Anecdote collection · People & kin
The general’s buried sword
Shouchun, Anhui, China · Tang (undated)
常夢一人，自稱廉頗，謂己曰：「可與屋東握地，取吾寶劍，當令汝富。
He often dreamed of a man who called himself Lian Po and told him: “Dig in the ground east of your house and take my precious sword; it will make you rich.”
Open this dream in the galaxy →
- Source
- Taiping Guangji, dream volumes 276–282 — Li Fang et al. (compilers), 978
- Record type
- Anecdote collection
- Place
- Shouchun, Anhui, China · Chinese
- Date
- Tang (undated)
- Uncertainty
- High — Anecdote preserved in the Taiping Guangji (978); the dream is reported, not first-hand.
- Imagery
- A stranger · War · House
- Feelings
- Wonder · Joy
How traditions have read this kind of dream
Psychological
Family members, friends and strangers populate most dreams. Freud read many such dreams as wishes in disguise; contemporary researchers emphasise continuity with waking relationships and concerns.
Freud, Dream Psychology (1920)
Mythological
Dreams in epic and scripture are often addressed to someone — a wife waiting for a husband, a son receiving a vision for his family — and are told aloud to be understood.
Odyssey XIX; Genesis 37
Chinese traditions
Confucius lamented that he no longer dreamed of the Duke of Zhou; in Chinese letters, dreaming of someone is a measure of how much they are on one’s mind.
Analects 7.5
These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.
Dreams that share its images
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- The skull that spoke in a dream On the road to Chu, China · c. 3rd century BCE
- A cannon before the Arch of Constantine Rome (dreamed) · before 1912
- My sister came through the keyhole Ithaca (setting) · c. 8th century BCE