Literary dream · Death & the departed
A plague of certainty
Siberia, Russia · 1866 (novel)
He dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia… Men attacked by them became at once mad and furious. But never had men considered themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth as these sufferers…
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- Source
- Crime and Punishment (trans. Constance Garnett) — Fyodor Dostoevsky; translated by Constance Garnett, 1866 (original) / 1914 (translation). Epilogue, Ch. II
- Rights
- Public domain (US)
- Record type
- Literary dream
- Place
- Siberia, Russia · Russian
- Date
- 1866 (novel)
- Uncertainty
- Moderate — A fictional fever dream.
- Imagery
- Crowd · War · City
- Feelings
- Horror · Unease
How traditions have read this kind of dream
Psychological
Dreams of the dead returning are widely reported after bereavement. Ellis noted how such dreams often move, over years, from disbelief to quiet acceptance; many people describe them as comforting rather than frightening.
Ellis (1911), ch. VIII
Mythological
In Homer, dreams pass through gates of horn and ivory; across many cultures the dead were believed to visit the living in sleep, and dreams were a place where the two could meet.
Odyssey XIX
Chinese traditions
Chinese poets wrote dreams of the departed as acts of remembrance: Su Shi’s “Ten years, living and dead” and Du Fu’s “My old friend entered my dream” are read to this day as elegies.
Su Shi (1075); Du Fu (759)
These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.
Dreams that share its images
- The whole city sprouting vegetables Chang’an, China · 383 (as told)
- A cannon before the Arch of Constantine Rome (dreamed) · before 1912
- The guillotine fell France · c. 1850
- A statue running with blood Rome (setting) · 1599 (play); set 44 BCE
- The illness became two little boys Jin (Shanxi), China · 581 BCE
- The pale student of unhallowed arts Near Geneva, Switzerland · June 1816