Dream Galaxy

Literary dream · People & kin

I gave birth to a lion

Athens, Greece · c. 495 BCE

His mother, being near her time, fancied in a dream that she was brought to bed of a lion

Original text — Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (Dryden trans., rev. Clough), Plutarch; trans. John Dryden et al., rev. A. H. Clough

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Source
Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (Dryden trans., rev. Clough) — Plutarch; trans. John Dryden et al., rev. A. H. Clough, c. 100 / 1859 (revision). Life of Pericles
Rights
Public domain (author died 100+ years ago)
Record type
Literary dream
Place
Athens, Greece · Ancient Greek
Date
c. 495 BCE
Uncertainty
High — From Plutarch’s Lives (Dryden translation, revised by Clough); a reported dream.
Imagery
Mother · Child · Animals
Feelings
Awe · Wonder

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