Religious narrative · Cities & buildings
The soul roves over wide areas
India · c. 4th c. BCE–4th c. CE (epic)
In a dream, the Soul, endued with the fivefold senses, leaves the body and roves over wide areas. After the same manner, when death ensues, the Soul (with the senses in their subtile forms) passes out of one body for entering another.
Open this dream in the galaxy →
- Source
- The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa (Ganguli trans.) — Vyasa (trad.); trans. Kisari Mohan Ganguli, ancient / 1883–96 (trans.). Santi Parva (Mokshadharma), sec. 210
- Record type
- Religious narrative
- Place
- India · Indian
- Date
- c. 4th c. BCE–4th c. CE (epic)
- Uncertainty
- Moderate — From the Mahābhārata (K. M. Ganguli trans., 1883–96); an epic narrative.
- Imagery
- Flight · Road · The dead
- Feelings
- Calm · 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.
Flight
How did flying feel — effortless, effortful, frightening? Is there something in your waking life you would like to rise above, or see from higher up?
Jung · Compensation
Jung thought dreams often compensate for a one-sided waking attitude: they show the side we leave out. A flying dream can be read either way — lightness someone lacks, or a height they have climbed too fast.
C. G. Jung, “General Aspects of Dream Psychology”, Collected Works 8
Early dream research Dream research
Ellis gave flying and falling dreams a whole chapter, “Aviation in Dreams”, and explained flying mainly through breathing sensations during sleep.
Havelock Ellis, The World of Dreams (1911), ch. VI
Classical Chinese medicine Historical medicine
The Lingshu says that when the upper body is in excess, “one dreams of flying”. 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”
Road
Were you heading towards somewhere or leaving somewhere? Did you choose this road?
Jung · Individuation as a way
Jung often spoke of individuation as a path one has to walk oneself; no one else’s map fits exactly.
C. G. Jung, “Conscious, Unconscious, and Individuation”, Collected Works 9i
Upanishads Classical text
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says that in dream “there are no chariots, no harnesses, no roads — but he creates chariots, harnesses and roads”: the dreamer builds the way as they go.
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.3.10
Tang tale Literature
In “The World Inside a Pillow”, a young man on the road to Handan lives a whole career in a dream while millet cooks — the source of the idiom “yellow millet dream”.
Shen Jiji, “The World Inside a Pillow” (c. 780)
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
Exploration notes, not a diagnosis, a prediction, or evidence of real events.
Dreams that share its images
- The skull that spoke in a dream On the road to Chu, China · c. 3rd century BCE
- Soaring above the clouds the night before Rome, Italy · 15 March 44 BCE (eve)
- The wise men went home another way Bethlehem · c. 1st century (narrative)
- The land of Huaxu Legendary China · legendary; text compiled c. 4th century CE
- My own vast shadow England (countryside) · before 1911
- A balance exactly poised Rome, Italy · c. 70–79 CE