Dreams

Last night I dreamt. My Technicolor visions came in three parts: I was being chased by an intangible being of fear and anxiety (a polar bear?). I hid in a cave, but it was too narrow for me to maneuver. I tried to turn around to get out, but my foot was stuck. Panic induced hyperventilation. I slid a rock to escape and the sandpaper surface rasberried my fingertips. Next, I was in a kitchen. My wife’s family was cooking trout and mashed potatoes. But this second part wasn’t a reset button, I still had anxiety and sore hands. Suddenly, her grandmother started pouring sauce over the fish. It was wrong. I rushed up to stop her, shouting, “Don’t be such an idiot!” Which caused everyone to reprimand me for my lack of filial piety and, I was subsequently disowned. Then, I was watching Superman. Louis Lane was dead in childbirth, and someone had secretly taken a tissue sample from Superman. The sample was used to clone three Supermen. When Superman found out he rushed to save his “children.” Superman believed that they were the same as him, but their genetic redundancy didn’t prevent something dark from dwelling in their souls. His attempts to train them failed. All three combined their powers to kill their benevolent father. Not one for Jungian dream analysis, I can only conclude, “Weird.” There are redundant family themes in all three parts, but I’m not willing to reevaluate my relationship with the people I love based on the occasional, Qingdao-beer-induced nightmare.

Highly articulated dreams are one of the things that define us as human. But what we take from them is highly cultural. Next to God, they have more power over our lives and political destinies than anything else that’s (possibly) not really here. That’s why the Beats loved Zhuangzi and his catch phrase, “Am I a person? Or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a person?” There’s something undeniably humanist in this statement. After all, only humans can entertain the idea of being something other than we are.

Zhuangzi is one of the sources of a deep wellspring of Chinese actions and musings based on dreams. Dreams are everywhere. Here are two examples of dream inspired political action:

Various histories attribute the introduction of Buddhism into China to the influence of a dream. In 65A.D., a the Han Emperor Ming (r.58-75A.D.) dreamt of a giant golden man. The next day he asked one of his misters what it could mean. His minister replied that he had heard of such a figure worshiped in the far west. The emperor dispatched a mission to seek the figure out. They returned to Luoyang a few months later accompanied by two ‘western’ monks, and a white horse loaded with both scriptures and a statue that wan an exact copy of the ‘golden man.’

In 1008, the Song (960-1279) Emperor Zhenzong (r. 996-1022) dreamt that an immortal came to visit him. The immortal informed him that he would receive three ‘Texts from Heaven.’ He told his ministers, and soon after the texts started appearing. Although the texts have been unanimously declared apocryphal (his son buried them with him), his dream was viewed as a legitimate source for political action. It inspired the construction of a massive temple, and two hugely expensive imperial sacrifices.

On a more personal level, dreams were recorded by intellectuals as particularly useful for reflection. Man/y dreams are recorded in biji (usually translated as ‘jottings.’ Jottings usually consist of hundreds of small entries on anything (sometimes thematic). When complete then they would be published. In short, pre-modern blogs.).

Here’s are a couple of accounts about one of the people I’ve spent a great deal of time with, Yang Yi.

From a history of his home region, Pucheng Xianzhi:

楊億之初生也，母張氏夢羽衣人，自言武夷仙託化。既誕生，則一鶴雛也，盡室驚駭，貯而棄之江。其叔父曰：‘吾聞間世之人，其生必異。如姜嫄有棄，簡狄有契，是其類也。’追至江濱，鶴已蛻，而嬰兒具焉。

Before Yang Yi was born, his mother, neé Zhang , dreamt of a Daoist priest. He said that he was the reincarnation of the Immortal of the Wuyi [Mountains].

Later she gave birth to a crane chick. Everyone in the room was frightened, so they laid it aside and then abandoned it in a river. The hatchling’s paternal uncle said, “I’ve heard that in this mundane world of men, there are those whose birth’s must differ. This birth is of the same sort as Jiangyuan having Qi , and Jiandi giving birth to Ch’i. ”[1] He searched on the bank of the river, and its crane form having already been shed, [found] a baby boy.

From the Song Shi, the standard history of the Song dynasty.

楊億字大年，建州浦城人．祖文逸，南唐玉山令．億將生，文逸夢一道士，自稱懷玉山人來謁．未幾，億生，有毛被體，長尺餘經月乃落．


Yang Yi, known by the literary name ‘Great Year’, was from Pucheng, Jian Prefecture. His grandfather was Wenyi, the Southern Tang Director of Yu Shan. When Yi was to be born, Wenyi dreamed of a mendicant. [The Mendicant] claimed that an person from Huaiyu Shan was coming to pay his respects [to him]. Soon after, Yangyi, with a coat of hair over 8 inches in length covering his body, was born.

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[1] Jiangyuan was the wife of the mythical Emperor Di Ku. She gave birth to Qi after becoming mysteriously pregnant due to stepping into the footprint of a giant. She abandoned the child numerous times, but after observing a number of animals come to his aid, she decided to keep him. For the full story see:

Anne Birrell, Chinese Mythology: An Introduction, (Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press, 1993), 118.

Jiandi gave birth to Qi after swallowing the egg of a black bird.
Ibid.,, 256.