Dream Galaxy

Anecdote collection · Animals

Three black dogs howling

Wu (Suzhou), China · c. 475 BCE (as told)

吳王夫差夜夢三黑狗號，以南以北，炊甑無氣。

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

Fuchai, King of Wu, dreamed at night of three black dogs howling, now facing south, now north, and of a steamer pot from which no steam rose.

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
Wu (Suzhou), China · Chinese
Date
c. 475 BCE (as told)
Uncertainty
High — Anecdote preserved in the Taiping Guangji (978); the dream is reported, not first-hand.
Imagery
Dog · Animals · Food · Ruler
Feelings
Unease

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.

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