Persimmon in a dream: what does it mean?
A fruit that is unbearably astringent until it is completely ripe, and then is one of the sweetest things there is.
How do the four traditions read it?
Each reading below comes from a named tradition and a cited source, so you can see where it came from and decide what fits your dream. The four often disagree, and that is the point: a symbol rarely means one fixed thing, and the distance between Freud, Jung, modern research and myth tells you more than any single verdict could.
How did Freud read this symbol?
Freud would attend to there being no middle. A fruit that is inedible and then perfect with almost nothing in between removes the possibility of nearly ready, and he would ask what the dreamer had tried too early.
After Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (Brill trans., 1913), public domain.How did Jung read this symbol?
A Jungian reading might note that the astringency is a defence. The tannins protect the seed until it is viable, so the unpleasantness has a schedule and ends exactly when the plant no longer needs it.
Our summary of a Jungian reading, in our own words, not Jung's. See Jung, ed., Man and His Symbols (1964).What does modern dream research say?
Food and taste appear in dream reports, and content analysis finds taste noted rarely and generally only when strong or unexpected.
Our summary of the content-analysis findings. See Hall and Van de Castle, The Content Analysis of Dreams (1966).What do myth and folklore say?
The tannins dry the mouth completely and the fruit has to be soft to the point of collapse before it is worth eating, which is why so many people try one once and never again.
Rosmerta Publishing editorial synthesis. Our own words; no quoted text.How can writers use this symbol?
The same symbol, read as craft material rather than as a dream. What it does on the page, how genres use it differently, and what happens when you turn it inside out. Written for novelists, screenwriters and poets who need the symbol to actually work, and it ends with something to try.
Where does this appear in literature?
Most people try one too early, exactly once, and never touch another. The fruit gets one chance with each of us.
Rosmerta Publishing editorial synthesis. Our own words; no quoted text.What does it do in a story?
No such state as nearly ready.
What are the genre conventions?
A fruit that looks perfect, and a mouth going completely dry.
How to subvert it
Write somebody waiting the extra week.
Try this
Two hundred words about something that is worthless right up until the moment it is not.
Only the first of these names a source. What a symbol does in a story, how genres treat it, how to invert it and what to try are our editorial judgement as writers and editors, not findings from a body of research. They are offered as craft opinion and should be argued with.
The books behind these readings
These are the books this entry actually draws on, not a general reading list. Where a text is in the public domain we link the free copy first, because you should not have to pay for something you can read for nothing. Every edition listed has been checked to exist and to be the right one.
-
The Interpretation of Dreams
The source behind every Freud reading in the dictionary. This is the 1913 Brill translation we adapt from, and it is free to read online.
-
Man and His Symbols
The accessible Jung, and the honest place to start for the archetype material our Jung readings summarise.
Rosmerta Publishing is a member of the Bookshop.org and Amazon Associates affiliate programs. If you buy a book through these links we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. The public-domain texts are always free to read online.