Diary & poem of record · Light & dark
Iron cavalry, silent as water
Shu (Sichuan), China · c. 1173
雪曉清笳亂起。夢遊處、不知何地。鐵騎無聲望似水。想關河，雁門西，青海際。睡覺寒燈裏。
A snowy dawn; clear reed-pipes sound all around. Where I wandered in the dream, I do not know. Iron cavalry, silent, stretched like water as far as I could see — the passes and rivers west of Yanmen, by the shores of Qinghai. I woke beside a cold lamp.
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- Source
- Night Roaming Palace: Recording a Dream — Lu You, c. 1173
- Record type
- Diary & poem of record
- Place
- Shu (Sichuan), China · Chinese
- Date
- c. 1173
- Uncertainty
- Moderate — Ci poem by Lu You, subtitled “Recording a dream”.
- Imagery
- Snow & ice · Horse · War · River · Light · Music
- Feelings
- Longing · Loneliness
How traditions have read this kind of dream
Psychological
Dreamers often report vivid light, shadow and colour. Ellis observed that vision dominates dreams even though the eyes are closed; some later writers treat light and dark as figures for knowing and not-knowing.
Ellis (1911), ch. IV
Mythological
Sun, moon and stars bow to Joseph in his dream; across cultures celestial lights mark rank, destiny and the order of the cosmos.
Genesis 37
Chinese traditions
The moon in Chinese poetry is a shared light across distance — the same moon seen by people far apart — which is why it appears so often in dreams of absent loved ones.
Su Shi; Du Fu
These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.
Dreams that share its images
- Armoured horses on frozen rivers Shanyin (Shaoxing, Zhejiang), China · 4th day of the 11th lunar month, 1192
- Fell in the river, boots still dry Chang’an, China · c. 810
- Into the water with three knives Guangling (Yangzhou), China · c. 890
- My friend fell into the river over a gambling debt Zhejiang River, China · 3rd–4th century
- A crab hidden in the ford Zurich, Switzerland · c. 1916
- I jumped into the sea and regretted it Tokyo, Japan · 1908