Anecdote collection · Light & dark
The moon, then the sun, entered my bosom
Wu (Zhejiang), China · c. 175–182
孫堅夫人吳氏，孕而夢月入懷。已而生策。及權在孕，又夢日入懷。
Lady Wu, wife of Sun Jian, dreamed while pregnant that the moon entered her bosom, and later bore Sun Ce. When she was carrying Sun Quan, she dreamed the sun entered her bosom.
Open this dream in the galaxy →
- Source
- In Search of the Supernatural, vol. 10 — Gan Bao, c. 350
- Record type
- Anecdote collection
- Place
- Wu (Zhejiang), China · Chinese
- Date
- c. 175–182
- Uncertainty
- High — Anecdote from Gan Bao’s In Search of the Supernatural (c. 350); reported, not first-hand.
- Imagery
- Moon · Sun · Mother · Child · Light
- Feelings
- Awe · Wonder
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
- Living pictures in magnesium light Germany · before 1911
- Where she was, there was I also Thagaste, North Africa · c. 373
- Father, don’t you see that I am burning? Central Europe · before 1900
- A mother praying for a father who never returns Tokyo, Japan · 1908
- Why is the babe weeping? Russia · 1880 (novel)
- Swallowing the sun Guangling (Yangzhou), China · c. 920 (Wu kingdom)