DREAM GALAXY

Literary dream · People & kin

Gold under the pillow every morning

Chinchinī, on the sea coast (story) · c. 1070 (compiled)

that mighty god told those three virtuous women in a dream,—“This young son of yours shall be called Putraka; and every day when he awakes from sleep, a hundred thousand gold pieces shall be found under his pillow, and at last he shall become a king.” Accordingly, when he woke up from sleep, those virtuous daughters of Yajnadatta found the gold

Original text — The Kathá Sarit Ságara, or Ocean of the Streams of Story (Tawney trans.), Somadeva; trans. C. H. Tawney

Open this dream in the galaxy →

Source
The Kathá Sarit Ságara, or Ocean of the Streams of Story (Tawney trans.) — Somadeva; trans. C. H. Tawney, c. 1070 / 1880–84 (trans.). Ch. III
Rights
Public domain (author died 100+ years ago)
Record type
Literary dream
Place
Chinchinī, on the sea coast (story) · Indian
Date
c. 1070 (compiled)
Uncertainty
High — From the Kathāsaritsāgara, Somadeva’s 11th-century Sanskrit story collection (C. H. Tawney trans., 1880–84); a story-dream, not a personal report.
Imagery
Child · Mother · Ruler · Light
Feelings
Joy · Wonder

Another way to look at this dream

Notes on the images in this dream from psychology, myth, folklore and semiotics. Each names its source.

Child

Whose child was it — yours, someone you know, or yourself when young? What did the child need?

Jung · The child archetype

Jung described the “child” in dreams and myth as an image of what is not yet — a beginning, small and easy to overlook, that carries a future.

C. G. Jung, “The Psychology of the Child Archetype”, Collected Works 9i

Psychoanalysis Depth psychology

Freud began his theory with children’s dreams, which he found to be plain, undisguised wishes — a trip promised, a treat withheld.

Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), ch. III

East Asian custom Folk saying

In China and Korea (where it is called taemong), “conception dreams” before a birth are a living custom, often retold within families.

East Asian folk custom

All perspectives on child →

Mother

Was this your own mother as you know her, or someone in her place? What did she do or say?

Jung · The mother archetype

Jung first reads a dreamed mother on the “objective level” — your real mother and your relationship. Only then on the “subjective level”: the mother archetype, which he described as both nourishing and devouring.

C. G. Jung, “Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype”, Collected Works 9i

Early dream research & psychology Dream research

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)

Myth & scripture (several traditions) Myth & scripture

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

All perspectives on mother →

Light

Where did the light come from? What did it let you see — and was anything too bright to look at?

Jung · Lumen naturae

Writing on Paracelsus, Jung took up the old idea of a lumen naturae, a “light of nature” within us that illuminates from the inside rather than from outside authority.

C. G. Jung, “Paracelsus as a Spiritual Phenomenon”, Collected Works 13

Early dream research Dream research

Ellis noted the common claim that light on closed eyes sets off dreams, but said he had no decisive evidence and that eyelids guard sleep well. His own dream of a bright light and a huge shadow came after an evening walk into the setting sun.

Havelock Ellis, The World of Dreams (1911), ch. IV

Hebrew Bible Myth & scripture

The first thing spoken in Genesis is “Let there be light”: light marks the start of an ordered world.

Genesis 1:3

All perspectives on light →

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

Dreams that share its images