Religious narrative · Nature & weather
A white elephant with a lotus
Kapilavastu (Nepal–India) · traditional (c. 6th c. BCE)
Then the future Buddha, who had become a superb white elephant, and was wandering on the Golden Hill, not far from there, descended thence, and ascending the Silver Hill, approached her from the North. Holding in his silvery trunk a white lotus flower
Open this dream in the galaxy →
- Source
- Buddhist Birth Stories (trans. T. W. Rhys Davids) — trans. T. W. Rhys Davids, 1880 (translation). Nidāna-kathā
- Record type
- Religious narrative
- Place
- Kapilavastu (Nepal–India) · Indian
- Date
- traditional (c. 6th c. BCE)
- Uncertainty
- High — Queen Māyā’s conception dream in the Buddhist birth stories (Rhys Davids translation, 1880).
- Imagery
- Animals · Flower · Mountain · Mother
- Feelings
- Awe · Calm
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
- Meeting a god by the great marsh Pei (Xuzhou), China · c. 257 BCE (as told)
- Easter morning, cattle on the graves Grasmere, England · c. 1819
- Riding the sky to the Southern Peak Yangzhou, China · c. 840
- My sheaf stood upright Canaan · undated narrative
- I gave birth to a lion Athens, Greece · c. 495 BCE
- Riding a green dragon up to heaven Jiuquan, Gansu, China · late 4th century (as told)