DREAM GALAXY

Anecdote collection · Cities & buildings

A balance exactly poised

Rome, Italy · c. 70–79 CE

It is said likewise, that he once saw in a dream a balance in the middle of the porch of the Palatine house exactly poised; in one scale of which stood Claudius and Nero, in the other, himself and his sons.

Original text — The Lives of the Twelve Caesars (Thomson trans., rev. Forester), Suetonius; trans. Alexander Thomson, rev. T. Forester

Open this dream in the galaxy →

Source
The Lives of the Twelve Caesars (Thomson trans., rev. Forester) — Suetonius; trans. Alexander Thomson, rev. T. Forester, c. 121 / 1796 (trans.). Vespasian, ch. XXV
Rights
Public domain (author died 100+ years ago)
Record type
Anecdote collection
Place
Rome, Italy · Roman
Date
c. 70–79 CE
Uncertainty
High — From Suetonius’ Lives of the Twelve Caesars (A. Thomson trans., rev. T. Forester); an omen-dream reported by a Roman biographer.
Imagery
Palace · Ruler · Time
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.

Time

Did time in the dream run fast, slow, or stop? Were you late for something, or waiting?

Early dream research Dream research

Ellis devoted part of a chapter to the “apparent rapidity” of dreams and the odd sense of time in them, arguing that a dream often feels long because it is remembered like a described picture.

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

Nineteenth-century case Dream research

Alfred Maury reported dreaming a long drama of the French Revolution ending at the guillotine, and waking as the bed’s headboard fell on his neck. Freud and others debated how so much could fit into a moment.

Alfred Maury, Le Sommeil et les rêves (1861); discussed in Freud (1900), ch. I

All perspectives on time →

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

Dreams that share its images