Literary dream · People & kin
My sister came through the keyhole
Ithaca (setting) · c. 8th century BCE
Then Minerva bethought her of another matter, and made a vision in the likeness of Penelope’s sister Iphthime daughter of Icarius
Open this dream in the galaxy →
- Source
- The Odyssey, Book XIX (trans. Samuel Butler) — Homer; translated by Samuel Butler, 1900 (translation). Book IV
- Record type
- Literary dream
- Place
- Ithaca (setting) · Ancient Greek
- Date
- c. 8th century BCE
- Uncertainty
- High — Epic poem, in Samuel Butler’s public-domain translation.
- Imagery
- A stranger · House · Gate · Partner
- Feelings
- Tenderness · Relief · Grief
How traditions have read this kind of dream
Psychological
Family members, friends and strangers populate most dreams. Freud read many such dreams as wishes in disguise; contemporary researchers emphasise continuity with waking relationships and concerns.
Freud, Dream Psychology (1920)
Mythological
Dreams in epic and scripture are often addressed to someone — a wife waiting for a husband, a son receiving a vision for his family — and are told aloud to be understood.
Odyssey XIX; Genesis 37
Chinese traditions
Confucius lamented that he no longer dreamed of the Duke of Zhou; in Chinese letters, dreaming of someone is a measure of how much they are on one’s mind.
Analects 7.5
These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.
Dreams that share its images
- My mother lacked a pair of gloves London, England · 29 June 1667
- The window with cypress and mallows Mount Tiantai, Zhejiang, China · c. 900
- A fire in a hotel in a strange city Zurich, Switzerland · c. 1913
- Cherry stones beside the pillow Tang China · c. 850
- My lady came and found me dead Mantua (setting) · c. 1595 (play)
- Dreaming of my late wife at her window Mizhou (Zhucheng, Shandong), China · 20th day of the 1st lunar month, 1075