Anecdote collection · People & kin
A thorn in her eye
Chenliu (Kaifeng), China · 4th century
陳留周氏婢入山取樵，倦寢。忽夢一女子，坐中謁之曰：「吾目中有刺，願乞拔之。」及覺，忽見一棺中有髑髏，眼中草生，遂與拔之。
A maid of the Zhou family went into the hills for firewood and, tired, fell asleep. She dreamed of a woman who said: “There is a thorn in my eye — please pull it out.” When she woke she saw a coffin with a skull inside, grass growing from its eye socket, and she pulled the grass out.
Open this dream in the galaxy →
- Source
- Taiping Guangji, dream volumes 276–282 — Li Fang et al. (compilers), 978
- Record type
- Anecdote collection
- Place
- Chenliu (Kaifeng), China · Chinese
- Date
- 4th century
- Uncertainty
- High — Anecdote preserved in the Taiping Guangji (978); the dream is reported, not first-hand.
- Imagery
- A stranger · Coffin · Mountain · Forest · Faces
- Feelings
- Tenderness · Wonder
How traditions have read this kind of dream
Psychological
Family members, friends and strangers populate most dreams. Freud read many such dreams as wishes in disguise; contemporary researchers emphasise continuity with waking relationships and concerns.
Freud, Dream Psychology (1920)
Mythological
Dreams in epic and scripture are often addressed to someone — a wife waiting for a husband, a son receiving a vision for his family — and are told aloud to be understood.
Odyssey XIX; Genesis 37
Chinese traditions
Confucius lamented that he no longer dreamed of the Duke of Zhou; in Chinese letters, dreaming of someone is a measure of how much they are on one’s mind.
Analects 7.5
These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.
Dreams that share its images
- Falling from the palace hall Chang’an, China · c. 750
- My father sinking into a lake of mire Ayodhya (setting) · c. 5th–4th c. BCE (epic)
- A willow tree fell to the ground Chang’an, China · 815
- The acrobat who never touched the floor England · before 1911
- Rome half veiled in mist Vienna, Austria · c. 1897
- My friend fell into the river over a gambling debt Zhejiang River, China · 3rd–4th century