Historical dream account · English · machine translation

The Animals Between Earth and Life

Friedrich Hebbel

Das Buch der Träume (1927) · Das Buch der Träume, original1927 anthology, numbered account322, printed page167

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Vienna, January 12, 1847. During the night I dreamed I saw two animals that were everything at once, ugly, strange, disgusting, and so on. They had no hair, no wool, no feathers, but yet a sort of covering for the skin which, moss-like, stood midway between all these; and they were so crudely and clumsily formed by nature that in their muscles I believed I could still perceive the manifestly elemental, unorganized earth, wood, and so on, and thought: ‘Here for once you see a transitional creature that will make the process of the creation of life clear to you.’

The dream was certainly the result of reading Kant in the evening; namely, I read the excellent account of how worlds arise and pass away, how suns condense, and so on.

Original diary heading/group: 1847-01-12

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Die Tiere zwischen Erde und Leben

Wien, 12. Januar 1847. Über Nacht träumte mir, ich sähe zwei Tiere, die alles zugleich waren, häßlich, sonderbar, ekelhaft u. s. w. Sie hatten keine Haare, keine Wolle, keine Federn, aber doch eine Art von Bekleidung der Haut, die moosähnlich in der Mitte von allem diesem stand, und waren so grob und ungeschickt von der Natur ausgeführt, daß ich in ihren Muskeln noch das offenbar Elementarische, unorganisierte Erde, Holz u. s. w. wahrzunehmen glaubte und dachte: ‚Hier siehst du einmal ein Übergangs-Geschöpf, das dir den Lebens-Erschaffungs-Prozeß verdeutlichen wird.‘

Der Traum war sicher die Folge einer Abendlektüre in Kant, ich las nämlich die vortreffliche Entwickelung, wie Welten entstehen und vergehen, wie die Sonnen sich verdichten u. s. w.

Source & context

English machine translation. The original account, source credit and publication terms remain available.

A historical recollection reproduced in Ignaz Ježower’s original German anthology. Editorial title and navigation themes are added; source wording is preserved. This is not a modern Synastry community submission.

Diary date/group is retained only where the source states it; no exact event date or present-day location is inferred.1927 is anthology publication, not dream date.

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Public-domain original German historical texts — 1927 anthology ↗

Public Domain Mark is a status marker, not a new license grant. Selected original authors died1863 or earlier; anthology copyright1927, compiler died1942. Original German text only; no modern translation/commentary. No universal jurisdiction warranty.

Source locator and text provenance

Das Buch der Träume, original1927 anthology, numbered account322, printed page167

The original text and redactions are preserved. The page title is an editorial navigation label.

Complete original German numbered diary recollection transcribed against rendered primary scan; Running headings and marginal account numerals omitted; line-wrap hyphens joined; print spacing normalized; Source spelling and names retained; no translation, paraphrase, redaction or generated narrative; Scan-confirmed OCR/typographic corrections recorded in per-item replay ledger; Paragraph boundaries retained or restored from printed layout. Editorial title/navigation themes and canonical metadata added; no narrative wording change.

Retain Hebbel’s own immediately following waking explanation within numbered account 322; this is not Ježower’s later analysis. Historical spelling and lexical hyphens retained.

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Account text SHA-256: 879fc3c8bccdace3dbff5b91409fa196eff2b7273460c6dd009ada63c58af115
Source file SHA-256: 33cd84ef59fe3acb9ce7e0ffec3a2b3b718e18f3896c45ff8dab32820c3b7f1c

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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.