Literary dream · Death & the departed
A theory of the broken heart
Not stated in excerpt · Date unknown · literary dream-story
I have often heard practising physicians and students of pathology assert that no one ever died of "a broken heart,"--that is, of course, in the popular sense of the phrase. Rupture of the heart, such as that which killed the passionate tyrant John of Muscovy, is a rare accident, and has no connection with the mental trouble and strain implied in the common expression "heart-breaking." I have, however, my own theory upon this question,--a theory founded on some tolerably strong evidence which might serve more scientifically-minded persons than myself as a text for a medical thesis
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- Source
- Dreams and Dream-Stories, Part II: Dream-Stories — Anna Bonus Kingsford; edited by Edward Maitland, posthumous edition (1908 Project Gutenberg source edition). Part II, V. Noemi; or, the Silver Ribbon
- Record type
- Literary dream
- Place
- Not stated in excerpt · British
- Date
- Date unknown · literary dream-story
- Uncertainty
- Low — Literary story from Part II, not a clinical case or diary testimony. Its composition date is unknown.
- Imagery
- The dead · Book · Ruler
- Feelings
- Grief · Unease
Another way to look at this dream
Notes on the images in this dream from psychology, myth, folklore and semiotics. Each names its source.
The dead
Who was it, and did they seem to know they had died? Was there something you were able to say, or not able to?
Jung · Objective level first
Jung’s memoir records his own dreams of his late father and treats them with seriousness rather than symbol-hunting: a dream of someone who has died is first about that person and that bond.
C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962)
Early dream research Dream research
Ellis devoted a chapter to dreams of the dead, noting how often the dead appear as if alive and how such dreams can bring comfort.
Havelock Ellis, The World of Dreams (1911), ch. VIII
Homeric epic Classical text
Achilles dreams of the dead Patroclus, who asks to be buried; Achilles reaches out to embrace him and grasps nothing.
Homer, Iliad XXIII
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)
Ruler
Were you the ruler, a subject, or an onlooker? Who gave the crown its weight?
Chinese philosophy Philosophy
In the Liezi a hired labourer dreams every night that he is a prince, and a rich man dreams every night that he is a servant. The labourer’s reply: “By day a slave, by night a ruler: why should I complain?”
Liezi, “King Mu of Zhou”
Hebrew Bible Myth & scripture
Young Joseph dreams that his brothers’ sheaves bow to his. They answer: “Shalt thou indeed reign over us?” and hate him the more. A dream of rule is heard as a claim.
Genesis 37:7–8 (King James Version)
Exploration notes, not a diagnosis, a prediction, or evidence of real events.
Dreams that share its images
- The illness became two little boys Jin (Shanxi), China · 581 BCE
- The dead emperor came back in anger Luoyang, China · c. 180
- His daughter took away his armour Ithome, Messenia · c. 724 BCE (as told)
- The wise men went home another way Bethlehem · c. 1st century (narrative)
- The statue could not be erected Capri, Italy · 37 CE
- My son would be killed by an iron spear Sardis, Lydia · c. 550 BCE (as told)