Anecdote collection · Nature & weather
A melon sweeter than any
Luoyang, China · c. 60 CE (as told)
漢明帝陰貴人，夢食瓜甚美。
Lady Yin, consort of Emperor Ming of Han, dreamed she ate a melon that was wonderfully sweet.
Open this dream in the galaxy →
- Source
- Taiping Guangji, dream volumes 276–282 — Li Fang et al. (compilers), 978
- Record type
- Anecdote collection
- Place
- Luoyang, China · Chinese
- Date
- c. 60 CE (as told)
- Uncertainty
- High — Anecdote preserved in the Taiping Guangji (978); the dream is reported, not first-hand.
- Imagery
- Food
- Feelings
- Joy
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
- Three branches and Pharaoh’s cup Egypt (narrative setting) · undated narrative
- A servant by day, a king by night Zhou, China · compiled c. 4th century
- A barley loaf tumbled into the camp Valley of Jezreel · undated narrative
- Planting fowls’ heads to grow chickens England · before 1911
- An olive wreath that covered the earth Susa, Persia · 481 BCE (as told)
- Three ears of grain on the palace roof Guanghan, Sichuan, China · early 1st century