Literary dream · Nature & weather
Into the Land of Illusion
Beijing, China · c. 1760 (novel)
那寶玉剛合上眼，便惚惚的睡去，猶似秦氏在前，遂悠悠蕩蕩，隨了秦氏，至一所在。但見朱欄白石，綠樹清溪，真是人跡稀逢，飛塵不到。寶玉在夢中歡喜，想道：「這個去處有趣，我就在這裏過一生，縱然失了家也願意，強如天天被父母師傅打呢。」
No sooner had Baoyu closed his eyes than he drifted off. It seemed Qin was ahead of him, and floating, drifting, he followed her to a place of vermilion railings and white stone, green trees and clear streams — truly a place few people reach and no dust can fly. Baoyu was delighted in the dream: “What a lovely place. I would spend my whole life here, even if it meant losing my home — better than being beaten every day by my parents and tutor.”
Open this dream in the galaxy →
- Source
- Dream of the Red Chamber, ch. 5 — Cao Xueqin, c. 1760
- Record type
- Literary dream
- Place
- Beijing, China · Chinese
- Date
- c. 1760 (novel)
- Uncertainty
- Moderate — Dream of the Red Chamber, ch. 5; a fictional character’s dream.
- Imagery
- A stranger · River · Tree · Garden · Palace
- Feelings
- Joy · Wonder
How traditions have read this kind of dream
Psychological
Storms, mountains and gardens in dreams are often traced to the day’s impressions or the sleeper’s physical state — Ellis connected a dreamed cyclone to a windy night.
Ellis (1911), ch. IV
Mythological
Sacred mountains and world-trees connect earth and sky in many traditions, from Olympus to Yggdrasil to Mount Kunlun.
Comparative mythology
Chinese traditions
Landscape — mountains, rivers, mist — is the setting of countless Chinese dream journeys, where the dreamer’s wandering mirrors the shan-shui painting tradition.
Li Bai, Dreaming of Tianmu
These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.
Dreams that share its images
- The general’s buried sword Shouchun, Anhui, China · Tang (undated)
- A servant by day, a king by night Zhou, China · compiled c. 4th century
- Waking in the Peony Pavilion Nan’an, Jiangxi (setting) · 1598 (drama)
- Floating on warm, transparent lakes Paris, France · c. 1900
- The window with cypress and mallows Mount Tiantai, Zhejiang, China · c. 900
- A friend at the bedside, like a breath of wind Scheria (setting) · c. 8th century BCE