One of the things that appealed to me about Jim was the fact that he enjoyed reading. When I first went to meet his parents, I noticed book shelves with books in the living room. I thought that was a good sign. It was only much later that I had my attention drawn to the entire wall of books in the basement.
When his mother died and the contents of the house were being dealt with, many of those books came home to reside with us. I doubt if any of them have “value” in terms of money. There are times when I wonder what criteria were used to decide which books to tote here. When the boxes arrived, they were put up onto our shelves willy-nilly. There is NO cataloguing or arrangement system in place at The Havens, I am afraid, and the situation will only deteriorate when the books at my parents’ place have to be dealt with.
So anyway, the other day we were motivated to search for Owen Wister’s “The Virginian” and in the process one of the odd books that has been hiding on the shelves in the back room rose to the surface of the ocean, so to speak, and floated into the living room, where it has been amusing us.
This book is “Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted: or What’s in a Dream, A Scientific and Pracitcal Exposition,” by one Gustavus Hindman Miller. This book was copyrighted 1901, and this is the first (and probably only) edition. How it arrived at the family manse and why it stayed long enough to be adopted by us is a mystery. The book is not.
(I have a “Dream Dictionary”, by Tony Crisp, copyright 2002, which I use occasionally to help me elucidate some of my rather odd dreams. Let me just say that I don’t put a lot of credence into dream interpretation, but sometimes by looking in my D. D. I get an insight into what the heck is going on in my subconscious.)
Now that the usual disclaimers have been made, I wish to present to you one of the Ten Thousand Dreams, as interpreted by Herr Miller.
“For a woman to dream of flying from one city to another, and alighting on church spires,” Wait, we must stop here for a moment and meditate on this image. How poignant, how precise a dream. It is the “alighting on church spires” part that really intrigues me. Is this such a common dream, alighting on church spires while flying from one city to another? “foretells she will have much to contend against in the way of false persuasions and declarations of love. She will be threatened with a disastrous season of ill health, and the death of some one near to her may follow.”
(In contrast, the 2002 book relates dreaming of flying suggestive of confidence and the ability to solve present life problems. By the way, there is no mention of alighting on church spires.)
I don’t know. I just like the imagery, the way the language is used, the very archaic view of life and relationships.
If you dream of “falling from a foot-log into clear water, it signifies short widowhood terminating in an agreeable marriage. If the water is not clear, gloomy prospects.” Something that signifies widowhood is not gloomy? I guess it depends on who you are widowed from. (There are no foot-logs in the 2002 book.)
Here’s another: “For a man to dream that he is a girl, he will be weak-minded, or become an actor and play female parts.” Wonder if Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams ever dreamed of being a girl?
Okay, just one more. “Mountain: For a young woman to dream of crossing a mountain in company with her cousin and dead brother, who was smiling, denotes she will have a distinctive change in her life for the better, but there are warnings against allurements and deceitfulness of friends. If she becomes exhausted and refuses to go further, she will be slightly disappointed in not gaining quite so exalted a position as was hoped for by her.”
Have you ever, woman or man, young or old, dreamed about crossing a mountain with your cousin and dead brother, who was smiling?
I don’t know. This may become a regular feature at The Havens.
I have a dream journal in which I record dreams I feel are significant or are recurring. Very fascinating stuff! A friend of mine who did some dream work told me once that we are actually each character in our dreams, even though we look like someone else. That makes for very, very interesting theories, let me tell you.
That is what I have been given to understand. Every part of a dream actually represents an aspect of the dreamer. Sometimes the symbology is right on, and sometimes it is extremely bizarre.
I really feel more alive when I am dreaming than at any other time. In fact I plead guilty to nutriceutical manipulation to get good lively REM sleep. Having been well steeped in Jung I usually do a lot of thinking about them, if I can remember them.
I have never dreamed of doing anything with any sibling or cousin, since I have none of the former and nothing to do with any of the latter. But I did once dream that Bill Clinton hit on me in an aquarium.
What kind of nutriceutical manipulation do you do? I love to dream but I don’t always remember them.
Bill Clinton??? Honey, you’ve been in the DC area too long.
I have no idea why I was in the aquarium where Bill had a receiving line going.
There is a pricey product called Sleep Wizard which uses 5-HTP, L-Theanine, GABA and melatonin. (Long story why I will not do without this because of the pronounced effect on sleep quality.) Quercetin also gets the same effect for some people.
This morning I dreamed a scorpion was hiding in the valance of my mini-blinds. Hyperactive little sucker. I was worried about my cats going after it.
What an interesting blog Ellie. Reading these dream interpretations is like listening to tarot readings in the translations of symbolism. “Mirrors of our consciousness”.
How revealing to compare shifting of consciousness – or two different kinds of consciousness in the dream interpreters.
How revealing of different mind sets.
Just today I heard in a t.v. show the comment of “the end to barbarianism” in reference to the Roman slaughter of the Druids – as if the Romans supposedly ended barbarianism? WHAT!!! Excuse me? I can think of nothing more barbaric than the slaughter of culture by an invading force.
I really wonder at how vastly different the same scenerio can be perceived by different people.
I was fascinated by the archaic language and the fixation this guy seems to have on reputation and business. It is so amazing how much attitudes change in a century, and I found this book to really demonstrate this.
Great book. I’ll cogitate upon my brother and cousin before sleeping tonight…..
Be careful, don’t alight on any church spires.
I’m down with dream interpretation as far as, “you dreamt A, and A symbolizes -this.-” But as far as future-predicting goes, I’m not sure I buy into it. That last one was really hilarious though.
Some of his stuff is really precise, to the point of humor. And the older book really is focused more on “prediction” rather than “interpretation” and symbolism.
I’m still having such problems sleeping, which ends up with very disturbing dreams when I end up sleeping long enough to have them. I’m happier not remembering any of them at this point. Especially as most of them end up being some sort of typical anxiety dream. *sigh*
Clearly I am still too tired to come up with anything original.
You’ve had a lot to be anxious about lately, and surely your subconscious is still dealing with that situation. In terms of “dream interpretation” the way I buy into it, as long as you are still dealing with your very real fears, you will have dreams that deal with that subject. With the more modern way of looking at dream meanings, you would look at what and who is around you in the dream for a clue as to what aspect of your life is problematical. In your case, it wouldn’t be hard to figure out!
All I can say is, this too shall pass, as your strength continues to grow and your life starts to take a more “normal” shape. And eventually you will sleep better too.
Those are marvelous.
I do actually think that collective symbolism changes as human experience changes, and that when the book was written, it may indeed have been common to dream of alighting on church-spires. Perhaps now we would dream of being impaled on the top of the Empre State Building, or something. Or a TV antenna. 🙂
I’m just fascinated by the different point of view presented by someone a century ago. There is an awful lot of emphasis on deceitful friends and young women doing things that will ruin their reputations.
I found these sad — widowhood, brothers dying young, walking over mountains, teetering over streams on logs — life in 1901 must have seemed so precarious. A wonderful book. xo
I find it interesting that you made this comment. At first when I was reading through this book, it made me laugh. The more I read it the less funny it becomes. I think it is because of this whole atmosphere of fear and, as you so cogently put it, precariousness. The language and concepts are still odd, but I’m not laughing as much as I was at first.
Good lord. Now those are some weird interpretations.
I dreamed the other night that I was hanging out with Neil Gaiman, talking about the differences between American and British porn. Then last night I dreamed I was walking on a railing-less boardwalk over a calm, tropical ocean that had a tank of baby crocodiles on one side, and when I started to lose my balance, I had to drop my laptop into the crocodiles.
I can only conclude that my subconscious is telling me: more sex, less work.