Dream Galaxy

Religious narrative · Animals

Bears and snakes in an auspicious dream

Western Zhou, China · c. 9th–8th century BCE

吉夢維何？維熊維羆，維虺維蛇。

Original text — Book of Songs, “Si Gan”, Anonymous

What were the auspicious dreams? Black bears and brown bears, adders and snakes.

Translation · Editorial translation (draft)

Open this dream in the galaxy →

Source
Book of Songs, “Si Gan” — Anonymous, c. 9th–8th century BCE
Rights
Public domain (ancient text)
Record type
Religious narrative
Place
Western Zhou, China · Chinese
Date
c. 9th–8th century BCE
Uncertainty
High — Ode from the Book of Songs, one of the oldest recorded dream images in Chinese.
Imagery
Animals
Feelings
Joy · Awe

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