Anecdote collection · Death & the departed
Into the water with three knives
Guangling (Yangzhou), China · c. 890
嘗夢束草加首，口銜一刀，兩手各持一刀，入水而行。
He once dreamed he wore a bundle of straw on his head, held a knife in his mouth and one in each hand, and walked into the water.
Open this dream in the galaxy →
- Source
- Taiping Guangji, dream volumes 276–282 — Li Fang et al. (compilers), 978
- Record type
- Anecdote collection
- Place
- Guangling (Yangzhou), China · Chinese
- Date
- c. 890
- Uncertainty
- High — Anecdote preserved in the Taiping Guangji (978); the dream is reported, not first-hand.
- Imagery
- Water · War
- Feelings
- Confusion
How traditions have read this kind of dream
Psychological
Dreams of the dead returning are widely reported after bereavement. Ellis noted how such dreams often move, over years, from disbelief to quiet acceptance; many people describe them as comforting rather than frightening.
Ellis (1911), ch. VIII
Mythological
In Homer, dreams pass through gates of horn and ivory; across many cultures the dead were believed to visit the living in sleep, and dreams were a place where the two could meet.
Odyssey XIX
Chinese traditions
Chinese poets wrote dreams of the departed as acts of remembrance: Su Shi’s “Ten years, living and dead” and Du Fu’s “My old friend entered my dream” are read to this day as elegies.
Su Shi (1075); Du Fu (759)
These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.
Dreams that share its images
- Testing whether the water was hot England · before 1911
- Fell in the river, boots still dry Chang’an, China · c. 810
- Seven lean cows Egypt (narrative setting) · undated (text c. 6th c. BCE)
- Come over into Macedonia, and help us Troas, Asia Minor · c. 49 (narrative)
- A statue running with blood Rome (setting) · 1599 (play); set 44 BCE
- Coming up the Thames London, England · before 1911