DREAM GALAXY

Research case · People & kin

Choosing an art assessment

Not stated · Date unknown · contemporary study

I was evaluating someone's artistic work at a school, probably a high school. The assessments seemed to proceed automatically until the final one, when I had to make a choice; that is when I think I became lucid, through the act of choosing something. I did not perform a reality check, but I became aware of the situation. What struck me was not knowing how the dream could continue except through a choice that depended on me.

Original text — Virtual reality as a metacognitive training tool for lucid dreaming — Supplementary Materials, Andrea Signorelli, Francesco Tormen, Bruna Dal Bianco and Nicola De Pisapia

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Source
Virtual reality as a metacognitive training tool for lucid dreaming — Supplementary Materials — Andrea Signorelli, Francesco Tormen, Bruna Dal Bianco and Nicola De Pisapia, 2026. Supplementary Materials, Reports of Lucid Dreams, Report L9
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Record type
Research case
Place
Not stated · Italian
Date
Date unknown · contemporary study
Uncertainty
Moderate — De-identified lucid-dream report. The English text is the study authors’ translation from Italian; the calendar dream date is unknown. Chinese title and translation are AI-generated editorial drafts, not human-verified.
Imagery
A stranger · Exam · Heights

Another way to look at this dream

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

A stranger

Did the stranger remind you of anyone, even slightly? What did they want from you?

Jung · Shadow, anima and animus

Jung read unknown figures as possible parts of the dreamer: a same-sex stranger may carry the shadow; an other-sex figure what he called the anima or animus. These are offered as lenses, not labels — and his gender framing reflects his time.

C. G. Jung, “Aion, ch. 2–3”, Collected Works 9ii

Homeric epic Classical text

In Homer, gods and dreams arrive in borrowed shapes: Athena visits Nausicaa disguised as her friend; Zeus sends a Dream to Agamemnon looking like Nestor.

Odyssey VI; Iliad II

All perspectives on a stranger →

Exam

Is it an exam you already passed long ago? What, right now, feels like being tested?

Jung · Compensation

Read through Jung’s idea of compensation, an exam dream may bring up a worry the waking mind is keeping quiet — or an old confidence it has forgotten.

C. G. Jung, “General Aspects of Dream Psychology”, Collected Works 8

Psychoanalysis Depth psychology

Freud noted that people tend to dream of exams they actually passed, and read such dreams as reassurance: “you got through it then”.

Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), “typical dreams”

Modern dream surveys Dream research

In questionnaire studies of “typical dreams”, school, teachers and studying are reported by a large share of respondents.

Nielsen et al., “Typical Dreams of Canadian University Students”, Dreaming (2003)

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Falling

Where were you standing before the fall? Were you reaching for something to hold, or letting go?

Jung · Descent

In his memoir Jung describes deliberately “letting himself drop” into an inner depth in 1913, and treated descent as a way of meeting what lies below everyday awareness — frightening, but not only a disaster.

C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962)

Early dream research Dream research

Ellis explained falling dreams through bodily sensations at the edge of sleep. Sleep researchers today describe the related “hypnic jerk”, a sudden start while falling asleep.

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

Classical Chinese medicine Historical medicine

The same passage of the Lingshu pairs flying with falling: when the lower body is in excess, “one dreams of falling”. This is a historical theory about the body, not medical advice and not a way to diagnose anything.

Huangdi Neijing, Lingshu ch. 43 “Yinxie Fameng”

All perspectives on falling →

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

Dreams that share its images