Dream Galaxy

Literary dream · Animals

The deer hidden under banana leaves

State of Zheng, China · compiled c. 4th century

鄭人有薪於野者，偶駭鹿，御而擊之，斃之。恐人見之也，遽而藏諸隍中，覆之以蕉，不勝其喜。俄而遺其所藏之處，遂以爲夢焉……

Original text — Liezi, King Mu of Zhou, Lie Yukou (attributed)

A man of Zheng gathering firewood in the wilds startled a deer, met it and struck it dead. Afraid someone would see, he hid it in a dry ditch and covered it with banana leaves, overjoyed. Soon he forgot where he had hidden it, and so decided it must have been a dream.

Translation · Editorial translation (draft)

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Source
Liezi, King Mu of Zhou — Lie Yukou (attributed), compiled c. 4th century CE
Rights
Public domain (ancient text)
Record type
Literary dream
Place
State of Zheng, China · Chinese
Date
compiled c. 4th century
Uncertainty
High — Philosophical parable on the boundary between dream and waking.
Imagery
Deer · Animals · Forest
Feelings
Joy · Confusion

How traditions have read this kind of dream

Psychological

Animals in dreams often speak, change form or carry strong feeling. Ellis suggested such dreams may lie behind fables of talking animals; later writers read them as instinct given a face.

Ellis (1911), note 262

Mythological

Messenger animals are everywhere in myth: the eagle in Penelope’s dream, Pharaoh’s seven cows, guardian dogs at the gates of the dead.

Odyssey XIX; Genesis 41

Chinese traditions

In the Liezi’s “deer under banana leaves”, a hunted deer becomes a puzzle about where dreaming ends; Zhuangzi’s butterfly turns the question inside out.

Liezi; Zhuangzi

These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.

Dreams that share its images