Dream Galaxy

Anecdote collection · Cities & buildings

The shoe I lost in the dream

Chang’an, China · c. 870

夜後納涼於庭，夢為人毆擊，擒出春明門，至合大路處石橋上，乃得解。遺其紫羅履一雙，奔及居而寤。甚困，言於弟兄，而床前果失一履。

Original text — Taiping Guangji, dream volumes 276–282, Li Fang et al. (compilers)

Cooling off in the courtyard at night, he dreamed he was beaten and dragged out through the Chunming Gate to a stone bridge where the great roads meet, before he was let go. He lost his purple silk shoes and ran home — and woke. Exhausted, he told his brothers; and indeed one shoe was missing from beside his bed.

Translation · Editorial translation (draft)

Open this dream in the galaxy →

Source
Taiping Guangji, dream volumes 276–282 — Li Fang et al. (compilers), 978
Rights
Public domain (ancient text)
Record type
Anecdote collection
Place
Chang’an, China · Chinese
Date
c. 870
Uncertainty
High — Anecdote preserved in the Taiping Guangji (978); the dream is reported, not first-hand.
Imagery
City · Road · River · A stranger
Feelings
Fear · Confusion

How traditions have read this kind of dream

Psychological

Houses, corridors and endless stairs are frequent dream settings. Some writers read buildings as figures for the self; others note simply that dreams rebuild the spaces we move through every day.

cf. Stevenson, A Chapter on Dreams (1888)

Mythological

Labyrinths, towers and underground cities appear in myths from Crete to Babel — built places where people lose their way, reach too high, or find hidden kingdoms.

Greek myth; Genesis 11

Chinese traditions

Tang tales like “The Governor of Nanke” place a whole kingdom of palaces inside a dream, only to reveal it as an ants’ nest — a lasting image for the brevity of worldly glory.

Li Gongzuo, c. 802

These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.

Dreams that share its images