Historical dream account · English · published source text
Questions for an aerial visitor
J. C. Lavater
The Literature and Curiosities of Dreams (1869) · Original 1869 edition, printed pp. 403, 404
Dreamer identified by the source: Dr. Zimmermann
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You saw your wife, whose decease had been announced to you, in a beautiful and aerial form and garb, in her modest, tranquil loveliness, yet with an aspect of somewhat strange solemnity. She approached you with an amiable majesty not to be described, and with the disclosure ‘that she had experienced things which no man had ever conjectured; that the powers of her soul had been infinitely exalted and enlarged; that she had looked through the transient past in all its causes and sequences; that each present moment was for her as a sea of ideas, but the future still somewhat dark; that she was inexpressibly happy; that her whole past course of life ever floated before her mind; that every thought, every disposition, not leading decidedly to that towards which all her wishes were now directed, appeared to her a fault, and gave her uneasiness ; that she felt a sort of helplessness when contemplating the way to heaven; that in heaven she was not yet; judgment had not yet occurred; that brilliant clouds as yet veiled from their view that blissful home, and thither, thither, they were pressing.’ You told me further, that you had asked of your wife a number of weighty questions, which she so answered that you saw clearly what the greatest mind among mortals could never have attained the remotest glimpse of; but that in the attempt to note these down you awoke, and then, notwithstanding the most strenuous efforts at recollection, were unable to recall the sublime, and new, and prescient ideas, which in the dream you were anxious to record.
Source & context
J. C. Lavater recounts Dr. Zimmermann’s dream in a historical English translation printed by Seafield. The accompanying note says Zimmermann’s wife was alive when he dreamed this in November 1765 and died in 1770: her death belongs to the dream scene. The exact note attributed to Mr. Sheppard follows below. Source qualification (Printed note attributed by Seafield to Mr. Sheppard, citing Tissot’s life of Zimmermann, printed pp. 404, 405): “It appears from Tissot’s life of Zimmermann that his wife was not really deceased when the above dream occurred to him. We are to interpret the announcement of her death merely as an incident of the dream, which, in my judgment, renders that itself the more remarkable, since it was not occasioned by emotions or promptings of the imagination arising from an actual bereavement, but arose independently of any such event. The first wife of Dr. Zimmermann died in 1770, five years after this dream happened, according to the statement of Lavater.”
J. C. Lavater, Aussichten in die Ewigkeit (Glimpses into Eternity), with a printed note attributed to Mr. Sheppard, as quoted by Frank Seafield, The Literature and Curiosities of Dreams, second edition, revised (London: Lockwood & Co.,1869), printed pp. 403, 404. Source: Wellcome Collection. Dreamer and anthology compiler are distinguished. Descriptive title and navigation themes added by Synastry; original published English wording retained, including historical translation where applicable.
1869 is the anthology publication year, not the date of the dream. Any years, ages or letter dates in the historical text remain source statements; no exact date is inferred.
Public Domain Mark 1.0 (source status) ↗
Wellcome’s catalogue and IIIF manifest identify the original 1869 revised second edition as public domain. Public Domain Mark identifies status, not a new license grant. The English text is retained as printed, including historical translations; no modern translation is included. Earlier works and authors are credited as printed in this anthology, not claimed independently reverified.
Source locator and text provenance
Original 1869 edition, printed pp. 403, 404
The original text and redactions are preserved. The page title is an editorial navigation label.
Editorial descriptive navigation title. Scan-confirmed OCR repairs and repeated anthology paragraph-quote furniture omissions exactly replayable from normalizedOCR. Original line-wrap hyphens between word letters joined; whitespace normalized. No translation, narrative creation, source identity/date invention or stylistic rewrite.
- Account text SHA-256
- 010a69c5594a967dc742b286a0810ca283ff3cc962b5814abad2a51d05185c57
- Source file SHA-256
- a73a0cec3f3d14cf9cf75b6335ee55d560d5b927017f27a081afdc3bc7ca3dba
Content notes
- Religion
- Death imagery
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.