Religious narrative · Transformation
The waking body disappears in sleep
India · c. 6th–10th c. (text)
As the thing dreamt of disappears upon waking, so does the waking body disappear in sleep, when the desires lie dormant in the soul.
Open this dream in the galaxy →
- Source
- The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana, vol. 1 (trans. Viharilala Mitra) — Valmiki (attributed); trans. Viharilala Mitra, 1891 (translation). Vol. 1
- Record type
- Religious narrative
- Place
- India · Indian
- Date
- c. 6th–10th c. (text)
- Uncertainty
- Moderate — Philosophical teaching (Viharilala Mitra translation, 1891–99).
- Imagery
- Time
- Feelings
- Calm
How traditions have read this kind of dream
Psychological
Dreams of becoming someone or something else, or of not knowing whether one is awake, have long interested writers on lucid dreaming; Stevenson credited such night work with parts of Jekyll and Hyde.
Stevenson (1888)
Mythological
Metamorphosis is one of mythology’s oldest engines — Ovid’s Metamorphoses gathers hundreds of beings changed into trees, birds and stars.
Ovid, Metamorphoses
Chinese traditions
Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream gave Chinese thought the idea of wuhua, “the transformation of things”, and the phrase “Zhuang Zhou dreams of the butterfly” remains shorthand for the blurred line between self and world.
Zhuangzi, Qiwulun
These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.
Dreams that share its images
- She dreamt of her uncle and foretold her death London, England · January 1664 (as told to Pepys)
- A living globe made of drops Russia · 1869 (novel)
- Dreaming within a dream State of Song, China · c. 4th–3rd century BCE
- Charged one franc of interest Zurich, Switzerland · c. 1914
- The shop assistant who had moved England · before 1911
- A conversation with a cat England · before 1911