Dream Galaxy

Anecdote collection · Animals

A great purple bird in the courtyard

Shenzhou, Hebei, China · c. 670

張鷟曾夢一大鳥，紫色，五彩成文，飛下，至庭前不去。

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

Zhang Zhuo once dreamed of a huge bird, purple, patterned in five colours, which flew down to the courtyard and would not leave.

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
Shenzhou, Hebei, China · Chinese
Date
c. 670
Uncertainty
High — Anecdote preserved in the Taiping Guangji (978); the dream is reported, not first-hand.
Imagery
Bird · Garden · Sky
Feelings
Wonder · Awe

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