In each of the above instances the floral symbolism was part of an elaborate
dream having wider significance leaving no doubt as to the accuracy of my
conclusions. A particularly interesting and devious use of flowers occurs
in the following dream--I am in front of a certain house over which, in the
dream, is growing a vine having white, star-like, fragrant blossoms. I want
one flower and the woman living there says I may have it. The name of the
vine seems to be "Dyak." There is no plant having that name but a few
months before I was reading of the Dyak girls of Borneo who "are very
careful of their clothing, and often very vain, but when they are married
they frequently become exceedingly untidy." I quoted the passage in an
article thus fixing it in my mind. The link with the dream consists in the
fact that the woman living in the vine-decorated house is, in reality,
notoriously untidy. Her two daughters as they approached womanhood greatly
improved in the daintiness of their garb, and one had become pregnant--
outside marriage. Another dream:--I see a friend, by name Anna, stoop and
pull from the ground a tiny lily-of-the-valley plant. It has no roots. I
say, "What a pity." This dream had no meaning until into my mind came the
thought of another Anna, a young girl who was led astray and who, I had just
been told, had taken medicine to terminate her pregnancy. When I learned of
this I had thought of the loss of the incipient life. The same night I
dreamed of going upstairs in a shed or barn. At the top of the stairs
something--a door--is in the way. I go by it. A child is there. Again:--I
am crossing a level field and come upon little star-like flowers which I try
to analyse. I find many with pistils but no stamens,--the pollen bearing
organs which effect fertilization. I wonder if they will keep fresh until I
reach home. Once more:--I approach a city. I see woods and two gardens,
either flower or vegetable, from which comes music. On a mound wild flowers
are growing, some white, some small and dark. I gather them. Then very
remote and vague,--my brother is there. I see a long snake which my brother
puts on(?) and covers my flowers. Still another vision was of a branch of
beautiful; fragrant apple blossoms growing through the wall of a room. Some
of the flowers were pistillate, some staminate,--a condition false to nature
as regards the apple.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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