Anecdote collection · Animals
A long green dog from the south
Liangzhou (Wuwei), China · 376 (as told)
夢一綠色犬，甚長，從南來，欲咋天錫，床上避之，乃墮地。
He dreamed of a green dog, very long, coming from the south to bite him; he dodged on the bed and fell to the floor.
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- Source
- Taiping Guangji, dream volumes 276–282 — Li Fang et al. (compilers), 978
- Record type
- Anecdote collection
- Place
- Liangzhou (Wuwei), China · Chinese
- Date
- 376 (as told)
- Uncertainty
- High — Anecdote preserved in the Taiping Guangji (978); the dream is reported, not first-hand.
- Imagery
- Dog · Animals · Falling
- Feelings
- Fear
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
- A green lizard fell into my belly Huainan, China · undated (Jin collection)
- Pigs on the edge of a cliff Tokyo, Japan · 1908
- A barking dog with a human voice Athens, Greece · 450 BCE
- A crab hidden in the ford Zurich, Switzerland · c. 1916
- Fell in the river, boots still dry Chang’an, China · c. 810
- The animals fell out of Noah’s ark Zurich, Switzerland · c. 1910