Anecdote collection · Nature & weather
A melon in winter, still in his hand
Northern Wei China · c. 500 (Northern Wei)
後魏宋瓊母病，冬月思瓜。瓊夢見人與瓜，覺。得之手中。
Song Qiong’s mother was ill and longed for melon in the depth of winter. Qiong dreamed someone gave him a melon — and when he woke, it was in his hand.
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- Source
- Taiping Guangji, dream volumes 276–282 — Li Fang et al. (compilers), 978
- Record type
- Anecdote collection
- Place
- Northern Wei China · Chinese
- Date
- c. 500 (Northern Wei)
- Uncertainty
- High — Anecdote preserved in the Taiping Guangji (978); the dream is reported, not first-hand.
- Imagery
- Food · Mother · A stranger · Snow & ice
- Feelings
- Tenderness · Wonder
How traditions have read this kind of dream
Psychological
Storms, mountains and gardens in dreams are often traced to the day’s impressions or the sleeper’s physical state — Ellis connected a dreamed cyclone to a windy night.
Ellis (1911), ch. IV
Mythological
Sacred mountains and world-trees connect earth and sky in many traditions, from Olympus to Yggdrasil to Mount Kunlun.
Comparative mythology
Chinese traditions
Landscape — mountains, rivers, mist — is the setting of countless Chinese dream journeys, where the dreamer’s wandering mirrors the shan-shui painting tradition.
Li Bai, Dreaming of Tianmu
These are cultural lenses, not a diagnosis.
Dreams that share its images
- Where she was, there was I also Thagaste, North Africa · c. 373
- Two ghosts plotting to enter my father Taiyuan, China · Tang (undated)
- Cherry stones beside the pillow Tang China · c. 850
- Why is the babe weeping? Russia · 1880 (novel)
- A fire in a hotel in a strange city Zurich, Switzerland · c. 1913
- Waking in the Peony Pavilion Nan’an, Jiangxi (setting) · 1598 (drama)