Dreams about friend: 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.
Start with yourself
How long since you last saw this friend? What were you doing together in the dream — something you used to do?
Jung · Two levels of reading
There is no specific Jungian note for this image; this is his general method.
Jung suggested reading a dream image first on the “objective level” (the Friend as the real thing in your life), then on the “subjective level” (the Friend as a part of you). He also warned against fixed dream dictionaries: the same image means different things for different dreamers.
If the Friend were a part of you, which part would it be?
C. G. Jung, Collected Works 7 & 8; “Approaching the Unconscious”, in Man and His Symbols (1964)
Traditions, side by side
Dream research Dream research
The “continuity” view in dream research finds that most dream characters are people we know, and that dreams tend to carry on our waking relationships and concerns.
G. William Domhoff, The Scientific Study of Dreams (2003)
Tang poetry Literature
Du Fu, not knowing whether his exiled friend Li Bai is alive, writes that “my old friend entered my dream, knowing how long I have thought of him”.
Du Fu, “Dreaming of Li Bai” (759)
Tang poetry Literature
Bai Juyi kept dreaming of his friend Yuan Zhen. Yuan wrote back that, ill and confused, he dreamed only of idle strangers — “never of you”: a dream exchanged between friends by letter.
Yuan Zhen, “Reply to Letian, Who Often Dreams of Me”
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 friend look like one you have actually seen? Could it simply be a copy of a memory? - Index — by connection
Could the friend point to an actual cause — a bodily sensation, a sound in the room, something that happened that day? - Symbol — by convention
Does the friend 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 friend
- A friend at the bedside, like a breath of wind Scheria (setting) · c. 8th century BCE
- You sleep, Achilles, and have forgotten me Troy (setting) · c. 8th century BCE
- My sheaf stood upright Canaan · undated narrative
- The dead poet recited a hymn Thebes, Greece · c. 438 BCE
- The sun god spoke to Karna in a dream Hastinapura (setting) · c. 4th c. BCE–4th c. CE (epic)
- Hector’s ghost before my sight Troy (setting) · 19 BCE (poem)
- My friend fell into the river over a gambling debt Zhejiang River, China · 3rd–4th century
- My old friend entered my dream Qinzhou (Gansu), China · 759
- I dreamed of you three times last night Jiangzhou (Jiujiang), China · c. 815
- I dream only of strangers, not of you Tongzhou (Dazhou), China · c. 815
- Your fetters are loosed Northern borderlands (story) · c. 1070 (compiled)
- At West Lake, knowing it was a dream Huangzhou (Huanggang), China · c. 1080–1084
- A friend returned from the dead France · 17th century
- Snow fell so no one could track them Great Lakes region · traditional (recorded c. 1820s–1850s)
- When the dead return in dreams, the wailing begins again Lower Columbia River, Pacific Northwest · traditional (recorded c. 1880)
- A sky like cracked ice England · before 1911
- Walking ahead with immense effort England · before 1911
- A postcard written partly in Latin England · before 1911
- A hotel I could see into England · before 1911
- Endless platforms on the way to Berlin England · before 1911
- My dead brother with bleeding fingers England · before 1911
- A damson with a snail inside England · before 1911
- My friend, alive, no longer editing England · before 1911
- Swimming out with the teacher to a wedding Switzerland · c. 1910