DREAM GALAXY

Anecdote collection · Death & the departed

The one goddess he never sang

Thebes, Greece · c. 438 BCE

Proserpine stood by him as he slept, and told him that she was the only one of the gods that was not celebrated by him, but he would also celebrate her in an Ode when he came to her. And he died before the close of the 10th day after this dream.

Original text — Pausanias’ Description of Greece (Shilleto trans.), Pausanias; trans. A. R. Shilleto

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Source
Pausanias’ Description of Greece (Shilleto trans.) — Pausanias; trans. A. R. Shilleto, c. 150 / 1886 (trans.). Book IX, ch. 23
Rights
Public domain (author died 100+ years ago)
Record type
Anecdote collection
Place
Thebes, Greece · Ancient Greek
Date
c. 438 BCE
Uncertainty
High — From Pausanias’ Description of Greece (A. R. Shilleto trans., 1886); a local tradition recorded by a 2nd-century traveller.
Imagery
Music · Writing · Grave
Feelings
Awe · Calm

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

All perspectives on the dead →

Exploration notes, not a diagnosis, a prediction, or evidence of real events.

Dreams that share its images