which is the cause of the present low standard of humanity itself."
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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, XIII. The Perfect Way with Animals
- Record type
- Diary & poem of record
- Place
- Not stated · British
- Date
- 28 October 1879
- Uncertainty
- Low — Dated first-person diary dream; the speaking horse's moral discourse is retained as dream content.
- Imagery
- Horse · Animals
- Feelings
- Wonder · Tenderness
Another way to look at this dream
Notes on the images in this dream from psychology, myth, folklore and semiotics. Each names its source.
Horse
Were you riding the horse, chasing it, or running from it? Did it go where you wanted?
Greek philosophy Philosophy
Plato pictures the soul as a charioteer driving two horses, one willing and one unruly — the self as something that has to be steered.
Plato, Phaedrus 246a–254e
Chinese poetry Literature
Xin Qiji, a general who no longer commands, dreams himself back among army camps and warhorses: horses as a life that has ended but still returns at night.
Xin Qiji, “Po Zhen Zi”
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
Exploration notes, not a diagnosis, a prediction, or evidence of real events.
Dreams that share its images
- Rams speckled and grisled Haran, Mesopotamia · undated narrative
- A voice calling him grandchild Great Lakes region · traditional (recorded c. 1820s–1850s)
- A conversation with a cat England · before 1911
- An ox with two tails Luozhou (Luoyang), China · c. 650 (Tang)
- The great fish with a hook in its mouth Chang’an, China · c. 120 BCE (as told)
- Bears and snakes in an auspicious dream Western Zhou, China · c. 9th–8th century BCE