Dentata
dreamed 1744/10/9 by Emanuel Swedenborg
INTRODUCTION
Swedenborg (1688-1772) worked for decades as a scientist (especially metallurgy and mining), but his reputation today is primarily as a mystic. He kept a dream journal during the period of his great change from engineer to visionary, early 1743 to late '44; one of the world's oldest surviving dream-journals. It was never meant for publication--scrawled, with scratch-outs, abbreviations and highly personal references--difficult even before translation. However, Swedenborg's scientific habits serve him well--dates are clear, dreams are in sequence, and he regularly attempts interpretation; he's practical, reasonable, and sometimes records multiple possibilities.
Yet he was devout; he seems determined to emulate Christ, purging all selfish and worldly urges to become, essentially, a saint. Curious ambition for a scientist! Odder still, he achieved it--at least his practical demonstrations of miraculous knowledge (see Swedenborg's Visions) were the best-documented of his century; he influenced Blake and Emerson, and troubled Kant. If he'd been Catholic he'd likely be a saint--if a controversial one like Francis of Assisi. As it is, he's a strange, powerful figure making both scientists and conventional Christians uncomfortable. Good for him!
DENTATA
Saw in vision a coal fire brightly burning, which signifies the fire of love. Afterwards I was in company with women who had teeth on a certain place which I wished to penetrate, but the teeth interfered;
which signified that the day before I had been busy with my work which is quite different from the other and quite another love if it should prevail, and is not to be regarded as a matter of words or as a plaything in regard to the other.it seemed I was sent to a certain place with a letter. I could not find the way; but my sister Hedwig saw the letter; said it was to Ulrica Adlersteen who was found to have been longing for me for a considerable time. I came there; also saw Schonstrom [Ulrica's husband]. Afterwards continually I had the senses before me; how they go up to the cerebrum, and down.When I wakened, I had completely decided to abandon this work: which also would have happened were it not that afterwards in sleep,
By this I was strengthened in continuing my work. God grant that it be not against His good pleasure, which I cannot deduce from the dream without setting myself to the trial of whether I shall abandon the work; to which resolution however God helped me...But a child fell upon my foot and struck itself, and screamed; I wanted to help it up, and asked, 'Why do you romp so?"
Means without doubt that I want to rush too quickly in this.
Editor's Note
Six months earlier, Swedenborg dreamt of a vagina dentata in Politics Bites, where he saw it as a political comment. Rather than assigning a fixed meaning for a recurring image, as dream dictionaries had for millennia, or reading it as an underlying fear of women or sex, as Freud might have 160 years later, Swedenborg interprets the two dreams differently, based on context. This one's followed by two he sees as about balancing his scientific and spiritual work--so he assumes this dream is too--warning not to get seduced into science, neglecting inner work of greater longterm value.
Source: Swedenborg's Journal of Dreams 1743-1744, 1989 ed. with intro by Wilson van Dusen. Paragraphs 261-263. Descriptive titles are mine; untitled in journal. Interpretations are Swedenborg's, though run together with dream text; I offset interpretations for clarity.
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