Corpus Wishlist & Roadmap
Sources we want in the interpretation engine but don't currently have a good way to include. Each entry has a status explaining the obstacle and a path forward when one exists.
Last reviewed: 2026-05-08 (Phase 4 lens extraction shipped on proof-of-model bundle).
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
PROCESSING STATUS — PHASE 4 (13-LENS STRUCTURAL EXTRACTION)
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
In addition to ingestion (parser → embedding → FTS), each English passage is now structurally tagged via Haiku 4.5 with 13 lenses: symbols, themes, figures, settings, affect, body, speech, movement, transformations, boundaries, spatial, outcomes, genre. Lens summaries are injected inline beneath each citation in the paid-tier framework synthesis prompt.
Shipped (~570 distinct passages across 19 editions):
- Synesius On Dreams (Myer 1888) — full
- Delage Le Rêve — full English translation
- Janet L'Automatisme Psychologique — full English translation
- Volkelt Die Traum-Phantasie — full English translation
- Artemidorus Oneirocritica Book 1 (1644 EEBO)
- Macrobius Commentary on the Dream of Scipio — 33 of 44 chapters in English (Book I 1-22 complete; Book II 1-4 + 11-17). The 11 omitted chapters (Book II 5-10, 18-22) are deferred as low dream-interpretation value.
- Saint-Denys Les rêves et les moyens de les diriger — full English translation, chapter-chunked via the dreamseek-curated-chapter parser variant
- All 12 fair-use scholarly summaries (Jung CW 4/8/9i/9ii/12/14/16, Aurora Consurgens partial, Macrobius partial, Maury partial, Saint-Denys partial, Gestalt comprehensive)
Queued (the rest of the English corpus — runs the same pipeline, no architectural blockers, per-text cost-controlled):
- Greek tradition: Aquinas, Burton, Plutarch, Plato, Aristotle, Iamblichus, Philo, Cicero, ante-Nicene Fathers, etc.
- Scientific: Hartley, Sully, Myers, Ellis, James, Freud (Brill 1913), Hammond, Boismont, Dugald Stewart, Maury (full)
- Jungian: full Jung primaries beyond the CW summaries
- Kabbalistic, Tibetan, Celtic, Chinese, Egyptian, Hindu/Vedic, Islamic, Sufi: incremental
Dormant (ingested but invisible to English-user retrieval; reserved for future polyglot expansion when a language-preference flow exists): French Janet 1903, French Delage 1919, French Saint-Denys 1867, French Maury 1861, Latin Macrobius (Eyssenhardt 1893), German Volkelt 1875, German Schubert 1814, German Scherner 1861.
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
SNAPSHOT
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
Corpus count: 85 public-domain primary-text files across 13 traditions (up from 59 in the previous review and 46 at session start). Fourth-round 2026-04-22 additions landed 25 more PD English texts across medieval, Norse, Japanese, pre-Freudian, Hermetic, and Eastern layers:
- Medieval / scholastic (greek/ folder): Chaucer Vol 3 (House of Fame etc., Skeat 1894), Chaucer Canterbury Tales (Skeat 1894), Piers Plowman 2-vol (Skeat), Pearl (Jewett 1908), Roman de la Rose Vol 3 (Ellis), Boethius Consolation (H.R. James 1897), Bunyan Pilgrim's Progress (1678), Burton Anatomy of Melancholy Vol 1 (1621), Aquinas Summa Theologica (Dominican Fathers 1920, includes II-II q.95 on dream-divination).
- Norse / Germanic (celtic/ folder as Indo-European amplificatory): Völsunga Saga (Morris/Magnússon 1888), Heimskringla (Laing 1844), Prose Edda (Brodeur 1916), Njáls Saga (Dasent 1861).
- Japanese classical literary (chinese/ folder as East Asian amplificatory): Tale of Genji (Waley 1925 first vol), Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon (Waley 1928).
- Pre-Freudian experimental psychology (scientific/): Hartley Observations on Man (1749) [filling the associationist-foundation slot], Dugald Stewart Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, Gurney-Myers-Podmore Phantasms of the Living Vol 1 (1886), Hammond Sleep and Its Derangements (1869), Brière de Boismont On Hallucinations (Hulme 1855).
- Hermetic/Theosophical reception-history (alchemical/): Blavatsky Isis Unveiled (1877), The Secret Doctrine (1888). Flagged in their frontmatter as reception-history primaries rather than tradition-authoritative.
- Eastern canonical (tibetan/, hindu_vedic/, kabbalistic/): Dhammapada (Müller SBE 10, 1881), Patañjali Yoga Sutras (PD English), Maimonides Guide for the Perplexed (Friedländer 1881, for the Jewish-philosophical dream-and-prophecy layer at Book II chs 36–48).
Follow-up items with PD English noted but not yet ingested (targeted for a future round): Roman de la Rose Vols 1–2 (Ellis), Phantasms of the Living Vol 2, the Mead Thrice-Greatest Hermes Hermetic Corpus 3-volume set (IA download issues this round), Vivekananda Raja Yoga (IA download issues), Charcot Tuesday Lessons, Binet On Double Consciousness, Schopenhauer Essay on Spirit Seeing, Waddell Desert Fathers (possibly PD), Climacus Ladder of Divine Ascent, Majjhima Nikaya (Chalmers 1926). These remain on the implicit follow-up list; the CORPUS_WISHLIST does not currently call them out explicitly but will on next revision.
The EEBO-TCP Phase 1 extractor at scripts/eebo_tcp_extractor.py remains available for the remaining MEDIUM-tier EEBO texts (Tryon 1689, Goodwin 1658, Defoe 1720).
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
SCOPE — WHAT'S IN, WHAT'S OUT, AND WHY
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
Elucid's interpretation engine commits to 13 named tradition-frameworks: Jungian, Kabbalistic, Alchemical, Medicine Wheel, Celtic/Druidic, Islamic, Tibetan, Greek/Hellenistic, Hindu/Vedic, Gestalt, Scientific, Chinese, Egyptian (plus Sufi as an inflection of Islamic), with a Collective meta-framework that aggregates across them. Every source-acquisition decision is made in service of those frameworks.
In scope: any primary or secondary text that materially strengthens one of the 13 framework-interpretations. Dream-interpretation primaries, cosmologies and symbol-systems the framework depends on, phenomenological and clinical-observational literature, and the handful of commentary traditions (tafsīr on dream-hadith, Rabbinic dream-exegesis, alchemical apparatuses Jung worked from) that cannot be understood without their ambient literature.
Explicitly out of scope as standalone frameworks (but material from them may still be ingested as amplificatory background within an existing framework):
- Mesopotamian / Akkadian / Sumerian — the Zaqiqu (Assyrian Dream Book), Gilgamesh dream-sequences, Enuma Anu Enlil dream-omens. Listed below as amplificatory background under Scientific (for comparative dream-theory history) and Hermetic/Alchemical (for ancient Near-East symbol stock). No Mesopotamian framework is planned as its own tradition.
- Zoroastrian / Pahlavi — Ardā Wīrāz Nāmag, Bundahishn. Amplificatory under Islamic/Sufi (for dualist cosmology influence) and Greek (for late-antique dream-vision parallels).
- Japanese-Buddhist — Myōe's Yume no Ki, Shugendō dream-practices, Shosoin dreams. Amplificatory under Tibetan (Vajrayāna-parallel) and Jungian (Kawai Hayao's Yume no Ki reading).
- Meso-American — Popol Vuh, Florentine Codex dream-material, Aztec tonalpohualli. Amplificatory under Medicine Wheel if cultural-consultation gates are cleared; otherwise held.
- African — Yoruba Ifá dream-correspondences, Ba-Kongo ndoki. Held pending cultural-consultation framework analogous to Medicine Wheel.
- Southeast Asian — Javanese Serat, Thai dream-omen texts. Held.
- Early-modern English dream-literature — Thomas Tryon Treatise of Dreams and Visions (1689), Philip Goodwin The Mystery of Dreames (1658). Amplificatory under Scientific (for the history of natural-philosophy dream-theory).
Out of scope entirely (not currently plausible as amplificatory either): speculative/new-age dream-literature without scholarly grounding; proprietary dream-therapy manuals; self-published dream-dictionaries.
This scope is not locked. A well-argued proposal to promote an "out-of-scope" tradition to a full framework — with primary sources, interpretive canon, and framework-theory worked out — is welcome. The scope statement is here so that proposals can be made consciously, not so that gaps look like oversights.
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
LEGEND — STATUS BADGES
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
copyrighted— work is still under copyright; authored summary under fair-use is possible viasummaries/but not verbatim inclusion.not_yet_pd— will enter public domain on a specific future date; calendar it and ingest then.pd_no_english— original is public domain but no acceptable English translation exists in the public domain.pd_poor_quality— public domain English translation exists but is archaic, partial, or scholarly-unreliable; modern editions are copyrighted.culturally_restricted— tradition requires authorized sourcing before inclusion; legal PD status is beside the point.license_available— copyrighted work for which a license could be purchased to include full text.
Per-item subsection convention used throughout the Traditions section below:
- ✅ Acquired — already landed in the corpus; file path noted where useful.
- ⏳ In Progress / Commissioned — actively being acquired or under commission.
- ◯ Wanted — wishlist items where the obstacle is
copyrighted/pd_no_english/ EEBO-gated etc. - ◇ Open Questions — PD-and-downloadable but tangential to dream-interpretation; ingest-or-skip decisions held.
- ⚠ Amplificatory Only — not a framework-defining text but useful as background within this tradition.
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
TIER ROLL-UP — CROSS-CUTTING ACQUISITION STATUS
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
EASY tier (PD, just need to download) — Phase 3.5 outcome
| Source | Tradition | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Yeats Celtic Twilight (1893) | Celtic | ✅ landed |
| Voyage of Bran (Meyer 1895) | Celtic | ✅ landed |
| Jung Psychological Types (Baynes 1923) | Jungian | ✅ landed |
| Jung Two Essays on Analytical Psychology (Baynes 1928) | Jungian | ✅ landed |
| I Ching (Legge SBE 16, 1899) | Chinese | ✅ landed |
| Zhuangzi Vol I (Legge SBE 39, 1891) | Chinese | ✅ landed |
| Zhuangzi Vol II (Legge SBE 40, 1891) | Chinese | ✅ landed (bonus) |
| Turba Philosophorum (Waite 1896) | Alchemical | ✅ landed |
| Emerald Tablet (Newton + Hortulanus PD translations) | Alchemical | ✅ landed (inline) |
| Egyptian Book of the Dead (Budge 1895) | Egyptian | ✅ landed — IA TheBookOfTheDead-Budge-1895 |
| Qur'an Palmer (SBE 6/9, 1880) | Islamic | ✅ landed — IA in.ernet.dli.2015.188648 (plaintext at 2015.188648.The-Quranpart1_djvu.txt) |
| Rumi Masnavi Vol I (Nicholson 1926) | Sufi | ✅ landed — IA in.ernet.dli.2015.325380 |
| Rumi Masnavi Vols 2–6 (Nicholson 1929–1940) | Sufi | ⚠️ URAA-edge — 1929 and later Gibb Memorial Series volumes have restored US copyright; re-verify per volume before ingesting |
| Lady Gregory Gods and Fighting Men (1904) | Celtic | ✅ landed (bonus) — IA godsfightingmens00gregrich |
| Nicholson Mystics of Islam (1914) | Sufi | ✅ landed (bonus) — Gutenberg #67388 |
Outcome: 32 PD primary texts now landed. Every thin tradition has been strengthened: Egyptian now has its first primary text (Budge), Islamic now has both PD Qur'ans (Rodwell + Palmer), Sufi now has three PD anchors (al-Ghazali + Nicholson theory + Rumi poetry). Celtic gained Lady Gregory as a bonus fourth anchor. No retry work remains on PD downloads; all remaining gaps are in the commission / MEDIUM / CALENDAR tiers.
MEDIUM tier (PD outside US, or PD-but-restricted-format)
| Source | Tradition | Issue | Path forward |
|---|---|---|---|
✅ LANDED 2026-04-22 — TEI extractor now at scripts/eebo_tcp_extractor.py; 1644 English in corpus/greek/primary/artemidorus_oneirocritica_1644_eebo.md. |
|||
| Thomas Tryon, A Treatise of Dreams and Visions (1689) | Scientific / Greek | EEBO TEI format | Use same extractor now available (scripts/eebo_tcp_extractor.py). Item A-number to be determined. |
| Philip Goodwin, The Mystery of Dreames (1658) | Scientific | EEBO TEI format | Same extractor applies. |
| Yusuf Ali Qur'an (1934) | Islamic | URAA edge case (still in copyright in source country 1996) | SKIP — Rodwell + (when retrieved) Palmer cover the need. |
| Aurobindo Life Divine (1940) | Hindu/Vedic | Indian copyright complex; possibly PD via Sri Aurobindo Ashram release | Email Sri Aurobindo Ashram (sapublications@sriaurobindoashram.org) for license clarification. |
CALENDAR tier (becomes PD on a known date)
Add reminders to your calendar; ingest on the date listed.
| Source | Tradition | US PD date |
|---|---|---|
| Zohar (Sperling/Simon Soncino) Vol. 1 | Kabbalistic | Jan 1, 2027 (~9 months from now) |
| Zohar Vol. 2 | Kabbalistic | Jan 1, 2028 |
| Zohar Vol. 3 | Kabbalistic | Jan 1, 2029 |
| Zohar Vols. 4–5 | Kabbalistic | Jan 1, 2030 |
| Black Elk Speaks (Neihardt, 1932) | Medicine Wheel | Jan 1, 2028 (URAA edge case — verify renewal) |
| Jung Psychology and Alchemy (CW 12, German 1944) | Jungian | German PD ~2031 (Jung d. 1961, life+70). US copyright separate; CW edition 1953 = US PD 2049 unless renewed properly. |
| Evans-Wentz Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines (1935) | Tibetan | ~Jan 1, 2031 (95 years from 1935; URAA-restored) |
| Gardiner Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum, Third Series (1935) | Egyptian | Jan 1, 2031 (URAA-restored) |
| Soncino Midrash Rabbah (1939) | Kabbalistic | URAA-restored — calendar tracking needed |
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
COMMISSIONED TRANSLATIONS — SUMMARY
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
Three texts are the largest remaining corpus gaps. All three have PD originals in their source languages but no acceptable PD English translation. All three require human scholarly translation — AI is not fit for purpose at the scholarly-publication standard these translations will be held to.
| Priority | Source | Source language | Why commission | Cost | Timeline | Brief |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Ibn Sirin, Ta'bir al-Ru'ya | Classical Arabic | Biggest operational gap in the corpus; Islamic framework has no native dream-interpretation primary without it | $2,600–$3,600 | ~12 weeks | 01_ibn_sirin.md |
| #2 | Ramesside Dream Book (Papyrus Chester Beatty III) | Hieratic (Late Egyptian) | Egyptian framework has zero hieratic-period dream primary; AI near-zero competence at hieratic paleography | $1,800–$2,800 | ~11 weeks | 02_ramesside_dream_book.md |
| #3 | Zhougong Jiemeng (Duke of Zhou's Dream Dictionary) | Classical Chinese | Chinese framework has philosophy/phenomenology covered; missing the folk symbol-by-symbol register | $1,450–$2,400 | ~12 weeks | 03_zhougong_jiemeng.md |
Combined budget: $5,850–$8,800 for all three, translation + scholarly review.
Each translation will be: (a) used in the Elucid interpretation engine, (b) published as a standalone Amazon print-on-demand book under the Elucid imprint, (c) held under Elucid copyright (work-for-hire) with all rights reserved initially, (d) potentially re-licensed under open terms (CC BY / public domain) at a future date of Elucid's choosing.
See the per-tradition sections below for full details: translator qualifications, source-edition options, why AI can't do the work, and specific copyright hazards to watch for.
Possible 4th commission candidate: Sanskrit dream manuals (Svapnadhyaya, Svapna-chintamani, Svapna-tantra) — see Hindu/Vedic § Wanted. Would complete the "one native dream-manual per framework" goal.
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
TRADITIONS
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
────────────────────────────────────────
JUNGIAN
────────────────────────────────────────
◯ Wanted
Jung, Collected Works (Princeton UP, Bollingen Series, 1953–1979)
- Why we want it: The authoritative English Jung. Volumes directly relevant to dream interpretation: 4 (Freud & Psychoanalysis), 8 (Structure & Dynamics of the Psyche), 9i (Archetypes), 9ii (Aion), 12 (Psychology and Alchemy), 14 (Mysterium Coniunctionis), 16 (Practice of Psychotherapy).
- Status:
copyrighted— Princeton UP / Routledge. Renewed and active. - Path forward: Authored summaries in
summaries/covering key concepts with full CW citations (Vol/¶ numbers). Modern Jung stays behind citations, not verbatim inclusion.
Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963)
- Why we want it: Autobiography with extensive dream material, including Jung's own formative dreams.
- Status:
copyrighted— Pantheon / Vintage. - Path forward: Summary under fair-use; cite passages rather than include.
Jung, The Red Book (Liber Novus) (2009)
- Why we want it: Jung's most personal dream/vision material. Published posthumously.
- Status:
copyrighted— W.W. Norton. Active. - Path forward: Summary only; substantial visual material we couldn't include even under license.
Marie-Louise von Franz, The Way of the Dream (1988), Alchemy (1980), Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales (1974)
- Status:
copyrighted— Shambhala / Inner City Books. - Path forward: Summaries of methodology, with specific chapter citations.
Edward Edinger, Ego and Archetype (1972), Anatomy of the Psyche (1985)
- Status:
copyrighted— Shambhala / Open Court. - Path forward: Summaries — especially alchemical-operations-as-psychological-processes from Anatomy.
James Hillman, The Dream and the Underworld (1979), Re-Visioning Psychology (1975)
- Status:
copyrighted— HarperCollins. - Path forward: Summary — archetypal psychology approach complements classical Jung.
⚠ Amplificatory cross-references
Material housed elsewhere in this document but historically central to Jungian thought:
- German-Romantic dream-theory (Schubert Symbolik des Traumes 1814; Carus Psyche 1846) — see Scientific § Wanted. Jung cites Carus as "the first to articulate the unconscious as a psychological concept."
- Christian mystical-dream corpus (Hildegard, Julian of Norwich, etc.) — see Amplificatory Background § Christian mystical. Jung cites Hildegard.
- Japanese-Buddhist (Myōe's Yume no Ki, Kawai Hayao's reading of it) — see Amplificatory Background § Japanese-Buddhist.
────────────────────────────────────────
KABBALISTIC
────────────────────────────────────────
⏳ In Progress / Calendared
Zohar — Sperling, Simon & Levertoff translation (Soncino Press, 1931–1934)
- Why we want it: The single most comprehensive English Zohar. Extensive dream theology (Zohar I:83a-b, I:183a-b, dream-as-letter passages).
- Status:
not_yet_pd— UK-first-published, URAA-restored in US; enters US PD 2027 (vol. 1) through 2030 (vol. 5). - Path forward: Calendar it. Vol. 1 → Jan 1, 2027. Vol. 2 → Jan 1, 2028. Vol. 3 → Jan 1, 2029. Vols. 4–5 → Jan 1, 2030. Ingest each volume as it clears. Until then, lean on the older Mathers selections (1887) plus authored summaries with Zohar folio citations.
◯ Wanted
Zohar — Daniel Matt translation (Pritzker Edition, Stanford UP, 2004–2017)
- Why we want it: Modern scholarly standard. Most accurate English.
- Status:
copyrighted— Stanford UP, active. - Path forward: License potentially available for academic use; cost unknown. Lower priority once Sperling/Simon enters PD.
Aryeh Kaplan, Sefer Yetzirah: The Book of Creation in Theory and Practice (1990)
- Status:
copyrighted— Weiser Books. - Path forward: Summary — best English commentary on SY. Our Westcott 1887 is the text; Kaplan is the interpretation.
Catherine Shainberg, Kabbalah and the Power of Dreaming (2005)
- Status:
copyrighted— Inner Traditions. - Path forward: Directly relevant — high priority for summaries/. Practical Kabbalistic dream-work methodology not available anywhere in PD.
Talmud, Berakhot 55a–57b (Dreams sugya)
- Translator / edition: Soncino edition (Isidore Epstein, 1935–1948)
- Status: URAA-restored copyrighted — CALENDAR tier, volume-by-volume
- Why we want it: The single most important rabbinic dream-passage. "A dream uninterpreted is like a letter unread." The three things that require mercy, the 24 dream-interpreters of Jerusalem, dream-as-one-sixtieth-of-prophecy. Gapped in current Kabbalistic framework.
Sefer Chassidim (13th c.)
- Status:
pd_no_english— no complete PD English - Why we want it: Medieval Ashkenazi dream-ethics and dream-halakhah.
Jewish apocalyptic dream-vision literature
| Text | Translator / edition | PD status | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Enoch (Book of Enoch) | R. H. Charles 1917 | PD — Gutenberg #45959; also Internet Archive | Dream-vision cosmological-journey text; cornerstone of Jewish apocalyptic. |
| 2 Enoch (Slavonic Enoch) | W. R. Morfill / R. H. Charles 1896 | PD | Seven-heavens visionary ascent. |
| 4 Ezra / 2 Esdras | G. H. Box 1912 | PD | Seven vision-sequences by the seer. |
| Apocalypse of Abraham | G. H. Box 1919 | PD | Theophanic vision journey. |
| Ascension of Isaiah | R. H. Charles 1900 | PD | Seven-heavens dream-ascent. |
| Testament of Levi (Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs) | R. H. Charles 1908 | PD | Dream-vision of seven heavens. |
Note: most/all of these are PD English and downloadable today — could move to ✅ Acquired with a focused ingestion pass.
⚠ Amplificatory cross-references
- Rabbinic dream-exegesis beyond Berakhot — Midrash Rabbah dream-passages (Soncino Midrash Rabbah 1939, URAA-restored) — see Tier Roll-up § Calendar.
────────────────────────────────────────
ALCHEMICAL
────────────────────────────────────────
◯ Wanted
Rosarium Philosophorum — authoritative English translation
- Why we want it: The key alchemical text Jung analyzed in Psychology and Alchemy (CW 12) and used in Mysterium Coniunctionis (CW 14). Central to the engine's alchemical-Jungian bridge.
- Status:
pd_no_english_complete— Latin original (1550) is PD. Adam McLean's 1980 English translation is copyrighted; only partial PD English renderings exist (some passages included in Waite's 1893 Hermetic Museum which we have). - Path forward: Three options:
- AI draft + Latin scholar review — viable for Rosarium's specialized alchemical Latin. Higher error-rate than French but cheaper than full commission. ~$1,000-1,500 for review.
- Full commission — qualified Latinist with alchemical-vocabulary competence. ~$2,500-3,500.
- Authored summary with Jungian CW 12/14 citations — captures the conceptual contribution without the translation; matches the pattern used for other copyrighted alchemical works.
Aurora Consurgens (~1280, Latin, attributed to Thomas Aquinas)
- Why we want it: Medieval alchemical-religious meditation on the coniunctio (union of opposites). Marie-Louise von Franz's 1966 commentary is copyrighted, but the original Latin text is PD.
- Status:
pd_no_english_complete— Latin original PD. Von Franz's English (1966, Bollingen Series / Princeton UP) is copyrighted. - Path forward: Same options as Rosarium. AI + Latin scholar review viable. Aurora is shorter than Rosarium — smaller commission scope.
Marie-Louise von Franz, Aurora Consurgens (1966 commentary)
- Status:
copyrighted— commentary only; the original 13th-c. Latin text is PD. - Path forward: Ingest Aurora Consurgens Latin + an older partial English; summary of von Franz's reading.
◇ Open Questions — tradition-central PD (non-dream)
The following PD texts are central to the Hermetic/Alchemical tradition but not primarily about dream interpretation. Ingest as background, or skip?
| Text | Translator | PD source | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| G.R.S. Mead Thrice-Greatest Hermes (1906, 3 vols) | Mead | IA | Poimandres is apocalyptic vision; dream-adjacent |
| Agrippa Three Books of Occult Philosophy | James Freake 1651 | IA | Magic/correspondence system; symbol vocabulary |
| Atalanta Fugiens (Maier 1617) | Various | IA / Latin + older English | Alchemical emblem book |
| Paracelsus works | Arthur Edward Waite 1894 | IA | Alchemical + medical; limited dream content |
Default recommendation: ingest Mead Thrice-Greatest Hermes (genuinely dream-adjacent). Medium: Agrippa (symbol vocabulary but huge).
⚠ Amplificatory cross-references
- Christian mystical-dream corpus (Hildegard, Julian, Teresa, Margery) — see Amplificatory Background § Christian mystical.
- Mesopotamian (Zaqiqu, Gilgamesh dreams, Enuma Anu Enlil) — see Amplificatory Background § Mesopotamian. Useful as ancient Near-East symbol stock.
────────────────────────────────────────
CELTIC / DRUIDIC
────────────────────────────────────────
◯ Wanted
John Matthews, The Celtic Shaman (1991), R.J. Stewart The Underworld Initiation (1988)
- Status:
copyrighted. - Path forward: Summary only. Primary Celtic material already well-covered in PD (Mabinogion, Voyage of Bran, Lady Gregory).
◇ Open Questions — tradition-central PD (non-dream)
| Text | Translator | PD source | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lady Gregory Cuchulain of Muirthemne (1902) | Self | IA | Heroic narratives; some visionary episodes |
| P.W. Joyce Old Celtic Romances (1879) | Self | IA / Gutenberg | Dream-like voyage narratives (Voyage of Maeldúin) |
| Táin Bó Cúailnge | Winifred Faraday 1904 or Joseph Dunn 1914 | IA | Epic; minor dream material |
| Charles Squire Mythology of the British Islands (1905) | Self | IA | Secondary scholarship on Celtic myth |
Default recommendation: medium on Joyce Old Celtic Romances (voyage-as-dream-like), Lady Gregory Cuchulain (some visionary).
────────────────────────────────────────
ISLAMIC
────────────────────────────────────────
⏳ In Progress / Commissioned
Ibn Sirin, Ta'bir al-Ru'ya (Dream Interpretation) — PRIORITY #1 COMMISSION
- Why we want it: THE Islamic dream-interpretation text. Muhammad Ibn Sirin (d. 728/729 CE) of Basra is the classical authority for Islamic dream interpretation — his compiled dream-omen dictionary has been the operational reference in the Muslim world for 1,300 years. Without it, the Islamic framework has Qur'an + al-Ghazali (religion/metaphysics) but no actual dream-interpretation primary. This is the single largest operational gap in the Elucid corpus.
- Status:
pd_no_english— 8th-century Arabic original is PD. No pre-1929 English translation exists of scholarly quality. Modern translations (Muhammad al-Akili 1992, al-Khayrabadi 2009, Karim Hussein 2018) are copyrighted. Various online compilations are either copyright-muddled or paraphrases of al-Akili. - What we need: fresh English translation of ~250 dream-relevant entries from a scholarly Arabic edition.
- Why AI can't do it: AI (including Claude) can produce plausible-looking classical Arabic translation but cannot produce scholarly-grade translation. Specific failure modes: hallucinated page/folio citations, missed classical grammar edge cases, misread diacritics, false confidence on ambiguous passages, projection of modern interpretation into classical text. For a translation that will be published under Elucid's brand as an Amazon print-on-demand book AND stand as the primary citation for every Islamic-framework interpretation output, AI output would fail scholarly review. A human Arabist with PhD-level competence is the right call.
- Expected cost: $2,200–$3,000 (translation) + $400–$600 (scholarly review) = $2,600–$3,600 total.
- Timeline: ~12 weeks from contract signing to final delivery.
- Translator brief: docs/translator_briefs/01_ibn_sirin.md — priority #1.
Original-language source — Ibn Sirin Ta'bir al-Ru'ya (Classical Arabic)
Arabic originals are already downloaded to corpus/islamic/sources/ (see that folder's README). Two Internet Archive Arabic editions:
- Munshi Naval Kishore edition (Arabic, 76-page compact): https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.361002 — verified real Arabic Ibn Sirin; PDF + OCR'd .txt both in the repo
- Tafsir Ahlam Ibn Sirin (Arabic, longer compilation): https://archive.org/details/TafsirAhlamIbnSirin — verified real Arabic; PDF + OCR'd .txt both in the repo
- Al-Maktaba al-Shamila / Al-Waraq digital scholarly databases (registration required): further editions for cross-reference
- Dar al-Kotob al-Ilmiyah (Beirut) + Dar al-Maarifa (Cairo) scholarly print editions: standard academic references; translator should work from one of these if possible
Format caveat for the translator: work from the PDF page images, not the OCR .txt files. Arabic OCR is unreliable (letter-form confusion, missing diacritics, garbled lines in areas of ink-density variation). OCR .txt files are useful for keyword lookup but should not be the translation base.
Hazard: Internet Archive has an item labeled "Ibn Sirin Dictionary of Dreams" that is actually Muhammad M. Al-Akili's 1992 copyrighted English translation, not an Arabic original. Elucid caught this during initial source-gathering and removed it. The translator must verify every source is actually Arabic before working from it. The contract non-plagiarism warranty covers this explicitly.
◯ Wanted
Ibn Arabi, Futuhat al-Makkiyya (The Meccan Revelations, ~1230 CE)
- Why we want it: Ibn Arabi's ontology of the imaginal world (alam al-mithal) is the central Sufi metaphysical grounding for dream theory. Without Ibn Arabi, the Sufi framework's dream theory is incomplete — al-Ghazali gives the ethical/psychological register but Ibn Arabi gives the ontological one.
- Status:
pd_no_english— Arabic original PD (13th c.). Only partial English translations exist: Chodkiewicz et al. The Meccan Revelations 2002 (Pir Press, copyrighted), William Chittick The Sufi Path of Knowledge 1989 (SUNY, copyrighted). No PD English exists. - Path forward: Commission a fresh English translation of selected Futuhat chapters on dreams/imagination (chapters 366–369 contain substantial dream material; shorter-scope commission than full Futuhat) OR authored summary with Chittick/Chodkiewicz citations under fair-use.
Ibn Arabi, Fusus al-Hikam (Bezels of Wisdom)
- Status:
pd_no_english— Arabic original PD. Austin 1980 (Paulist Press) is the standard English, copyrighted. - Path forward: Summary — chapter on Joseph (Yūsuf) is directly dream-relevant. Partial commission could focus on that chapter specifically.
Rumi Masnavi Volumes 2–6 (Nicholson translations, 1926–1940)
- Why we want it: We have Vol I in primary/. Volumes 2–6 complete the Masnavi (Rumi's magnum opus); contain many dream-relevant passages (Grammarian and the Boatman, Moses and the Shepherd, various vision-narratives).
- Status per volume — requires per-volume URAA copyright verification before ingesting:
| Volume | Publication Year | US PD status | Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vol I (Books 1–2) | 1926 | ✅ Confirmed PD (landed in primary/) | Already ingested |
| Vol II (Commentary on Books 1–2) | 1930 | ⚠️ URAA-edge — 1930 publication, UK first, Nicholson d. 1945 | Verify per-volume before ingesting |
| Vol III (Books 3–4, text) | 1930 | ⚠️ Same as Vol II | Verify before ingesting |
| Vol IV (Commentary on 3–4) | 1934 | ⚠️ URAA-restored, likely NOT US PD until 2030 | Wait or verify |
| Vol V (Books 5–6, text) | 1933 | ⚠️ URAA-restored | Wait or verify |
| Vol VI (Commentary on 5–6) | 1937 | ⚠️ URAA-restored, NOT US PD until 2033 | Wait |
| Vols VII–VIII (index, general) | 1940 | ⚠️ URAA-restored, NOT US PD until 2036 | Wait |
URAA verification procedure for each volume: check whether the specific volume was still in UK copyright on 1996-01-01 (yes — Nicholson d. 1945, UK life+70 rule in 1995). If yes, URAA restored US copyright for 95 years from first publication. Vols 2-3 (1930) → US PD Jan 1, 2026 (so technically in US PD NOW if verification holds). Vols 4-8 (1933-1940) → US PD 2029-2036.
- Path forward: Verify Vols II–III specifically — they may already be US PD as of 2026. If confirmed, ingest. Vols IV+ wait on calendar.
Hadith collections — dream material
- Why we want it: Sahih al-Bukhari Book 91 (Book of Dreams), Sahih Muslim Book 42 (Book of Vision), Tirmidhi dream chapter. Contain extensive Prophetic dream-interpretation material including the ru'ya-sadiqa classification.
- Status:
pd_no_english— Arabic originals PD. No competent PD English translations exist. Muhsin Khan's 1971 Bukhari is the standard English, copyrighted. Various partial online translations are of uncertain provenance. - Path forward: The Hadith dream material could be part of an expanded Ibn Sirin commission (since Ibn Sirin heavily cites Hadith) OR a separate targeted commission focused on the dream chapters. Either way, human-scholar required — Hadith is religiously authoritative text requiring careful scholarly handling.
Yusuf Ali The Holy Qur'an (1934)
- Status:
not_yet_pd— 1934 first publication; URAA restoration applies if still in copyright in Pakistan/India 1996. Complicated; Rodwell 1861 and Palmer 1880 already cover our need. - Path forward: Not needed — we have two PD Qurans.
Arabic dream-literature beyond Ibn Sirin
| Text | Author | Status | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Taʿṭīr al-anām fī taʿbīr al-manām (~1700) | ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī | pd_no_english — classical Arabic PD; no scholarly PD English |
18th-c. expansion of Ibn Sirin; the second-most-consulted dream-manual in the Sunni Muslim world. Could be a follow-up commission after Ibn Sirin. |
| Risāla fī l-nawm wa-l-ruʾyā (On Sleep and Dream) | al-Kindī (~860 CE) | Short treatise; Latin translation 12th c. | Philosophical dream-theory mediating Aristotle to the Arabic tradition. |
| Kitāb al-manāmāt | Ibn Abī al-Dunyā (894 CE) | pd_no_english |
Early hadith-based dream-collection. |
◇ Open Questions — tradition-central PD (non-dream)
| Text | Translator | PD source | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sale's Qur'an (1734) | George Sale | IA | Archaic early-modern translation; redundant with Rodwell/Palmer |
| Hadith collections | — | None PD of acceptable quality | Significant dream material but not accessible in PD |
Default recommendation: skip Sale's Quran (redundant).
⚠ Amplificatory cross-references
- Classical tafsīr on dream-hadith (al-Bukhārī Kitāb al-Taʿbīr, Muslim Kitāb al-Ruʾyā) — see Amplificatory Background § Commentary traditions. Most PD Arabic originals; PD English uneven. Ibn Sirin commission addresses practical interpretation; the hadith base remains untranslated.
- Zoroastrian / Pahlavi (Ardā Wīrāz Nāmag, Bundahishn) — see Amplificatory Background § Zoroastrian.
────────────────────────────────────────
TIBETAN
────────────────────────────────────────
⏳ In Progress / Calendared
Evans-Wentz, Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines (1935) — THE Dream Yoga text
- Why we want it: Contains the Six Yogas of Naropa, including Milam (Dream Yoga) as a standalone systematic treatise. This is the single most operationally-important text for the Tibetan framework's dream theory — more directly dream-focused than the Bardo Thodol (which treats dreaming as a sleep-bardo parallel rather than as explicit practice).
- Status:
pd_edge— 1935 publication, Oxford University Press. URAA restoration applies: still in UK copyright on 1996-01-01 (Evans-Wentz d. 1965, UK life+50 until 2015; extended to life+70 putting UK copyright through 2035). US copyright restored; enters US PD approximately Jan 1, 2031 (95 years from 1935 publication). - Path forward: Calendar it for Jan 1, 2031. Until then: (1) lean on the Bardo Thodol + Milarepa (both in our PD primary) for Tibetan dream framework, (2) author fair-use summary of the Dream Yoga six-phase practice in
corpus/tibetan/summaries/citing Evans-Wentz 1935 specifically. The Milam practice sequence (recognition → examination → transformation → multiplication → liberation → maintaining clear light) can be described methodologically without verbatim reproduction. - No PD substitute: Glenn Mullin's Six Yogas of Naropa 1997 is the modern scholarly standard but is copyrighted. Lama Chögyal Namkhai Norbu's Dream Yoga and the Practice of Natural Light (Snow Lion 1992) is also copyrighted.
◯ Wanted
Dream Yoga — Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche (1998), Namkhai Norbu (1992)
- Why we want it: Living-tradition Dream Yoga practice manuals, substantially beyond what the Bardo Thodol covers.
- Status:
copyrighted— Snow Lion / Shambhala. - Path forward: Summaries — practice sequences (clear light recognition, dream-examining, dream-transformation) referenced without verbatim inclusion.
Six Yogas of Naropa — Glenn Mullin translation (1997)
- Status:
copyrighted. - Path forward: Summary — earlier Evans-Wentz TYaSD 1935 remains the PD path (see above), enters US PD 2031.
⚠ Amplificatory cross-references
- Buddhist svapnopama (dream-as-metaphor) sūtra-commentaries — see Amplificatory Background § Commentary traditions. Referenced in Tibetan dream-yoga; commentarial base for māyā / dream-illusion doctrine.
- Japanese-Buddhist (Myōe's Yume no Ki) — see Amplificatory Background § Japanese-Buddhist. Vajrayāna parallel.
- Chinese / Buddhist additional — see Chinese § Wanted (Questions of King Milinda, Lankavatara, Shurangama).
────────────────────────────────────────
GREEK / HELLENISTIC
────────────────────────────────────────
✅ Acquired
Synesius of Cyrene, On Dreams (c. 405 CE) — ✅ LANDED 2026-04-21
- Why we wanted it: 4th-century Neoplatonic dream treatise — the most systematic Late Antique philosophical dream text. Influential on medieval Christian dream theory; direct ancestor of Macrobius's five-dream classification.
- Status:
pd_confirmed— now incorpus/greek/primary/synesius_on_dreams_myer_1888.md. - PD reasoning:
- Isaac Myer's 1888 English translation (privately printed, 100 copies) — unambiguously PD by every measure (pre-1929 US publication, author died 1902).
- Augustine FitzGerald's 1930 Oxford UP translation is ALSO PD: FitzGerald died 1930 (same year as publication); UK copyright was life+50 at URAA's 1996-01-01 snapshot = expired in UK 1980 = not in copyright in source country on 1996-01-01 = no URAA restoration applies. Therefore US PD via failure of any registration/renewal condition.
- Elucid uses the Myer 1888 edition as unambiguously clear. FitzGerald 1930 is available as an optional companion if a second translation is desired.
Artemidorus, Oneirocritica — 1644 anonymous English translation (EEBO) — ✅ LANDED 2026-04-22
See Tier Roll-up § MEDIUM. Now in corpus/greek/primary/artemidorus_oneirocritica_1644_eebo.md.
◯ Wanted
Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio (5th c. CE) — ✅ LANDED 2026-05-10
- Why we wanted it: THE canonical medieval dream-theory text. Macrobius's classification of five dream-types (somnium, visio, oraculum, insomnium, visum) is cited across all subsequent Western dream theory — Chaucer, Dante, medieval scholastics, Renaissance humanists, and by modern dream scholars back-referencing through the tradition.
- What landed: 33 of 44 chapters — all of Book I (Chapters 1-22) plus Book II Chapters 1-4 (music of the spheres) and 11-17 (soul's purification and ascent). Translated from the Eyssenhardt 1893 Latin source we already held. Now in
corpus/greek/primary/macrobius_commentary_dream_scipio_full_translation.md. - Deferred: Book II Chs 5-10 (geographical detail) and 18-22 (arithmetic). Low dream-interpretation value — tracked in
DEFERRED.mdas maybe-laters.
Artemidorus — Harris-McCoy translation (2012, Oxford UP)
- Status:
copyrighted— Oxford UP, active. - Path forward: See the 1644 EEBO entry under ✅ Acquired above.
Cicero, De Divinatione Book II — clean text
- Why we want it: Book I (defending divination) is in our corpus as a clean Wikisource-sourced file. Book II is Cicero's own skeptical rebuttal of Book I — essential balance. Without Book II, Cicero's actual philosophical position on dreams-as-divination is missing from our corpus; we only have his rhetorical steelman of the case for divination.
- Status:
pd_confirmed_but_clean_text_missing— Yonge's 1853 Book II English is PD. The Wikisource project has a page forOn_Divination/Book_2but it's incomplete — never transcribed to the wiki. Our only complete Book II currently is inside the IA compendiumtreatisescicero00ciceuoft(around line 7706+) with OCR artifacts from the 1853 Bohn volume scan. - Path forward (easiest first):
- OCR-clean pass on the existing IA compendium file. Book II starts at line ~7706 of
corpus/greek/primary/cicero_treatises_full_yonge_1853.source.txt. A focused manual proof-read of the Book II section (~30 pages, ~15K words) would produce a clean text. Small task — a few hours. - Wikisource contribution — manually transcribe Book II to zh.wikisource's On_Divination/Book_2 stub page. Community-benefit path; slower.
- Alternative source — check Perseus (www.perseus.tufts.edu) for Falconer's 1923 Loeb Classical Library translation (post-Yonge; may have slightly different PD status in the US) OR LacusCurtius (penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman) for Yonge.
- OCR-clean pass on the existing IA compendium file. Book II starts at line ~7706 of
- Priority: medium — fills the Book II gap without a ton of effort. Could be a tidy afternoon's work.
Asclepeion inscriptions (dream-incubation epigraphy)
- Status:
pd_poor_quality— ancient epigraphy; PD in original Greek but good English translations live in modern scholarly editions (Edelstein & Edelstein 1945 — copyright renewed, active). - Path forward: Summary; inscription numbers cited via standard corpus (IG IV² 1, 121–124).
Valerius Maximus, De Somniis (Book I Chapter 7 of Memorable Deeds and Sayings)
- Why we want it: 1st-century Roman catalog of famous dreams — roughly 30 entries of historical/mythological dreams with their interpretations. Short (~10 pages). Cited across Western dream literature as an ancient catalog.
- Status:
pd_in_original_+_older_english— Latin original PD (1st c. CE). Samuel Speed 1678 English is the oldest PD English but archaic and fragmentary. EEBO-TCP has a 1678 anonymous English translation (A64910) with CC0 dedication — same Cloudflare-gating issue as Artemidorus. Modern scholarly English (Bailey, Loeb Classical Library 2000) is copyrighted. Andrew Smith's Attalus-website translation is of unclear copyright status (modern, self-published). - Path forward: (1) Same as Artemidorus — manual browser download of A64910 TEI from EEBO-TCP; OR (2) AI + Latin scholar hybrid from the Latin original; OR (3) authored summary excerpting specific famous dreams with citations.
Nicephoros Oneirocriticon (11th c. Byzantine Greek)
- Why we want it: Byzantine dream book attributed to Nicephoros, Patriarch of Constantinople. One of seven extant Byzantine oneirocritica. Short compendium of dream-symbol interpretations in the tradition of Artemidorus.
- Status:
pd_no_english— original Byzantine Greek is PD. The scholarly standard English is Steven Oberhelman's 2008 Dreambooks in Byzantium (Routledge, copyrighted, active). No PD English exists. - Path forward: Commission fresh English translation from Byzantine Greek (~$1,000–1,500, short text) OR authored summary with fair-use reference to Oberhelman's chapter.
Achmet (pseudonym), Oneirocriticon (9th–10th c. Byzantine Greek)
- Why we want it: The most important Byzantine dream book. Adapts Islamic-Arabic dream-interpretation material (including Ibn Sirin lineage) for Christian Greek readers. Cross-tradition bridge text.
- Status:
pd_no_english— original Byzantine Greek is PD. Maria V. Mavroudi's A Byzantine Book on Dream Interpretation (Brill 2002, copyrighted, active) is the scholarly standard. No PD English exists. - Path forward: Commission fresh English translation (~$2,000–3,000; longer than Nicephoros) OR authored summary citing Mavroudi under fair-use. Achmet's Arabic-Islamic substrate means this partly-overlaps with the eventual commissioned Ibn Sirin translation's territory.
Patristic & early-Christian dream-theory (framework-extending — late-antique extension)
Elucid's Greek/Hellenistic framework currently terminates roughly at Synesius (c. 405). The Christian patristic dream-literature from the 2nd–7th centuries is continuous with late-antique Greek/Roman dream-theory and directly formed the medieval inheritance Aquinas and Macrobius-commentators were working from. All of the following are public-domain in English.
| Text | Translator / edition | PD status | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tertullian, De Anima chs. 42–49 (~210 CE) | Peter Holmes, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 3 (1870) | PD — Christian Classics Ethereal Library | The earliest sustained Christian dream-classification; five causes of dreams; influence on Macrobius and all subsequent medieval theory. |
| Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram Book XII | J. H. Taylor 1982 (copyright); older partial English in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (1887) | NPNF 1887 PD | The corporeal / spiritual / intellectual vision distinction that structured medieval dream-theology. |
| Augustine, Confessions — dream / vision passages | Pusey 1838 or Outler 1955 (Pusey PD) | Pusey PD | Monica's dream of the wooden measure; theoretical remarks on dream-sensation. |
| Gregory the Great, Dialogues Book IV (~593 CE) | Edmund G. Gardner 1911 | PD — Gutenberg | The six-causes-of-dreams classification (fullness, emptiness, illusion, thought, revelation, combined) that Aquinas reproduces in Summa Theologica II-II q. 95. |
| John Cassian, Conferences (~425 CE) | E. C. S. Gibson, NPNF series 2 vol. 11 (1894) | PD | Monastic tradition of dream-discernment; governed the desert-father dream-practice. |
| Passion of Perpetua and Felicity (~203 CE) | Herbert Musurillo 1972 (copyright); R. E. Wallis, ANF vol. 3 (1870) | Wallis PD | One of the earliest Christian dream-autobiographies; four dream-visions recorded by Perpetua herself in prison. |
| Tertullian, De Visionibus (if extant fragments) | Holmes PD | PD | Supplements De Anima. |
Late-antique Neoplatonic dream-literature (framework-extending)
| Text | Translator / edition | PD status | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iamblichus, De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum Book III (~325 CE) | Thomas Taylor, Iamblichus on the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians (1821) | PD — Internet Archive | The fullest surviving pagan theory of oracular dreams. Book III §§ 2–3 is a systematic theophanic-dream taxonomy; cited by every 20th-c. scholar of late-antique dream-theory. |
| Porphyry, Life of Plotinus + On Abstinence dream-passages | Thomas Taylor (various 1800–1823) | PD | Plotinus's death-vision; Neoplatonic theory of soul's vertical awareness during sleep. |
| Chalcidius, Commentary on Timaeus — dream-theory sections | No complete PD English (Waszink Latin critical edition 1962 copyright) | pd_no_english |
Medieval conduit for Platonic dream-theory; every 12th-c. scholastic read Plato through Chalcidius. |
| Proclus, Commentary on Republic — Myth of Er / dream passages | No complete PD English | pd_no_english |
Late-Neoplatonic Platonic-dream exegesis. |
Roman-historical embedded-dream literature (amplificatory)
| Text | Translator / edition | PD status | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plutarch, Parallel Lives — dream-sequences embedded | Dryden/Clough revised edition (1880 or earlier; Modern Library versions copyright) | Dryden/Clough PD | Calpurnia's dream before Caesar's assassination; Alexander's dreams at Gordion and at Tyre; Cicero's dream of the boy who would be Augustus. One of the richest narrative-dream corpora in classical literature. |
| Plutarch, De genio Socratis — Timarchus's vision | Goodwin Moralia 1874, PD | PD | Soul-journey / oracle-cave vision that Dante and Jung both cite. |
| Aelius Aristides, Sacred Tales (Hieroi Logoi) | C. A. Behr 1968 (copyright); older partial English scattered in 19th-c. classical journals | Behr copyright; PD partial exists | One of the great sustained dream-autobiographies of antiquity. ~130 dream-records by a 2nd-c. rhetor in chronic illness, kept across decades. Locate PD partial translations or commission. |
| Josephus, Antiquities — dream-passages | William Whiston 1737 | PD — Gutenberg | Joseph's dreams, Daniel's dreams, Herod's dream, the Hasmonean dream-episodes. The Whiston translation is the canonical PD English. |
| Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars — dream-passages | Alexander Thomson / J. C. Rolfe | Thomson PD | Imperial dreams: Augustus, Caligula, Caesar. |
Medieval-scholastic extension — Albertus Magnus
- Text: De somno et vigilia (~1260) — Albertus's dream-theoretical treatise is directly upstream of Aquinas's Summa II-II q.95 dream-classification; bridges Gregory the Great to Aquinas.
- Status:
pd_no_english— Latin PD (13th-c. text; Borgnet edition 1890 Latin PD); no complete English translation. Commissioning candidate.
◇ Long-form acquisition notes — Artemidorus 1644 EEBO retrieval (historical)
These instructions are preserved for the analogous Valerius Maximus retrieval (still pending) and any future EEBO-gated text.
The 1644 anonymous English Artemidorus is pd_but_gated — text exists in EEBO-TCP as item A25906.0001.001 (CC0 public-domain dedication via the Text Creation Partnership). Direct Michigan EEBO URL (open in a browser): https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A25906.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext
Paths forward (easiest → hardest) as documented before the 2026-04-22 successful extraction:
Path 1: Google Books scan — probably easiest. Search https://books.google.com for the 1644 title. Pros: no Cloudflare, no TEI extraction. Cons: PDF scan needs OCR + archaic orthography normalization (long-s "ſ" → "s", "u" for "v", etc.).
Path 2: Internet Archive direct search. https://archive.org/search.php?query=Artemidorus+1644+interpretation+of+dreams
Path 3: Michigan EEBO in a browser (bypasses Cloudflare for humans). Direct URL to try: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A25906.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext . Fallback: older URL https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A25906.0001.001 . Search URL if neither works: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2-idx?page=browse&type=simple&rgn=Full%20text&q1=Artemidorus . On the item page, look for: a "View" dropdown → "TEI XML" or "Simple TEI"; a "Technical Info" or "Cite" link; or try appending &view=xml or &fmt=tei to the URL.
Path 4: Text Creation Partnership GitHub repos. Browse all of https://github.com/Text-Creation-Partnership for A25906.xml. Check the main candidate repo: https://github.com/Text-Creation-Partnership/TCP-EEBO2
Path 5: Oxford Research Archive bulk download — most reliable but heaviest. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:ad7da8fc-cd8e-4637-8b7c-99498436dbaa — full EEBO-TCP Phase 1 + 2 TEI archive. ~25 GB zip for the entire EEBO corpus. After extracting, search for A25906.xml. Also gets Valerius Maximus A64910 (still wishlist) in the same zip.
Processing after download: If PDF scan, run OCR if text layer is weak; regex-normalize archaic orthography. If TEI XML (EEBO-TCP), strip <*> tags preserving text content, re-paragraph, normalize character entities — scripts/eebo_tcp_extractor.py does this.
⚠ Amplificatory cross-references
- Zoroastrian / Pahlavi — see Amplificatory Background § Zoroastrian. Late-antique dream-vision parallels.
- Mesopotamian (Zaqiqu, etc.) — see Amplificatory Background § Mesopotamian. Direct ancestor of the Artemidorus tradition.
────────────────────────────────────────
HINDU / VEDIC
────────────────────────────────────────
◯ Wanted
Aurobindo, The Life Divine (1940)
- Status:
not_yet_pd(India) / likelypd_uk_us— published in India, copyright situation complex. Sri Aurobindo Ashram's position varies. - Path forward: Investigate. If PD, ingest. If not, summary.
Swami Vivekananda's works (1893–1902)
- Status:
pd_confirmedfor pre-1929 output — actually should add to main manifest, not wishlist. - Path forward: Move to manifest on next revision.
Hindu-Vedic sub-gaps
| Text | Translator / edition | PD status | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Māṇḍūkya Upanishad (4 states of consciousness) | Max Müller, SBE 15 (1884) | PD — already in our Müller SBE file | The canonical Vedic theory of waking (jāgrat), dream (svapna), deep sleep (suṣupti), and turīya. Should be extracted into its own primary-file for interpretive prominence. |
| Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha — dream-as-reality discourses | Vihari-Lala Mitra 1891–1899 (4 vols, Bonnerjee, Calcutta) | PD India; verify US URAA | Extensive dream-philosophy within a Vedanta framework. Often cited in comparative dream-phenomenology. |
| Svapnādhyāya of Jagaddeva | Julius von Negelein 1912 (German critical edition + partial translation) | PD (German) | Classical Sanskrit dream-omen manual; direct parallel to Artemidorus. |
Hindu philosophical dream-literature — additional
| Text | Translator / edition | PD status | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vedāntasāra on the four states | Colonel George A. Jacob 1881 | PD | Clear Advaita exposition of the waking/dream/sleep/turīya typology. |
| Vivekachudamani — dream-and-reality discussions | Mohini M. Chatterji 1890 | PD | Shankara on dream as pedagogical analogy for world-as-illusion. |
Sanskrit dream manuals (Svapnadhyaya, Svapna-chintamani, Svapna-tantra)
- Why we want it: Classical Sanskrit dream-interpretation manuals in the same operational genre as Ibn Sirin, Zhougong Jiemeng, and the Ramesside Dream Book. Each gives symbol-by-symbol dream interpretations. Would complete the comparative picture across major world traditions.
- Status:
pd_no_english— Sanskrit originals PD. No competent PD English exists. Modern scholarly translations (Esnoul, White, etc.) are copyrighted or fragmentary. - Path forward: Potential 4th commission candidate, parallel to Ibn Sirin/Zhougong/Ramesside. Sanskrit translator cost ~$1,500-2,500. Same structural format expected (300-400 symbol entries). Would complete the "one native dream-manual per framework" goal for Hindu/Vedic.
◇ Open Questions — tradition-central PD (non-dream)
| Text | Translator | PD source | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rig Veda | Ralph T.H. Griffith 1896 | IA / SBE vols 32, 46 | Hymns to gods; some cosmogonic/visionary content |
| Atharva Veda | William Dwight Whitney 1905 | IA / Harvard Oriental Series | Charms, including some dream-related |
| Mahabharata (complete 12 vols) | Kisari Mohan Ganguli 1896 | IA | Several dream episodes embedded in huge narrative |
| Ramayana | Ralph T.H. Griffith 1870s | IA | Minor dream material |
| Puranas (various) | E.g. Wilson's Vishnu Purana 1840 | IA | Cosmological material, some visions |
| Vivekananda Raja Yoga (1896) | Self-authored English | IA | Yoga-Sutra commentary; samadhi/dream-state discussion |
Default recommendation: ingest Vivekananda Raja Yoga (samadhi theory). Skip Rig Veda, complete Mahabharata, complete Ramayana (genuinely not dream-relevant).
────────────────────────────────────────
GESTALT
────────────────────────────────────────
Entire tradition is post-1929. The wishlist is the corpus for this tradition.
◯ Wanted
Fritz Perls, Gestalt Therapy Verbatim (1969)
- Status:
copyrighted— Bantam / The Gestalt Journal Press. - Path forward: Authored summary — dream-work methodology (speaking-as-dream-element, empty-chair technique).
Fritz Perls, The Gestalt Approach & Eye Witness to Therapy (1973)
- Status:
copyrighted. - Path forward: Summary.
Joseph Zinker, Creative Process in Gestalt Therapy (1977)
- Status:
copyrighted. - Path forward: Summary — extends Perls into contemporary practice.
────────────────────────────────────────
SCIENTIFIC
────────────────────────────────────────
◯ Wanted
Hall & Van de Castle, The Content Analysis of Dreams (1966)
- Why we want it: The foundational empirical dream-content methodology — scale norms the engine compares against.
- Status:
copyrighted— Appleton-Century-Crofts, renewed. - Path forward: Already in
demo-summariesas structured summary; should move tosummaries/with better citation rigor before launch. Hall/Van de Castle coding system itself is methodology, not text — can describe the system without reproducing the scale text.
Domhoff, The Scientific Study of Dreams (2003), Finding Meaning in Dreams (1996)
- Status:
copyrighted— APA / Plenum. - Path forward: Summaries — Domhoff's continuity hypothesis + norm updates.
Revonsuo, Hartmann, Barrett, Stickgold — peer-reviewed papers 1998–2025
- Why we want it: Modern neuroscience of dreaming — threat simulation (Revonsuo), emotional assimilation (Hartmann), problem-solving (Barrett), memory consolidation (Stickgold).
- Status:
copyrighted— academic journals (Behavioral & Brain Sciences, Dreaming, etc.). Fair-use summary OK; some papers have open-access preprints. - Path forward: Authored summaries with DOI citations in
summaries/. Open-access versions where available.
Hobson & McCarley, The Brain as a Dream State Generator (1977)
- Status:
copyrighted— American Journal of Psychiatry. - Path forward: Summary — activation-synthesis hypothesis.
Freud Totem and Taboo (Brill 1918 English)
- Why we mention it: PD Freud work that has some dream-relevant material (esp. chapter 2 on taboo and the ambivalence of emotions; chapter 4 on the infantile return in dreams). Not dream-focused — anthropology/psychoanalysis of primitive religion — but contains scattered passages useful for the Scientific framework.
- Status:
pd_confirmed(Brill 1918 English translation). Available on IA / Gutenberg. - Path forward: Tangential to dream-interpretation proper. Ingest only if we want Freud's non-dream-focused PD work in the corpus for completeness. Open question for the project: ingest or skip?
Freud Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (Brill 1910 English)
- Why we mention it: Foundational Freudian sexuality-theory text. Contains minor dream-relevant passages on symbolism of genitals, the infantile sexual organization surfacing in dreams, etc. Not dream-focused.
- Status:
pd_confirmed(Brill 1910 English on IA / Gutenberg). - Path forward: Same as Totem and Taboo — tangential; ingest only if desired for corpus completeness. Open question.
Joseph Jastrow, The Subconscious (1906)
- Why we mention it: Early 20th-c. psychological study of subconscious processes. Contains scattered dream material but is primarily about subconscious perception / abnormal psychology.
- Status:
pd_confirmed(1906 publication, Houghton Mifflin; on IA). - Path forward: Tangential — minor dream content. Open question: ingest or skip?
Alfred Maury, Le sommeil et les rêves (1861) — French original PD; no English PD exists
- Why we want it: Foundational 19th-c. empirical dream research. Coined the modern usage of "hypnagogic." Case-study that Freud cites in The Interpretation of Dreams. French original is already in
corpus/scientific/sources/maury_sommeil_reves_french_1861.source.txt. - Status:
pd_no_english— French original is PD (Maury d. 1892). No English translation has ever been published. - Path forward: Three options:
- AI draft + French scholar review — viable for French (my competence is higher than for Arabic/Chinese/hieratic). Estimated $800–1,200 for scholar review of AI draft. Fast path.
- Full commission from French→English — $3,000–4,000 for a qualified French scholarly translator.
- Authored summary in
summaries/— captures Maury's conceptual contribution without a full translation.
Hervey de Saint-Denys, Les rêves et les moyens de les diriger (1867) — ✅ LANDED (full English translation, 2026-05-10)
- Why we wanted it: First systematic Western treatise on lucid dreaming. 26-year dream journal with techniques for dream control. Freud famously desired a copy.
- What landed: Full English translation rendered from the 1867 Paris Amyot French source. Now in
corpus/scientific/primary/saint_denys_reves_full_translation.md. Chapter-chunked for retrieval via the dreamseek-curated-chapter parser variant. 20 chapter-level passages, 18 with Phase 4 lens extraction. - Note: Two long appendix chapters (the hashish-dream account + one other) failed Phase 4 lens extraction on the JSON output cap; substantive translation is present and retrievable, just no structured lens summary on those two yet.
Pre-Freudian experimental psychology of dreams (framework-extending)
This is a substantial gap. Elucid's Scientific framework currently has Maury, Saint-Denys, Myers, Ellis, and Freud. The intervening generation of experimental psychologists — who made dreams into a laboratory object before Freud — is missing entirely. All texts below are public-domain.
| Text | Author | PD status | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Principles of Psychology (1890) — dream chapter | William James | PD — Gutenberg #57628 + IA | Canonical PD English dream-psychology; cited by every 20th-c. author. |
| Illusions: A Psychological Study (1881) | James Sully | PD — Gutenberg #8441 + IA | Extended dream-as-illusion chapter; Sully was read by Freud. |
| From India to the Planet Mars (1900) | Théodore Flournoy, tr. Daniel Vermilye | PD — Gutenberg + IA | Landmark trance / dream / glossolalia case-study of "Hélène Smith"; methodological precursor to modern dream-series analysis. |
| L'automatisme psychologique (1889) | Pierre Janet | French PD (Alcan 1889) | Foundational French dissociation-and-dream-state psychology. |
| Diseases of Memory (1881); Diseases of Personality (1885) | Théodule Ribot | PD English translations extant | Ribot on dream-memory and split-personality-in-dream. |
| Das Leben des Traumes (1861) | Karl Albert Scherner | German PD | Freud's principal 19th-c. German-psychological source. No PD English exists — untranslated. |
| Le Rêve (1919) | Yves Delage | French PD | Major French dream-psychology contemporary with Freud; rival model to psychoanalytic. |
| Die Traum-Phantasie (1875) | Johannes Volkelt | German PD | Philosophical-aesthetic dream-theory cited by Freud. |
| Philosophie des Unbewussten (1869) — dream sections | Eduard von Hartmann | German PD | The unconscious-as-philosophical-category before Freud. |
German-Romantic dream-theory (framework-extending; PD originals, no PD English)
Three foundational German dream-theoretical works that Jung, Freud, and Maury all engaged with. All three are PD in their original language; none have a complete PD English translation. Commissioning candidates after the Arabic / Egyptian / Chinese priority translations are complete.
| Text | Author | Status | Why commission |
|---|---|---|---|
| Die Symbolik des Traumes (1814) | Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert | pd_no_english — German PD (Leipzig, 1814); no complete English translation ever published |
The foundational Romantic-German dream-symbology treatise that Jung cites as a direct ancestor of analytical-psychology symbol-theory. A key gap in the Scientific / Jungian ancestry. |
| Psyche: Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Seele (1846) | Carl Gustav Carus | pd_no_english — German PD; no PD English (modern Renata Welch English is copyright 1970 Spring Publications) |
The proximate 19th-c. German precursor to Jung's unconscious. Jung refers to Carus as "the first to articulate the unconscious as a psychological concept." Gap in the Jungian framework's historical foundation. |
| De somno et vigilia (~1260) | Albertus Magnus | pd_no_english — Latin PD (13th-c. text; Borgnet edition 1890 Latin PD); no complete English translation |
Albertus's dream-theoretical treatise is directly upstream of Aquinas's Summa II-II q.95 dream-classification; bridges Gregory the Great to Aquinas. (Also referenced under Greek/Hellenistic § Wanted.) |
Romantic & 19th-century dream-literature (amplificatory)
| Text | Author | PD status | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821) | Thomas De Quincey | PD — Gutenberg #2040 | The canonical English visionary-dream prose; read by Jung. |
| Suspiria de Profundis (1845) | De Quincey | PD | Sequel with "Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow" dream-vision. |
| Aurélia, ou le rêve et la vie (1855) | Gérard de Nerval | French PD | Masterwork of Romantic dream-phenomenology; psychosis-as-dream. |
| Novalis, Hymnen an die Nacht + dream-fragments | German PD; Carlyle essay 1829 PD English | Partial PD English | Romantic-German dream-metaphysics. |
| The Anatomy of Sleep (1854) | Edward Binns | PD | Mid-Victorian medical dream-theory. |
Early-modern English dream-literature (amplificatory)
| Text | Author | PD status | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Treatise of Dreams and Visions (1689) | Thomas Tryon | PD (EEBO) | Early natural-philosophy dream-theory in English. |
| The Mystery of Dreames, Historically Discoursed (1658) | Philip Goodwin | PD (EEBO) | Puritan dream-theology; first sustained English prose on dreams. |
| Somnium, sive Astronomia Lunari (1634) | Johannes Kepler | PD (Latin); Rosen 1967 English copyright | Dream as framing device for science. |
────────────────────────────────────────
CHINESE
────────────────────────────────────────
⏳ In Progress / Commissioned
Zhougong Jiemeng (Duke of Zhou's Dream Dictionary) — PRIORITY #3 COMMISSION
- Why we want it: The folk dream-dictionary register for the Chinese framework. Traditionally attributed to the Duke of Zhou (c. 1000 BCE) but textually a Tang-era compilation (7th–10th c. CE) with later accretions. Has been the most-consulted Chinese dream-interpretation manual for ~2000 years; still in active use in Chinese-speaking communities today. Without it, the Chinese framework has I Ching + Zhuangzi (philosophy/phenomenology) but is missing the symbol-by-symbol operational vocabulary most Chinese users would expect in a dream-interpretation product.
- Status:
pd_no_english— original Chinese is PD. No authoritative pre-1929 English translation. Modern translations are copyrighted and of variable scholarly quality (online compilations, app content, Nikita Bushin's Purple Cloud Institute rendering). - What we need: fresh English translation of 300–400 representative entries from a scholarly Chinese edition, ideally cross-referenced against the Dunhuang manuscript fragments for Tang-era textual anchor.
- Why AI can't do it: AI can read common Classical Chinese characters and grammatical particles, but reliably fails on: variant character forms in Tang-era manuscripts, paleographic decisions from Dunhuang manuscript images, subtle classical-grammar readings where multiple parses are defensible, specialized divinatory compound vocabulary (吉凶禍福 and similar omen-idioms with non-literal meanings), and gendered/cultural nuance in 2000-year-old folk omens. For a translation that will be published as an Amazon print-on-demand book under Elucid's brand and cited in every Chinese-framework interpretation output, AI output would fail scholarly review and Chinese-speaking community review. A PhD-level Classical Chinese translator is the right call.
- Expected cost: $1,200–$2,000 (translation) + $250–$400 (scholarly review) = $1,450–$2,400 total.
- Timeline: ~12 weeks from contract signing to final delivery.
- Translator brief: docs/translator_briefs/03_zhougong_jiemeng.md — priority #3.
Original-language source — Zhougong Jiemeng《周公解夢》(Classical Chinese)
One Chinese text is already in the repo (corpus/chinese/sources/); other scholarly sources require external access:
- zh.wikisource.org — https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%91%A8%E5%85%AC%E8%A7%A3%E5%A4%A2 — consolidated popular edition, 24 KB, already downloaded to
corpus/chinese/sources/zhougong_jiemeng_wikisource.txt. License CC BY-SA. Represents the folk-accretion layer rather than the Tang-era core. - International Dunhuang Programme (IDP) — https://idp.bl.uk — Tang-era manuscript fragments as high-resolution images (NOT downloadable plaintext). Specific fragments: S.620, S.2222, S.5901 (British, Stein) and P.3908 (French, Pelliot). The closest-to-source material but requires paleographic reading of cursive classical script.
- Chinese Text Project (CText) — https://ctext.org — scholarly plain-text digital editions, searchable, open-access.
- Zhonghua Shuju (中华书局) and Shanghai Guji (上海古籍出版社) scholarly print editions with critical apparatus — available at academic Chinese libraries.
Format caveat for the translator: Dunhuang fragments are image-only (manuscript photos via IDP viewer); Wikisource is human-transcribed plain text (high quality); scholarly print editions are print with critical apparatus (best foundation if accessible). Recommended working combination: scholarly Chinese edition as primary + Dunhuang images as Tang-era anchor + Wikisource file as cross-reference.
Hazard: multiple online dream-interpretation apps, Chinese-dream-dictionary sites, and popularizations (Purple Cloud Institute, various app content) have produced English renderings of Zhougong Jiemeng. These are not acceptable source material — the translator must work from a Chinese source and not adapt any existing English rendering.
◯ Wanted
Zhuangzi — Burton Watson translation (1968), Brook Ziporyn translation (2009)
- Status:
copyrighted. Have Legge 1891 inprimary/. - Path forward: Summary for modern readings; Legge covers our base need.
Chinese / Buddhist additional (framework-extending — Chinese / Tibetan)
| Text | Translator / edition | PD status | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (Liaozhai Zhiyi) | Herbert Giles 1880 (2 vols) | PD — IA | Pu Songling's dream-tale corpus; Chinese dream-literature operating on the Zhuangzi-butterfly logic. |
| The Questions of King Milinda (~150 BCE) | T. W. Rhys Davids, SBE 35 (1890) & 36 (1894) | PD | Book IV §§ 5-15: the Buddhist theory of dreams, six classes of dreams, and whether dreamers are responsible for dream-acts. Explicitly gapped. |
| Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra (4th c. CE) | D. T. Suzuki 1932 | PD US (pre-1929 in UK); verify URAA | Central Yogācāra text on dream-as-metaphor for mind-only. |
| Shūrāngama Sūtra — dream-passages | Charles Luk 1966 (copyright); older partial PD from Beal 1871 | Beal partial PD | Buddhist dream-philosophy within a meditation manual. |
◇ Open Questions — tradition-central PD (non-dream)
| Text | Translator | PD source | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Confucian Classics (Analects, Mencius, Doctrine of the Mean, Great Learning) | Legge 1861–1872 | IA / SBE | Very low dream-relevance |
| Tao Te Ching standalone | Legge / Dwight Goddard 1919 / Carus 1898 | Multiple | Already in our SBE39 Zhuangzi file technically |
| Mozi | Mei Yi-Pao 1929 | IA (edge PD) | Philosophical; low dream-relevance |
| Journey to the West (partial) | Timothy Richard 1913 | IA | Quest narrative; some vision material |
Default recommendation: skip Confucian Classics, Mozi (genuinely not dream-relevant).
────────────────────────────────────────
EGYPTIAN
────────────────────────────────────────
⏳ In Progress / Commissioned
Ramesside Dream Book (Papyrus Chester Beatty III) — PRIORITY #2 COMMISSION
- Why we want it: The most systematic ancient Egyptian dream-interpretation manual to survive from antiquity. Contains ~108 dream-omen entries in the format "If a man sees himself in a dream doing X — good [or bad]; it means Y," plus a taxonomic introduction classifying two types of dreamer (follower of Horus / follower of Seth), plus closing exorcism/apotropaic text. Without it, the Egyptian framework has Budge's Book of the Dead (funerary cosmology) but no native dream-interpretation primary. The current demo-summary treats Budge interpretively as "afterlife journey as dream-analogue" — defensible but a stretch. Real Ramesside text would resolve this.
- Status:
pd_no_english— original hieratic is PD (c. 1250 BCE). All competent modern English translations are copyrighted or URAA-restricted:- Gardiner 1935 (Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum, Third Series) — URAA-restored in US until Jan 1, 2031
- Szpakowska Behind Closed Eyes (2003) — active copyright
- Volten 1942 (German Demotic) — active copyright (URAA-restored from German)
- Prada articles 2010s–2020s — active copyright
- What we need: fresh English translation of the complete dream-interpretation section of the papyrus (recto columns 1–11). ~108 dream-omen entries + intro + exorcism text. Estimated ~8,000–12,000 English words total.
- Why AI can't do it: This is the hardest of the three commissions for AI. Unlike classical Arabic or Classical Chinese (where AI output is mediocre but plausible), hieratic Egyptian is close to a zero-competence situation for current LLMs. Specific limitations: AI cannot reliably read hieratic manuscript images (cursive Egyptian handwriting is a specialized paleographic skill with near-zero training exposure); AI has limited exposure to Late Egyptian grammar (the Ramesside register, distinct from Middle Egyptian taught in intro textbooks); AI cannot parse damaged papyrus passages or distinguish scribal hands; AI doesn't have reliable oneirocritical vocabulary for the period. The pool of competent translators is also the smallest of the three commissions — maybe a few hundred Egyptologists globally with hieratic paleographic competence.
- Expected cost: $1,400–$2,200 (translation — Egyptological specialist rate $200–400/hr) + $400–$600 (scholarly review) = $1,800–$2,800 total.
- Timeline: ~11 weeks from contract signing to final delivery.
- Translator brief: docs/translator_briefs/02_ramesside_dream_book.md — priority #2.
- No PD substitute until 2031. Unlike Ibn Sirin and Zhougong Jiemeng (where the translation is urgent but the Islamic/Chinese frameworks have other PD primary material to lean on), Egyptian framework has zero hieratic-period dream-interpretation primary text. Either commission now, or the framework waits until Gardiner 1935 enters US PD on Jan 1, 2031.
Original-language source — Papyrus Chester Beatty III (hieratic)
The physical papyrus is held by the British Museum (EA 10683). High-quality reference material exists, but licensing matters for the eventual book-publishing use case:
- British Museum object page: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/Y_EA10683-2 — official record with scholarly provenance. BM asserts rights on reproductions. Free for non-commercial scholarly use; commercial reuse (Amazon POD book, for example) requires licensing via bmimages.com — typical rate $100–300 per image.
- Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae (Berlin Academy, open-access academic): https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/object/OXI2EWMK6JBCVEB3D76O2LHBMA — scholarly hieratic→hieroglyphic transliterations with metadata. Open license, suitable for citation.
- Trismegistos database: https://www.trismegistos.org/hhp/list_all.php?p=55 — catalog entry with cross-references for textual history.
- Gardiner 1935 plates (Vol. II of Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum, Third Series): photographic reproductions — scholarly gold standard, but URAA-restricted in US until 2031. Any qualified Egyptologist will have library access.
For the translator brief: add a note that the translator should plan on either (a) academic library access to Gardiner 1935, (b) direct engagement with BM research-access photography, or (c) TLA transliterations as the primary working text. For the eventual Amazon POD book, factor in BM commercial image licensing (~$100–300/image × ~8–12 plates needed for a decent volume).
◯ Wanted
Szpakowska, Behind Closed Eyes: Dreams and Nightmares in Ancient Egypt (2003)
- Status:
copyrighted. - Path forward: Summary — essential modern scholarship on Egyptian dream practices.
◇ Open Questions — tradition-central PD (non-dream)
| Text | Author / Translator | PD source | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Budge Egyptian Magic (1901) | Budge | IA | Magic and divination practices incl. some dream content |
| Budge The Gods of the Egyptians (1904, 2 vols) | Budge | IA | Mythology and theology reference |
| Budge Egyptian Religion (1899) | Budge | IA | General theology |
| Budge Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection (1911, 2 vols) | Budge | IA | Afterlife theology |
| Flinders Petrie Egyptian Tales (1895) | Petrie | IA | Contains Tale of the Two Brothers — has dream material |
| Maspero Dawn of Civilization (1894) | Maspero | IA | General ancient Near East history |
Default recommendation: ingest Budge Egyptian Magic (actual divination/dream content) and Petrie Egyptian Tales (Tale of Two Brothers dream passage).
────────────────────────────────────────
SUFI
────────────────────────────────────────
◯ Wanted
Ibn al-Arabi, Fusus al-Hikam (Bezels of Wisdom) — Austin translation (1980)
- Status:
copyrighted— Paulist Press. - Path forward: Summary — Ibn Arabi's ontology of the imaginal (alam al-mithal) is foundational for Sufi dream theory.
Henry Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi (1969)
- Status:
copyrighted— Princeton UP. - Path forward: Summary — Corbin's concept of the imaginal is directly applicable to dream interpretation.
Al-Ghazali, The Revival of Religious Sciences (Ihya Ulum al-Din) — full English
- Status:
pd_no_englishfor complete work. Have Alchemy of Happiness (1909 Field translation) in primary/. - Path forward: Summary of the dream-relevant chapters (esp. Book of Fear and Hope).
◇ Open Questions — tradition-central PD (non-dream)
| Text | Translator | PD source | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attar Conference of the Birds | Edward FitzGerald 1887 | IA / Gutenberg | Sufi vision-allegory |
| al-Ghazali Mishkat al-Anwar (Niche of Lights) | W.H.T. Gairdner 1924 | IA | Sufi metaphysics of light + imaginal |
| Whinfield abridged Masnavi (1887) | E.H. Whinfield | IA | Rumi abridgement; could supplement vol 1 Nicholson |
| Nicholson Studies in Islamic Mysticism (1921) | Self | IA | Scholarly Sufi monograph with dream/vision chapters |
Default recommendation: ingest Attar Conference of the Birds (vision narratives useful).
────────────────────────────────────────
MEDICINE WHEEL / NATIVE AMERICAN
────────────────────────────────────────
Policy: all entries in this section are culturally_restricted regardless of PD status. No ingestion without explicit path outlined below.
⏳ Calendared + culturally gated
Black Elk Speaks (Neihardt, 1932)
- Why we want it: The single most-cited Native American autobiographical text in English. Contains Black Elk's "Great Vision" (chapter 3) — one of the most famous visionary/dream narratives in any Indigenous autobiography. Would be the foundational text for the Medicine Wheel framework if cultural-consultation gates cleared.
- Status:
pd_edge_+_culturally_restricted— 1932 publication, URAA-edge (enters US PD approximately Jan 1, 2028). Regardless of legal PD status, requires Indigenous-author / elder consultation before Elucid ingestion per the project's cultural-sensitivity policy. - Path forward:
- Legal: confirm US PD status January 2028 via USCO search (URAA verification).
- Cultural: consultation with Oglala Sioux cultural authorities (e.g., Oglala Lakota College, Red Cloud Indian School heritage program) before any inclusion. Black Elk chose to share his vision publicly via Neihardt but the cultural-use conventions around later Lakota teachings are context-sensitive.
- If both cleared: ingest with explicit cultural framing in the corpus file (as documented in
sourceRegistry.ts'sculturalNotesfield pattern).
- Without this text: Medicine Wheel framework remains intentionally empty. No substitute PD text exists.
◯ Wanted (cultural gate applies)
Hyemeyohsts Storm, Seven Arrows (1972)
- Status:
copyrighted+culturally_restricted. Controversial within some Native communities; widely published. - Path forward: Summary only, with explicit cultural context. No verbatim inclusion regardless of license.
Sun Bear & Wabun, The Medicine Wheel: Earth Astrology (1980)
- Status:
copyrighted+culturally_restricted. - Path forward: Sun Bear explicitly chose to teach non-Natives; still requires respectful summary with context, not inclusion.
Frank Waters, The Book of the Hopi (1963)
- Status:
copyrighted; some material Hopi have objected to. - Path forward: Do NOT include without Hopi Cultural Preservation Office guidance.
Jamie Sams & David Carson, Medicine Cards (1988)
- Status:
copyrighted. - Path forward: Summary with cultural framing.
What we need for the Medicine Wheel framework to launch:
- Indigenous scholarly consultation on which teachings may be respectfully shared
- Summaries authored by or in consultation with Indigenous practitioners
- Explicit cultural-context framing in every interpretation output that uses this framework
- A consent-and-citation policy document
Until 1–4 are in place, the Medicine Wheel framework should either remain selectable with a disclaimer, or be gated behind a "coming soon" state in the UI.
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
AMPLIFICATORY BACKGROUND — CROSS-FRAMEWORK
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
These items don't have a single tradition home — they span multiple frameworks or sit outside the 13 named traditions while remaining useful as amplificatory background. Listed here for completeness; primary tradition is noted on each.
Mesopotamian (amplificatory — Scientific / Alchemical)
| Text | Translator / edition | PD status | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zaqiqu (Assyrian Dream Book) | A. L. Oppenheim, The Interpretation of Dreams in the Ancient Near East (American Philosophical Society Transactions 46:3, 1956) | Copyrighted; but Transactions may permit scholarly reuse | Primary dream-omen compendium of the Neo-Assyrian libraries; direct ancestor of the Artemidorus tradition. |
| Epic of Gilgamesh — dream sequences | R. Campbell Thompson 1928 (PD edge — verify US URAA status) / George 1999 (copyright) | Thompson likely PD US; Speiser 1955 in ANET is copyright | Enkidu's dreams, Gilgamesh's dreams before the Humbaba fight — narrative dream-sequences with direct interpretation. |
| Enuma Anu Enlil dream-omens | Scattered editions | Cuneiform primaries PD; modern editions copyright | Astronomical-oneiromantic divination. |
Zoroastrian / Pahlavi (amplificatory — Islamic / Greek)
| Text | Translator / edition | PD status | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ardā Wīrāz Nāmag (Book of the Righteous Viraf) | E. W. West, SBE 24 (1885) — Pahlavi Texts, Part III | PD | Canonical Pahlavi dream/vision-journey text; Viraf's drug-induced 7-day vision of heaven, hell, intermediate states. One of the great dream-vision documents in world literature. |
| Bundahishn (Creation) | E. W. West, SBE 5 (1880) | PD | Cosmological frame within which Zoroastrian dream-theology operates. |
Japanese-Buddhist (amplificatory — Tibetan / Jungian)
| Text | Translator / edition | PD status | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Myōe Kōben, Yume no Ki (Dream Diary, ~1191–1232) | George Tanabe, Myōe the Dreamkeeper (Harvard East Asian 1992) | Copyrighted — no PD English | One of the great sustained dream-journals of world literature. 40+ years of dream records by a Kegon Buddhist priest. |
| Kawai Hayao, The Buddhist Priest Myōe: A Life of Dreams (Japanese 1987 / English 1992) | Mark Unno | Copyrighted | Standard secondary on Myōe's dream-corpus. |
Christian mystical-dream corpus (amplificatory — Alchemical / Jungian)
| Text | Translator / edition | PD status | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias (~1141–1151) | Bruce Hozeski 1986 / Columba Hart & Jane Bishop 1990 | Copyrighted English. No PD complete English. | 26 visions of Hildegard — liminal dream/vision state. Jung cites Hildegard. |
| Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love (~1395) | Grace Warrack 1901 | PD (Gutenberg #52958) | Sixteen "showings" in a near-death vision-state. Direct parallel to Tibetan bardo literature. |
| Teresa of Ávila, Interior Castle (1577) | Benedict Zimmerman / E. A. Peers 1946 | Peers copyright; earlier Zimmerman 1912 may be PD | Theory of visionary states, imaginative vs intellectual visions. |
| Margery Kempe, The Book of Margery Kempe (~1438) | W. Butler-Bowdon 1936 | Likely PD US 1965 no-renewal | Medieval English dream/vision autobiography. |
Anthropology of dreams (amplificatory — cross-framework / new category)
| Text | Author | Status | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dreaming: Anthropological and Psychological Interpretations | Barbara Tedlock, ed. (1987) | Copyrighted — Cambridge UP | Standard edited collection. Essays on Mekeo, Sambia, Quiché Maya, Moroccan, Zuni dreaming. |
| Rainbow Serpent's Children — Australian Aboriginal dream-material | Various | Scholarly copyright | Held — within cultural-restriction category for Aboriginal dream-tradition. |
| Waud Kracke on Amazonian dream-interpretation | Journal articles 1979–2010 | Copyrighted | Kagwahiv Parintintin dream-sharing. |
| Gilbert Herdt, The Sambia | (1987 + journal articles) | Copyrighted | Sambia men's-house dream-sharing. |
Commentary traditions (framework-extending; cross-tradition)
| Text | Status | Dream-relevance |
|---|---|---|
| Classical tafsīr on dream-hadith (al-Bukhārī Kitāb al-Taʿbīr, Muslim Kitāb al-Ruʾyā) | Most PD Arabic originals; PD English uneven | Explicitly gapped: Ibn Sirin commission addresses practical interpretation; the hadith base remains untranslated. (Also referenced under Islamic § Wanted.) |
| Rabbinic dream-exegesis beyond Berakhot — Midrash Rabbah dream-passages | Soncino Midrash Rabbah 1939, URAA-restored | CALENDAR tier tracking needed (also referenced under Kabbalistic). |
| Buddhist svapnopama (dream-as-metaphor) sūtra-commentaries | Scattered | Mixed |
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
SUMMARY
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
| Tradition | Highest-priority gap |
|---|---|
| Jungian | von Franz Way of the Dream; Edinger Anatomy of the Psyche |
| Kabbalistic | Zohar Sperling/Simon — calendar 2027–2030 ingestion |
| Islamic | Ibn Sirin — no competent PD English exists |
| Chinese | Zhougong Dream Dictionary — no competent PD English exists |
| Egyptian | Ramesside Dream Book — no competent PD English exists |
| Scientific | Hall/Van de Castle methodology; modern neuroscience papers |
| Gestalt | Entire tradition — 20th-c. only, all copyrighted |
| Medicine Wheel | Entire tradition — cultural-consultation gate |
Three of our 12 frameworks (Islamic, Chinese, Egyptian) have no competent PD English primary text and depend heavily on authored summaries for credibility. Commissioning fresh translations of Ibn Sirin, Zhougong Jiemeng, and the Ramesside Dream Book would be the single largest credibility upgrade to the corpus.
