Dreams about falling: Jung, traditions and semiotics

This is not a dream dictionary. Each perspective below names where it comes from; traditions are shown side by side, not merged into one meaning.

Also covers: Heights

Start with yourself

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.

If the fall had not ended in waking, where do you imagine it would have landed?

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

Traditions, side by side

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”

Greek myth Myth & scripture

Phaethon, who could not control the sun’s chariot, and Icarus, who flew too near the sun, both fall — stories where falling follows reaching too far.

Ovid, Metamorphoses II, VIII

Semiotics: how an image comes to mean

Following C. S. Peirce, an image can work as a sign in three ways:

Icon — by resemblance
Does the falling look like one you have actually seen? Could it simply be a copy of a memory?
Index — by connection
Could the falling point to an actual cause — a bodily sensation, a sound in the room, something that happened that day?
Symbol — by convention
Does the falling mean what it means by convention — an idiom, a saying, a family phrase? Would it still mean that in another language or culture?

C. S. Peirce, Collected Papers 2.247–249 (icon, index, symbol)
C. G. Jung, Psychological Types (1921), “Definitions: Symbol” — a sign stands for something known, a symbol for something not yet fully known
Ellis (1911), ch. II, on verbal links between dream images

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

Recorded dreams with falling

His head touched the heaven Egypt · 522 BCE (as told)
My father sinking into a lake of mire Ayodhya (setting) · c. 5th–4th c. BCE (epic)
A tree reaching unto heaven Babylon · narrative set c. 6th c. BCE
Three ears of grain on the palace roof Guanghan, Sichuan, China · early 1st century
Climbing a ladder to touch the sky Luoyang, China · c. 95 (as told)
A green lizard fell into my belly Huainan, China · undated (Jin collection)
My friend fell into the river over a gambling debt Zhejiang River, China · 3rd–4th century
A long green dog from the south Liangzhou (Wuwei), China · 376 (as told)
Fallen from the bed, eaten by worms Jinyang (Taiyuan), China · 617 (as told)
Falling from the palace hall Chang’an, China · c. 750
Holding the sun on a mountain top Tang China · c. 760
Fell in the river, boots still dry Chang’an, China · c. 810
A willow tree fell to the ground Chang’an, China · 815
Stairs that end in the abyss Rome, Italy · c. 1750 (visions), retold 1821
Heaven did not seem to be my home Yorkshire moors, England · 1847 (novel)
Thornfield Hall a dreary ruin England · 1847 (novel)
Four nights of flying from a cliff Minnesota River · c. 1860s (told)
Would the fall never come to an end? Oxford, England · 1865 (novel)
Rome half veiled in mist Vienna, Austria · c. 1897
Snow at the top of the hotel England · before 1911
The acrobat who never touched the floor England · before 1911
The scene I had to write England · before 1911
A hotel I could see into England · before 1911
I jumped into the sea and regretted it Tokyo, Japan · 1908
Pigs on the edge of a cliff Tokyo, Japan · 1908
The animals fell out of Noah’s ark Zurich, Switzerland · c. 1910
I could make the summer Zurich, Switzerland · c. 1910