Literary dream · People & kin
I no longer dream of the Duke of Zhou
State of Lu, China · c. 5th century BCE
子曰：「甚矣，吾衰也！久矣，吾不復夢見周公！」
The Master said: "How far I have declined! It has been so long since I last dreamed of the Duke of Zhou."
Open this dream in the galaxy →
- Source
- Analects, Book VII — Disciples of Confucius, c. 5th–4th century BCE
- Record type
- Literary dream
- Place
- State of Lu, China · Chinese
- Date
- c. 5th century BCE
- Uncertainty
- Moderate — Not a dream report but a remark about the absence of a recurring dream.
- Imagery
- A stranger · Ruler
- Feelings
- Nostalgia · Longing · Loneliness
How traditions have read this kind of dream
Psychological
Family members, friends and strangers populate most dreams. Freud read many such dreams as wishes in disguise; contemporary researchers emphasise continuity with waking relationships and concerns.
Freud, Dream Psychology (1920)
Mythological
Dreams in epic and scripture are often addressed to someone — a wife waiting for a husband, a son receiving a vision for his family — and are told aloud to be understood.
Odyssey XIX; Genesis 37
Chinese traditions
Confucius lamented that he no longer dreamed of the Duke of Zhou; in Chinese letters, dreaming of someone is a measure of how much they are on one’s mind.
Analects 7.5
These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.
Dreams that share its images
- Woken from a dream a thousand li long Southern Song China · c. 1138
- Back in the little town of his birth Russia · 1866 (novel)
- The white horse at dawn Tokyo, Japan · 1908
- The governor who spoke English Spain (dreamed) · before 1911
- A procession coming down the hill Yamato Province, Japan · 1904 (retold folk tale)
- Two women yoked to my son’s chariot Susa (setting) · 472 BCE (play)