Dream Galaxy

Anecdote collection · Water

Carried up out of a well

Chang’an, China · c. 750

玄宗夢入井，有一兵士，著緋褌，背負而出。

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

Xuanzong dreamed he went down into a well, and a soldier in red trousers carried him out on his back.

Translation · Editorial translation (draft)

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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. 750
Uncertainty
High — The soldier, found the next day, said he had dreamed of carrying the sun up out of a well.
Imagery
Water · Darkness · A stranger · War
Feelings
Fear · Relief

How traditions have read this kind of dream

Psychological

Early dream researchers often linked water imagery to bodily sensation and mood; later psychoanalytic writers read deep water as a figure for what lies below awareness. Modern researchers treat such readings as interpretive traditions rather than findings.

cf. Havelock Ellis, The World of Dreams (1911)

Mythological

Many cosmologies begin with primordial waters — the deep of Genesis, the Babylonian Apsu, the cosmic ocean of Hindu myth — so water often stands for origins, boundaries and crossings between worlds.

Comparative mythology

Chinese traditions

In Chinese poetry water carries time and loss — “all things flow east like water” (Li Bai) — while Daoist texts praise water as soft yet enduring.

Li Bai; Daodejing ch. 8

These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.

Dreams that share its images