Anecdote collection · Light & dark
The sun fell into the water
Feicheng, Shandong, China · c. 500 (Northern Wei)
夢日墮所居黃山水中，林人以車牛挽致不出，英抱戴而歸。
He dreamed the sun fell into the water by Mount Huang where he lived; the woodsmen could not haul it out even with oxcarts, but he carried it home in his arms.
Open this dream in the galaxy →
- Source
- Taiping Guangji, dream volumes 276–282 — Li Fang et al. (compilers), 978
- Record type
- Anecdote collection
- Place
- Feicheng, Shandong, China · Chinese
- Date
- c. 500 (Northern Wei)
- Uncertainty
- High — Anecdote preserved in the Taiping Guangji (978); the dream is reported, not first-hand.
- Imagery
- Sun · Water · Mountain · Crowd
- Feelings
- Wonder · Awe
How traditions have read this kind of dream
Psychological
Dreamers often report vivid light, shadow and colour. Ellis observed that vision dominates dreams even though the eyes are closed; some later writers treat light and dark as figures for knowing and not-knowing.
Ellis (1911), ch. IV
Mythological
Sun, moon and stars bow to Joseph in his dream; across cultures celestial lights mark rank, destiny and the order of the cosmos.
Genesis 37
Chinese traditions
The moon in Chinese poetry is a shared light across distance — the same moon seen by people far apart — which is why it appears so often in dreams of absent loved ones.
Su Shi; Du Fu
These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.
Dreams that share its images
- Living pictures in magnesium light Germany · before 1911
- I could make the summer Zurich, Switzerland · c. 1910
- The animals fell out of Noah’s ark Zurich, Switzerland · c. 1910
- A melon in winter, still in his hand Northern Wei China · c. 500 (Northern Wei)
- A living globe made of drops Russia · 1869 (novel)
- The moon, then the sun, entered my bosom Wu (Zhejiang), China · c. 175–182