Historical dream account · English · machine translation
Dream of the Spinning Top
Yves Delage
Le rêve : étude psychologique, philosophique et littéraire · Undated PUF witness, printed pp. 123, 124
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I obtain a firm support on the ground by a vigorous stamp of my heel and, leaving the other leg half bent or crossed over the first, I lean slightly and begin turning, describing a cone of which my heel is the apex and the axis of my body traces the curved surface in the manner of a generating line. This rotation around the ideal axis of the cone is accompanied by a rotation at the same angular speed around the axis of my body, so that my face and chest always remain turned upward and toward the ideal axis of the cone. The movement is, moreover, rather slow: one revolution in a few seconds. As it continues, the angle of the cone becomes wider and wider, until the axis of my body is tilted at about 45 degrees. But as the tilt increases, I find it more and more difficult to maintain this strange balance, and the very pleasant sensation accompanying the movement in its first phase finally gives rise to a certain anxiety, like that associated with the sensation of an imminent fall. Soon, indeed, despite efforts centered in my heel, my sole point of support on the ground, I collapse, and then get up again without having hurt myself at all. I am often surrounded by a gallery of admirers of this performance, but none can imitate me, and I am astonished, seeing it as a very natural movement. To prove that this is so, I start again as often as I am asked. As soon as I have taken up the slightly tilted position, I begin turning in a cone, and it is this movement that prevents the fall.
Read the original French account
Rêve de la Toupie
Je prends un solide point d'appui sur le sol par un vigoureux coup de talon, et, laissant l'autre jambe à demi repliée ou croisée sur la première, je m'incline légèrement et me mets à tourner, décrivant un cône dont mon talon est le sommet et dont l'axe du corps trace la surface courbe à la manière d'une génératrice. Ce mouvement de rotation autour de l'axe idéal du cône s'accompagne d'un mouvement de rotation de même vitesse angulaire autour de l'axe du corps, en sorte que ma face et ma poitrine restent toujours tournées vers le haut et vers l'axe idéal du cône. Ce mouvement est d'ailleurs assez lent : un tour en quelques secondes. Au fur et à mesure qu'il continue, l'angle du cône devient de plus en plus ouvert, jusqu'à ce que l'axe de mon corps soit incliné à 45 degrés environ. Mais à mesure que l'inclinaison devient plus forte, j'ai de plus en plus de peine à maintenir ce singulier équilibre et la sensation très agréable qui accompagne le mouvement dans la première période finit par engendrer une certaine angoisse comme celle qui s'attache à la sensation d'une chute imminente. Bientôt en effet, malgré des efforts qui ont leur siège dans mon talon, seul point d'appui sur le sol, je m'écroule, et me relève d'ailleurs sans m'être fait aucun mal. Je suis souvent entouré d'une galerie d'admirateurs de cette performance, mais aucun ne peut m'imiter et je m'en étonne, voyant là un mouvement très naturel, et, pour prouver qu'il en est ainsi, je recommence aussi souvent qu'on me le demande. Dès que j'ai pris la position un peu inclinée, je commence à tourner en cône, et c'est ce mouvement qui s'oppose à la chute.
Yves Delage describes his own recurring sleep-dream, rather than separate dated episodes. The printed source heading is retained. His later comparison with a spinning top and explanation of bodily representations are historical interpretations, not independently verified by Synastry. Source introduction — Yves Delage: “A une certaine époque de ma vie, il m'est arrivé de faire fréquemment le rêve suivant :”
Source & context
English machine translation. The original account, source credit and publication terms remain available.
Yves Delage describes his own recurring sleep-dream, rather than separate dated episodes. The printed source heading is retained. His later comparison with a spinning top and explanation of bodily representations are historical interpretations, not independently verified by Synastry. Source introduction — Yves Delage: “At a certain period of my life, I frequently had the following dream:”
Yves Delage (1854–1920), Le rêve : étude psychologique, philosophique et littéraire (Paris: Les Presses universitaires de France, undated witnessed edition), printed pp. 123, 124. Original French text from the University of Ottawa copy digitized by Internet Archive. The displayed title is the printed source heading.
The witnessed PUF title page is undated. Internet Archive supplies 1919 and a matching BnF record supplies 1924; neither is treated as an observed printed date or as the dream date. No exact dream date is inferred.
No Copyright – United States (original historical text) ↗
Only Yves Delage’s original French prose is used. The undated historical PUF witness is catalogued as 1919 by Internet Archive and a matching PUF edition is catalogued as 1924 by the Bibliothèque nationale de France; neither year is claimed to be printed in this witness. Both are before 1931 and the original text is public domain in the United States. Delage died in 1920; the ordinary author-life-plus-70 term has also elapsed where applicable. This is an expiry-based assessment of the original prose, not a new license from Internet Archive and not permission for any modern translation, edition or added material.
Source locator and text provenance
Printed pp. 123, 124; IA leaves 149, 150
The original text and redactions are preserved. The page title is an editorial navigation label.
Selected the complete separately headed recalled account; omitted the printed title from its body, page furniture and adjacent theory or other accounts. Joined typesetter line wraps and split words while preserving the true compound celui-ci; retained source paragraph boundaries. Applied only the listed scan-verified OCR repairs. Retained the printed French source heading as the title, without translation, narrative expansion or identity inference.
- Account text SHA-256
- 30f2ec2563367c72b3910ab1c4da1fe9e665a6b9e5a58b230f06f40909c9570b
- Source file SHA-256
- 961f1fb32efd7bf9e13ae0ddfad800d68f863f37ed79ca053ecd7459b91c8725
Connections in the Loom
Titles, theme labels, illustrations and map connections are editorial navigation aids. They are separate from the account’s words and do not establish connections between real people.