Famous Dreamers - Caligula's 'Assassination' Dream

Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (12 – 41 AD) - commonly known as ‘Caligula’, meaning ‘little soldier’s boot’- was a Roman Emperor (and member of the house of rulers known as the Julio-Claudian dynasty) from 37 - 41 AD. 

Caligula was considered a harsh and perverted leader and ubsequently, Caligula was the recipient of many failed conspiracies to ‘dethrone’ or kill him. At the age of 28, Caligula finally met his fat,e having been assassinated by three men under the guidance of the Praetorian Guard led by Cassius Chaerea, the Senate, army, and equestrian order. Claudius, Caligula’s uncle, became his successor.

The night before his murder, Caligula relayed a dream in which he saw himself standing before the throne of Jupiter. This planet was held in high esteem by Romans in terms of religious value as Jupiter (or Jove) was seen as king of all the Gods, comparable to the earlier Ancient Greek deity, Zeus. In the dream Caligula observed himself being rejected by Jove via this God kicking him down to Earth. This was seen as a premonition of his death.

Famous Dreamers - Madam C J Walker's 'Hair Loss Solution' Dream

Madam C J Walker, born Sarah Breedlove, (1867 - 1919) was an African-American entrepreneur and philanthropist from Delta, Louisiana. During the 1890s, Walker suffered from a then-common scalp infection that caused most of her hair to fall out. As a result, she began experimenting with various medicines and hair products, none of which seemed to work.

Then she had a dream:  

He answered my prayer, for one night I had a dream, and in that dream a big, black man appeared to me and told me what to mix up in my hair. Some of the remedy was grown in Africa, but I sent for it, mixed it, put it on my scalp, and in a few weeks my hair was coming in faster than it had ever fallen out. I tried it on my friends; it helped them. I made up my mind to begin to sell it.

Madam Walker did indeed begin selling the products she developed as a result of the dream (which consisted of a shampoo and ointment containing sulphur), establishing Madam C J Walker Manufacturing Company. Her hair loss product met with so much success it made her a millionaire many times over. She is cited by The Guinness Book of Records as being the first American female self-made millionaire.

Famous Dreamers - Otto Loewi's Novel Prize Winning 'Acetylcholine' Dream

Otto Loewi (1873-1961), a German-born pharmacologist and physiologist, won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1936 for his work on the chemical transmission of nerve impulses and the discovery of acetylcholine. In 1903, he accepted an appointment at the University of Graz in Austria, where he would remain until being forced out of the country in 1938. In 1905 he received Austrian citizenship.

In 1903, Loewi argued against common held scientific belief, that nervous impulses were the result of electrical transmissions. Loewi hypothesised that chemical transmissions were more likely the mode but had no idea how to prove it. He eventually put the idea on the back burner until 17 years later in 1923, after he had the following dream:

The night before Easter Sunday of that year I awoke, turned on the light, and jotted down a few notes on a tiny slip of paper. Then I fell asleep again. It occurred to me at 6 o'clock in the morning that during the night I had written down something most important, but I was unable to decipher the scrawl. The next night, at 3 o'clock, the idea returned. It was the design of an experiment to determine whether or not the hypothesis of chemical transmission that I had uttered 17 years ago was correct. I got up immediately, went to the laboratory, and performed a single experiment on a frog's heart according to the nocturnal design.

Loewi believed that the experiment shown to him in his dream would prove once and for all that transmission of nerve impulses was chemical, not electrical. The day following the first forgotten version of the dream, he said, was ‘the longest day of his life’ as he could not remember his vital dream. Before Loewi's experiments, it was unclear whether signalling across the synapse was bioelectrical or chemical. Loewi's famous experiment, published in 1921, largely answered this question. According to Loewi, the  key idea for his experiment was revealed in the dream. He dissected out of frogs two beating hearts: one with the vagus nerve which controls heart rate attached, the other heart on its own. Both hearts were bathed in a saline solution (i.e. Ringer's solution). By electrically stimulating the vagus nerve, Loewi made the first heart beat slower. Then, Loewi took some of the liquid bathing the first heart and applied it to the second heart. The application of the liquid made the second heart also beat slower, proving that some soluble chemical released by the vagus nerve was controlling the heart rate. He called the unknown chemical ‘vagusstoff’. It was later found that this chemical corresponded to acetylcholine

Even though Dr Loewi had established highly significant probability that his hypothesis was correct, it took the scientific community a further 10 years to accept his outcomes. His dream and subsequent diligence gave rise to the theory of chemical transmission of the nervous impulse and he was awarded a Nobel Prize. 

Famous Dreamers - Walter Craig's 'Nimblefoot' Dream

In 1895, American author Mark Twain described Australia’s Melbourne Cup horserace as “The greatest racing event on Earth.” The story behind the winner of the 1870 Melbourne Cup, Nimblefoot and his owner, publican Walter Craig is a remarkable one. 

In the early spring of 1870 Craig, proprietor of Craig's Hotel in Ballarat had an extremely vivid dream. In his dream he saw a horse being ridden by a jockey, sporting violet coloured silks, draw away to win the Melbourne Cup. He assumed it had to be Nimblefoot, as he was entered and being trained for the big race and after vividly seeing the horse cross the finishing line, became sure that he recognised the winning horse as Nimblefoot. However, Craig had also noticed in his dream that the jockey, J Day, was sporting a black armband. Craig took this as a sign of his own impending death. He promptly went about telling several people the next morning the details of his dream, declaring Nimblefoot to be a certainty for the Cup, but that he wouldn't be alive to enjoy it. He then made a doubles bet with a bookmaker named William Slack, coupling a horse called Croydon in the Metropolitan Handicap Stakes, with Nimblefoot in the Cup. Considering at the time both horses were unfancied, Slack, due to the light hearted nature of the wager gave him the odds of 1000 pound to 8 free beers.

Amazingly that night Craig died and a couple of days later Croydon won the Metropolitan. The story of Craig's prophecy was then published in The Age Newspaper, the day before the Cup. To everyone's shock and amazement,  Nimblefoot, ridden by  jockey J Day, sporting a black armband, went on to salute the judge. Due to Craig's death, Bookmaker Slack was under no obligation to pay out on the bet. He did however honour half the winning sum of £500 to Craig's widow.

Famous Dreamers - Edwin Moses' 'Record Breaking Race Time' Dream

Edwin Moses (b. 1955), an Olympic track and field athlete from the USA, lined up for a major race in Koblenz, West Germany in August of 1983. Moses said he felt incredibly relaxed before the 400m event, as was evident in the fact that he forgot to take his socks to the track, he also accidently left his wristwatch on. As the starting gun sounded, Moses shot out of the blocks. With about 100m remaining in the race, Moses was level with fellow American, Andre Phillips. Then Moses accelerated. Phillips said after the race, “I saw him take a little look over his shoulder. And he just took off!" For the last 90m Moses ran with the fluency of a well-oiled machine and broke the World record by .11 of a second.

Interstingly, Moses later said he had recurring dreams involving certain sets of numbers prior to the race. The numbers he saw were, “8-31-83” and “47.03”. The set of numerals – “8-31-83” - were Moses birthday, 31st August, and ironically the date of the race in West Germany 31st August, 1983. The second number sequence, “47.03” was a very good time to run the 400m hurdles. In fact, so good that it would better the previous record set by Moses in 1980 by a tenth of a second. Moses’ race time in West Germany was 47.02, about a tenth off the time in his dreams.

Famous Dreamers - Charles Dicken's 'Miss Napier' Dream

English author Charles Dickens (1812 – 1890) informed friends of a bizarre occurrence he experienced as a result of a brief dream. Dickens said he was at home one day and began to feel tired, subsequently deciding to take a short nap. Dickens stated that he soon fell asleep and very shortly thereafter, he began to dream. Dickens said there was nothing particularly significant about the dream, other than its intensity, in the sense that it was quite vivid and realistic. He went on to relate the content of the dream stating that he had seen a vision of a female in a red shawl. This young woman only spoke four words in the dream, that being her introduction of herself: “I am Miss Napier”. 

Later, upon awakening, Dickens was engaged in a social event and was introduced to some women. Dickens noticed one of the women, a girl, was dressed in a red shawl. She was introduced to him as Miss Napier. 

Famous Dreamers - Friedrich August Kekulé's 'Structural Theory' & 'Benzene' Dreams

German scientist, Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz (1829 – 1896) is a remarkable figure in the history of chemistry, specifically organic chemistry. In 1856 Kekulé became Privatdozent at the University of Heidelberg. In 1858 he was hired as full professor at the University of Ghent, then in 1867 he was called to Bonn, where he remained for the rest of his career. Twice Kekulé had dreams that led to major scientific discoveries. Kekulé discovered the tetravalent nature of carbon, the formation of chemical/organic "Structure Theory". However, he did not make this breakthrough by experimentation alone, but instead was inspired by the content of a dream sometime between 1856 - 1858. During a speech given at the Deutsche Chemische Gesellschaft (German Chemical Society), celebrating his contributions to organic chemistry in 1890, he outlined his dreams and how they lead to the success of his theory:

I fell into a reverie, and lo, the atoms were gamboling before my eyes! Whenever, hitherto, these diminutive beings had appeared to me, they had always been in motion; but up to that time, I had never been able to discern the nature of their motion. Now, however, I saw how, frequently, two smaller atoms united to form a pair; how a larger one embraced the two smaller ones; how still larger ones kept hold of three or even four of the smaller; whilst the whole kept whirling in a giddy dance. I saw how the larger ones formed a chain, dragging the smaller ones after them, but only at the ends of the chain. . . The cry of the conductor: “Clapham Road,” awakened me from my dreaming; but I spent part of the night in putting on paper at least sketches of these dream forms. This was the origin of the Structural Theory.

Later, in approximately 1865, he had a dream that helped him discover that the Benzene molecule, unlike other known organic compounds, had a circular structure rather than a linear one... solving a problem that had been confounding chemists:

...I was sitting writing on my textbook, but the work did not progress; my thoughts were elsewhere. I turned my chair to the fire and dozed. Again the atoms were gamboling before my eyes. This time the smaller groups kept modestly in the background. My mental eye, rendered more acute by the repeated visions of the kind, could now distinguish larger structures of manifold conformation; long rows sometimes more closely fitted together all twining and twisting in snake-like motion. But look! What was that? One of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail, and the form whirled mockingly before my eyes. As if by a flash of lightning I awoke; and this time also I spent the rest of the night in working out the consequences of the hypothesis.

The snake seizing its own tail gave Kekulé the circular structure idea he needed to solve the Benzene problem. A euphoric Kekulé is claimed to have said to his colleagues: “Let us learn to dream!”

Famous Dreamers - Oliver Cromwell's 'Greatest Man in England' Dream

English military and political leader, Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), overthrew the monarchy and turned England into a republican Commonwealth. He was then instated as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. An intensely religious man - a self-styled Puritan Moses - he fervently believed God was guiding his victories.

Cromwell believed that his political rise was delivered to him as a young man in a dream. Although he stated that at the time the premonition took place, he was not sure what it meant.

Cromwell said he dreamt that a massive female figure approached his bed and drew back the curtains. This figure then informed him that one day in the future he would be the “greatest man in England”.

Cromwell said the dream was extremely vivid but puzzled him because in his reckoning the greatest man in England was the King. However, the female figure had made no mention of him becoming King. Years later, in 1648, after a bloody English Civil War (fighting on the side of the ‘Roundheads’ or ‘Parliamentarians’ against the ‘Cavaliers’ or ‘Royalists’), Cromwell signed the death warrant of the then King, Charles I. The document led to the King’s execution for “high treason” and Cromwell, by virtue of being the signatory and obtaining the title of Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland, had now obtained the title that the female figure in his dream said he would.

The large female figure is perhaps symbolic of the Mother Land, otherwise known as England, whilst the parting the curtains could be metaphoric of an unveiling of the future

Famous Dreamers - Paul McCartney's "Yesterday" Dream

Sir Paul McCartney (b. 1942) of Liverpool, England, was one quarter of the most famous band in musical history – The Beatles. Alongside John Lennon (1940 – 1980), McCartney formed the most celebrated singer/songwriting partnership in popular music, receiving unprecedented commercial and critical acclaim during their 1957 – 1970 career with The Beatles.

In 1965, McCartney was staying at his then girlfriend Jane Asher’s family home in Wimpole Street, London. McCartney stated:

I woke up with a lovely tune in my head. I thought, 'That's great, I wonder what that is?' There was an upright piano next to me, to the right of the bed by the window. I got out of bed, sat at the piano, found G, found F sharp minor 7th -- and that leads you through then to B to E minor, and finally back to E. It all leads forward logically. I liked the melody a lot, but because I'd dreamed it, I couldn't believe I'd written it. I thought, 'No, I've never written anything like this before.' But I had the tune, which was the most magic thing!

The tune McCartney was speaking about was the arrangement to the massive hit song “Yesterday” from The Beatles album Help! (1965). Upon waking from the dream, McCartney hurried to a piano and played the tune so that he would not forget it. McCartney's initial concern was that he had subconsciously plagiarised someone else's work (known as ‘cryptomnesia’). He stated: "For about a month I went round to people in the music business and asked them whether they had ever heard it before. Eventually it became like handing something in to the police. I thought if no-one claimed it after a few weeks then I could have it."

"Yesterday" is a melancholy acoustic guitar ballad about a relationship break-up. It was the first official recording by The Beatles that relied upon a performance by a single member of the band, McCartney, accompanied by a string quartet. The final recording was so different from other works by The Beatles that the band members vetoed the release of the song as a single in the United Kingdom (however, it was issued as a single there in 1976.) Although credited to "Lennon–McCartney", the song was written solely by McCartney. In 2000 McCartney asked Yoko Ono if she would agree to change the credit on the song to read "McCartney–Lennon" in the The Beatles Anthology but she refused.

In 1997, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and in 1999, the song was voted by BBC Radio 2 listeners as the best song of the 20th century. In 2000, “Yesterday” was voted the number one pop song of all time by MTV and Rolling Stone Magazine. Furthermore, The Guinness Book of Records holds that “Yesterday” is the most covered song ever with over 3000 versions recorded and Broadcast Music Incorporated asserts the song was performed over 7 million times in the 20th century alone.

Famous Dreamers - Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' Dream

Mary Shelley, née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (1797 – 1851) was an English writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin, and her mother was the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. 

In 1816, teenager Mary and her husband-to-be, Shelley, visited the poet Lord Byron in Switzerland. Lord Byron’s residence, a villa on a lake, was often subject to stormy weather and as a result he and his guests were forced to take refuge indoors on occasion. Inside, Lord Byron and his guests would often sit and read to one another from a book containing ghost stories. Lord Byron seemed to gain much amusement from this and on this particular occasion he challenged his guests to write their own horror story and share it the next day.

The following is Mary Shelley’s account of what transpired after Lord Byron’s request:

When I placed my head upon my pillow, I did not sleep, nor could I be said to think... I saw - with shut eyes, but acute mental vision - I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous Creator of the world.

...I opened mine in terror. The idea so possessed my mind that a thrill of fear ran through me, and I wished to exchange the ghastly image of my fancy for the realities around. ...I could not so easily get rid of my hideous phantom; still it haunted me. I must try to think of something else. I recurred to my ghost story - my tiresome, unlucky ghost story! Oh! If I could only contrive one which would frighten my reader as I myself had been frightened that night!

Swift as light and as cheering was the idea that broke upon me. 'I have found it! What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted me my midnight pillow.' On the morrow I announced that I had thought of a story. I began that day with the words, 'It was on a dreary night of November', making only a transcript of the grim terrors of my waking dream.

This dream inspired Mary Shelley’s legendary novel, Frankenstein. 

Famous Dream Quotations (1)

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world."

- OSCAR WILDE (1854 - 1900), Irish writer & poet

"All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together."

- JACK KEROUAC (1922 - 1969), American novelist & poet

"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible."

- THOMAS EDWARD LAWRENCE aka 'Lawrence of Arabia' (1888 - 1935), British Army Officer

"All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams."

- ELIAS CANETTI (1905 - 1994), Bulgarian Modernist writer & Nobel Prize winner

"Dreaming or awake, we perceive only events that have meaning to us."

- JANE ROBERTS (1929 - 1984), American writer, poet, medium & psychic medium

"Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living."

"Dreams are necessary to life."

- ANAIS NIN (1903 - 1977), French-Cuban erotic author

"Dreams are the touchstones of our character."

- HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817 - 1862), American Transcendentalist philosopher, author, abolitionist & naturalist

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world."

- HARRIET TUBMAN (1820 - 1913), African-American abolitionist, humanitarian & Unionist spy during the American Civil War

"Dreams are today's answers to tomorrow's questions."

- EDGAR CAYCE (1877 - 1945), American psychic

"Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?"

- ALFRED LORD TENNYSON (1809 - 1892), Victorian Poet Laureat of the United Kingdom

"Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely."

- ERMA BOMBECK (1927 - 1996), American humourist

"I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake."

- RENE DESCARTES (1596 - 1650), French philosopher, mathematician & writer

"I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man."

- ZHUANGZI (369 BCE - 286 BCE), Chinese philosopher during the Warring States period & Hundred Schools of Thought era

"I don't use drugs, my dreams are frightening enough."

- M C ESCHER (1898 - 1977), Dutch graphic artist

"I have always been amazed at the way an ordinary observer lends so much more credence and attaches so much more importance to waking events than to those occurring in dreams... Man... is above all the plaything of his memory."

- ANDRE BRETON (1896 - 1966), French writer, poet & founder of the Surrealism Movement

"I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each other's dreams, we can play together all night."

- BILL WATTERSON (b. 1958), American cartoonist

"I'm a dreamer. I have to dream and reach for the stars, and if I miss a star then I grab a handful of clouds."

- MIKE TYSON (b. 1966),  former American heavy weight boxing champion

"Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams."

- RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803 - 1882), American Transcendentalist poet, essayisy & lecturer

"Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths."

- JOSEPH CAMPBELL (1904 - 1987), American mythologist, writer & lecturer

"One of the most adventurous things left us is to go to bed. For no one can lay a hand on our dreams."

- EDWARD VERRALL LUCAS (1868 - 1938), English writer

"Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real."

- TUPAC SHAKUR (1971 - 1996), African-American rapper & actor

"The dreamer can know no truth, not even about his dream, except by awaking out of it."

- GEORGE SANTAYANA (1863 - 1952), Spanish philosopher, writer & poet

"The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up."

- PAUL VALERY (1871 - 1945), French philosopher & writer

"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?"

- ROBERT KENNEDY (1925 - 1968), American Democratic politician & Attorney General

"We all dream; we do not understand our dreams, yet we act as if nothing strange goes on in our sleep minds, strange at least by comparison with the logical, purposeful doings of our minds when we are awake."

- ERICH FROMM (1900 - 1980), German social psychologist, psyschoanalyst & humanitarian

"Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes."

- CARL JUNG (1875 - 1961), Swiss psychologist, psychoanalyist & founder of Analytical Psychology