Anecdote collection · Nature & weather
The window with cypress and mallows
Mount Tiantai, Zhejiang, China · c. 900
嘗夢見一女子，引生入窗下，有側柏樹葵花，遂為伉儷。後頻於夢中相遇，自不曉其故。
He dreamed that a young woman led him to a window beneath which grew a cypress and mallow flowers, and they became husband and wife. After that they met often in dreams, and he never understood why.
Open this dream in the galaxy →
- Source
- Taiping Guangji, dream volumes 276–282 — Li Fang et al. (compilers), 978
- Record type
- Anecdote collection
- Place
- Mount Tiantai, Zhejiang, China · Chinese
- Date
- c. 900
- Uncertainty
- High — Anecdote preserved in the Taiping Guangji (978); the dream is reported, not first-hand.
- Imagery
- A stranger · Partner · Garden · Flower · Tree · House
- Feelings
- Tenderness · Longing · Confusion
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
- Waking in the Peony Pavilion Nan’an, Jiangxi (setting) · 1598 (drama)
- A knife opened his heart, and he could learn Eastern Han China · c. 150 (as told)
- A miracle drug called selvdrolla England · before 1911
- A child climbed out of a hollow tree Tang China · c. 840
- An olive wreath that covered the earth Susa, Persia · 481 BCE (as told)
- Cherry stones beside the pillow Tang China · c. 850