Dreaming of a crane : what can this symbol evoke?

One trait, two verdicts

Chevalier and Gheerbrant note it explicitly : the West saw in the bird's awkward posture on one leg a figure of foolishness and clumsiness, and China made something entirely different of the same fact. India, for its part, made it a symbol of treachery.

The fact is identical everywhere. What changes is the milieu that judges — and the bird can do nothing about that judgement. Few symbols say so clearly that a trait's value is not in the trait.

The question it poses is useful and freeing : what you are reproached with — is it a flaw or a reading? Those who dream of cranes often come from a milieu where something in them does not count.

The mount of the Immortals

In China the crane is held to live a thousand years and to carry the Immortals in their ascent. An old text describes it returning after a thousand years, cinnabar powdering its head and snow clothing its body : white for purity, the red of the crown for a vital power undimmed.

Dreams often use this figure for what lasts without going out. Not preservation — an intensity that holds. Japanese elders receive images of cranes, tortoises and pines, and the three say the same thing in three forms.

What to remember is the colour of the crown. A red head on a white body says an intact force ; an entirely pale crane says something else, and dreamers generally notice that contrast without knowing why.

What the bird does changes the reading

• Standing on one leg — the same trait one milieu judges awkward and another noble.
• A red head on a white body — an intact vital force, which Chinese tradition reads in that contrast.
• A crane flying very high — the ascent, of which it is the mount in Taoist accounts.
• A pair of cranes — fidelity, which the West grants it despite the rest.
• A paper crane — the object hung in a dead person's house, which accompanies rather than consoles.
• A bird judged clumsy by those around — what in you does not count in the milieu you are in.

A psychological reading, not a ready-made box

Depth psychology takes an interest in symbols whose reading inverts across cultures, because they recall that a judgement bears on a gaze as much as on a thing. The crane is a clear case : Chevalier and Gheerbrant's Dictionary of Symbols notes that the West sees foolishness and clumsiness there where the Far East sees fidelity and longevity. Other readings retain its role as mount of the Immortals and the breathing technique attributed to it.