Diary & poem of record · Death & the departed
Dreaming of my late wife at her window
Mizhou (Zhucheng, Shandong), China · 20th day of the 1st lunar month, 1075
十年生死兩茫茫，不思量，自難忘。千里孤墳，無處話淒涼。縱使相逢應不識，塵滿面，鬢如霜。夜來幽夢忽還鄉，小軒窗，正梳妝。相顧無言，惟有淚千行。料得年年腸斷處，明月夜，短松岡。
Ten years, living and dead, lost to each other. I do not try to remember, yet cannot forget. Her lonely grave a thousand li away, nowhere to speak of my sorrow. Even if we met she would not know me — face full of dust, temples like frost. Last night in a dark dream I suddenly went home: at the little window she was combing her hair. We looked at each other without a word, only a thousand lines of tears. Year after year, the place that breaks my heart: a moonlit night, a hill of short pines.
Open this dream in the galaxy →
- Source
- To the Tune of Jiangchengzi: Recording a Dream on the 20th Night of the First Month — Su Shi, 1075
- Record type
- Diary & poem of record
- Place
- Mizhou (Zhucheng, Shandong), China · Chinese
- Date
- 20th day of the 1st lunar month, 1075
- Uncertainty
- Low — Su Shi's lyric for his wife Wang Fu, who died in 1065. The title itself records the night of the dream.
- Imagery
- Partner · House · Moon · Grave
- Feelings
- Grief · Longing · Tenderness
How traditions have read this kind of dream
Psychological
Dreams of the dead returning are widely reported after bereavement. Ellis noted how such dreams often move, over years, from disbelief to quiet acceptance; many people describe them as comforting rather than frightening.
Ellis (1911), ch. VIII
Mythological
In Homer, dreams pass through gates of horn and ivory; across many cultures the dead were believed to visit the living in sleep, and dreams were a place where the two could meet.
Odyssey XIX
Chinese traditions
Chinese poets wrote dreams of the departed as acts of remembrance: Su Shi’s “Ten years, living and dead” and Du Fu’s “My old friend entered my dream” are read to this day as elegies.
Su Shi (1075); Du Fu (759)
These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.
Dreams that share its images
- My mother lacked a pair of gloves London, England · 29 June 1667
- Who is dead in the White House? Washington, D.C., USA · early April 1865 (as reported)
- A mother praying for a father who never returns Tokyo, Japan · 1908
- My sister came through the keyhole Ithaca (setting) · c. 8th century BCE
- She was not really dead England · before 1911
- My late husband came back to mend the house Pengcheng (Xuzhou), China · 5th century