Anecdote collection · Nature & weather
A child climbed out of a hollow tree
Tang China · c. 840
嘗夢大樹，樹忽穴，有小兒青褶鬐，髮自穴而出，語秦曰：“合土尊師。”
He once dreamed of a great tree that suddenly opened a hollow; a little boy in a blue jacket with tufted hair climbed out of it and said to him, “Honoured master of the earth.”
Open this dream in the galaxy →
- Source
- Youyang Zazu, vol. 8 (Dreams) — Duan Chengshi, c. 860
- Record type
- Anecdote collection
- Place
- Tang China · Chinese
- Date
- c. 840
- Uncertainty
- High — For five years afterwards the child kept appearing to warn him of events.
- Imagery
- Tree · Child · Forest
- Feelings
- Wonder · Confusion
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
- The tenor climbing ladders to reach the high notes Germany · before 1911
- A hotel I could see into England · before 1911
- Stair after stair in endless series Edinburgh, Scotland · c. 1867–1871
- Would the fall never come to an end? Oxford, England · 1865 (novel)
- Snow at the top of the hotel England · before 1911
- The millet was not yet cooked Handan, China (story setting) · c. 780