Diary & poem of record · People & kin

My mother lacked a pair of gloves

London, England · 29 June 1667

…'my mother told me she lacked a pair of gloves, and I remembered a pair of my wife's in my chamber, and resolved she should have them, but then recollected [reflected] how my mother came to be here when I was in mourning for her…' This dream, Pepys adds, 'did trouble me mightily.'

Original text — The World of Dreams, Havelock Ellis

Open this dream in the galaxy →

Source: The World of Dreams — Havelock Ellis, 1911. Ch. VIII (quoting Pepys's Diary, 29 June 1667)
Rights: Public domain (US)
Record type: Diary & poem of record
Place: London, England · British
Date: 29 June 1667
Uncertainty: Low
Imagery: Mother · Partner · House
Feelings: Grief · Confusion · Tenderness

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

Cooking rice in a stone mortar Jianghuai region, China · c. 800 (Tang)
My sister came through the keyhole Ithaca (setting) · c. 8th century BCE
Dreaming of my late wife at her window Mizhou (Zhucheng, Shandong), China · 20th day of the 1st lunar month, 1075
Who is dead in the White House? Washington, D.C., USA · early April 1865 (as reported)
Why is the babe weeping? Russia · 1880 (novel)
Easter morning, cattle on the graves Grasmere, England · c. 1819