Dream Galaxy

Literary dream · Falling & stuck

Pigs on the edge of a cliff

Tokyo, Japan · 1908

ところへ豚が一匹鼻を鳴らして来た。庄太郎は仕方なしに、持っていた細い檳榔樹の洋杖で、豚の鼻頭を打った。豚はぐうと云いながら、ころりと引っ繰り返って、絶壁の下へ落ちて行った。

Original text — Ten Nights of Dreams, First Night, Natsume Sōseki

Just then a pig came snorting along. Shōtarō had no choice but to strike its snout with his thin palm-wood cane. The pig grunted, flipped over, and tumbled off the cliff.

Translation · Editorial translation (draft)

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Source
Ten Nights of Dreams, First Night — Natsume Sōseki, 1908
Rights
Public domain (author died 100+ years ago)
Record type
Literary dream
Place
Tokyo, Japan · Japanese
Date
1908
Uncertainty
Moderate — Endless pigs keep coming for seven days and nights.
Imagery
Animals · Heights · Falling · Crowd
Feelings
Fear · Helplessness

How traditions have read this kind of dream

Psychological

Sensations of falling or being unable to move are often reported near the edges of sleep. Ellis described them in terms of the body’s signals reaching the dreaming mind; sleep researchers today discuss related experiences such as hypnic jerks and sleep paralysis.

Ellis (1911), ch. V

Mythological

Falls mark thresholds in many myths — the fall from paradise, Phaethon tumbling from the sun chariot, descents into the underworld — moments when one order of things gives way to another.

Comparative mythology

Chinese traditions

Classical dream books such as the tradition attributed to the Duke of Zhou catalogued falling and climbing among common dream images; their readings were folk conventions rather than fixed meanings.

Folk dream-book traditions

These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.

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