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!

THE KING'S LANGUAGE

During the whole night, for about 11 hours, I was neither asleep nor awake in a strange trance: knew all that I dreamed; my thoughts were held bound up. which made me sometimes sweat. The state of this sleep I cannot at all describe; but through it my double thoughts were in a manner severed or split asunder.

Among other things I dreamed that I talked sometimes with King Charles XII, and he talked away with me, which I wondered at, but in broken French which I did not understand. And when I talked to others, and thought he did not hear, he was close alongside; so that I blushed for what I had said.

It means that God speaks with me, and that I understand but the least of it; for it consists of representations, of which as yet I understand very little. Also that he hears and marks everything that is said, and every thought that man has. So also it is sure that no thought escapes his sight, for he sees all to the bottom, ten thousand times more than I myself.

Editor's Note

His interpretation may be framed in Christian terms--it's the King's language, meaning God's language--but the insight fits every tradition of dreamwork I know. Swedenborg sees a double challenge: first, to understand a language of images, second, to notice the issues a dream addresses, for the dreaming mind has access to a lot the conscious didn't notice, or dismissed as trivial. Different dream-theories may emphasize the former to the neglect of the latter, but good dreamwork requires both. Hard scrutiny of images, but equal scrutiny of one's thoughts and behaviors.

Source: Swedenborg's Journal of Dreams 1743-1744, 1989 ed. with intro by Wilson van Dusen. Paragraphs 174-5. 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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