Dream Galaxy

Anecdote collection · Water

My friend fell into the river over a gambling debt

Zhejiang River, China · 3rd–4th century

謝忽夢郭與人於浙江上爭樗蒲錢。因為水神所責，墮水而死。

Original text — In Search of the Supernatural, vol. 10, Gan Bao

Xie suddenly dreamed that Guo was quarrelling with someone over gambling money on the Zhe River; rebuked by the water god, he fell into the water and died.

Translation · Editorial translation (draft)

Open this dream in the galaxy →

Source
In Search of the Supernatural, vol. 10 — Gan Bao, c. 350
Rights
Public domain (ancient text)
Record type
Anecdote collection
Place
Zhejiang River, China · Chinese
Date
3rd–4th century
Uncertainty
High — Guo told Xie he had dreamed exactly the same the night before, and died that day.
Imagery
Friend · River · Water · Falling
Feelings
Unease · Grief

How traditions have read this kind of dream

Psychological

Early dream researchers often linked water imagery to bodily sensation and mood; later psychoanalytic writers read deep water as a figure for what lies below awareness. Modern researchers treat such readings as interpretive traditions rather than findings.

cf. Havelock Ellis, The World of Dreams (1911)

Mythological

Many cosmologies begin with primordial waters — the deep of Genesis, the Babylonian Apsu, the cosmic ocean of Hindu myth — so water often stands for origins, boundaries and crossings between worlds.

Comparative mythology

Chinese traditions

In Chinese poetry water carries time and loss — “all things flow east like water” (Li Bai) — while Daoist texts praise water as soft yet enduring.

Li Bai; Daodejing ch. 8

These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.

Dreams that share its images