Historical dream account · English · original text
A Stone Pillar Through the Ages
Robert Macnish (1802–1837)
The Philosophy of Sleep (1834) · Printed page(s) 94; Second edition, Glasgow: W. R. M‘Phun, 1834; original English; account stone-pillar
Dreamer identified by the source: Robert Macnish
Read in your language or share a constellation ↗
At another time, I dreamed that I was converted into a mighty pillar of stone, which reared its head in the midst of a desert, where it stood for ages, till generation after generation melted away before it. Even in this state, though unconscious of possessing any organs of sense, or being else than a mass of lifeless stone, I saw every object around—the mountains growing bald with age—the forest trees drooping in decay; and I heard whatever sounds nature is in the custom of producing, such as the thunder-peal breaking over my naked head, the winds howling past me, or the ceaseless murmur of streams. At last I also waxed old, and began to crumble into dust, while the moss and ivy accumulated upon me, and stamped me with the aspect of hoar antiquity.
Source & context
An original-language historical author's own sleep-dream account, not a new community submission or an independently verified waking event. Editorial title is a navigation label.
Robert Macnish, The Philosophy of Sleep (1834), Second edition, Glasgow: W. R. M‘Phun, 1834; original English, printed page(s) 94.
Publication year is not an exact dream date. No unprinted date, modern contributor location or dreamer age is inferred.
Public domain — original English text ↗
Wellcome explicitly marks this scan Public Domain Mark and states commercial reuse is allowed. PDM identifies public-domain status rather than granting new rights. The original English author died in 1837; no modern translator or later edition prose is used.
Source locator and text provenance
Printed page(s) 94; Second edition, Glasgow: W. R. M‘Phun, 1834; original English; account stone-pillar
The original text and redactions are preserved. The page title is an editorial navigation label.
One complete bounded own-dream scene. Adjacent theory excluded; original English preserved. Page furniture omitted, spacing normalized and the exact small formatting/OCR repairs documented in the frozen replay ledger. Editorial navigation title and themes added.
Wellcome supplies one flattened OCR line. The exact bounded Unicode character span, raw span hash, original page images and repair replay are in the round-7 REPLAY_LEDGER. Line 1 does not claim that the whole book is this dream. HTML entities and spacing normalized; only the original Glasgow 1834 edition is used.
- Account text SHA-256
- 43bab3c6f3680185a107e0a2181755af6c15ccbabdbc63323b42a96634f8c2ef
- Source file SHA-256
- 0db82e60709094dc916674699e1fb3512f2d54ddeb0ceea0d7575f5a4a488c26
Content notes
- Transformation
- Aging
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.