Dream Galaxy

Anecdote collection · Animals

An ox with two tails

Luozhou (Luoyang), China · c. 650 (Tang)

洛州杜玄有牛一頭，玄甚憐之。夜夢見其牛有兩尾

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

Du Xuan of Luozhou had an ox he loved dearly. One night he dreamed his ox had two tails.

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
Luozhou (Luoyang), China · Chinese
Date
c. 650 (Tang)
Uncertainty
High — The dream-reader read 牛 with two tails as 失, “lost” — and the ox went missing.
Imagery
Animals
Feelings
Confusion · Tenderness

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