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You are here: Home / Chinese Medicine / Dreams and Dao in Chinese Medicine

Dreams and Dao in Chinese Medicine

May 21, 2023 in Filed Under: Chinese Medicine, Philosophy by Robert Keller

To act in accord with one’s nature is called the Dao.
–Psychology and Self-Cultivation in Early Taoistic Thought, by Harold Roth

The highest level of healing in Chinese medicine is to make contact and act in accord with one’s nature. This article discusses the role of dreams and dream therapy in this endeavor.

In my daily practice, patients frequently recount to me their dreams. It is common for people to seek understanding of their dreams, yet there is little meaningful resource for this beyond the simplistic dream interpretation approach that permeates most dream-related websites.

There is a long history of dream studies, practice and therapy within the context of Chinese medicine. This ranges from simple dream interpretation, to more complex diagnostic indications, to higher level meditative and self-cultivation practices. Within the framework of Chinese medicine, the focus is generally related to healing. This involves using and applying all levels of dreamwork as they are relevant to the particular individual, situation, and dreams.

Acupuncture and herbal medicine both have therapeutic value as part of dreamwork. The most basic level is to help people have restful sleep and peaceful dreams. The middle level is to assist people in understanding the symbolism and meaning in their dreams.  The highest level is to support people in gaining clarity and awareness in their dreams.

The middle and highest levels, in particular, require work beyond acupuncture and herbal medicine alone. Chinese meditation and qigong practices are both useful for working with dreams. Also important is working with dream therapy. In the West, we have many approaches to dreams. They are most typically oriented towards either symbolic or psychoanalytic interpretations. These and all orientations have value in different contexts. In relation to healing, working with dreams – both in waking and sleeping life – offers a path that is rarely discussed or explored in the West.

Following are examples from Chinese texts that discuss dreaming and sleep:

Dreams are contextually interpreted in many ways in classical Chinese texts. In relation to medicine and health, it is common to see interpretations related to the five elements, yin and yang, etc.

The Huang di Nei Jing, or the Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine is a classical Chinese medicine text written approximately 2,000 years ago. It is composed of two books, the Su Wen, or Basic Questions; and the Ling Shu, or Spiritual Pivot.

In the Mai Yao Jing Wei Lun (Treatise on the Essentials of the Pulse and the Subtleties of the Essence; Chapter 17 of the Su Wen), it says:

This is to know:
When the yin qi abounds, then one dreams of wading through a big water and is in fear.
When the yang qi abounds, then one dreams of big fires burning.
When both yin and yang qi abound, then one dreams of mutual killings and harmings.
When the qi abounds above, then one dreams of flying.
When the qi abounds below, then one dreams of falling.
When one has eaten to extreme repletion, then one dreams of giving.
When one is extremely hungry, then one takes of giving.
When the liver qi abounds, then one dreams of anger.
When the lung qi abounds, then one dreams of weeping.
When there are many short worms, then one dreams of crowds assembling.
–Huang Di Nei jing su wen Volume 1, Translated by Paul Unschuld

In Chapter 80 of the same text, entitled Fang Sheng Shuai Lun (Treatise on Comparing Abundance and Depletion) it reads:

When the heart qi is depleted, then he dreams of stopping a fire and of yang items.
When it is its time, he dreams of burning.

Chapter 43 of The Spiritual Pivot is entitled Excess Evils release Dreams. It states:

Regular evil qi originate from outside and attack the inside. They do not settle at a specific location. When they, contrary to normal, spread to the long-term depots, they are still unable to remain at a specific location. They move together with the camp and guard qi; and they fly and rise into the air together with the hun and po souls. The result is that people do not sleep peacefully and tend to have dreams.
–Huang Di Nei jing Ling Shu, Translated by Paul Unschuld

This sort of language and approach is typical of the Su Wen and Ling Shu. It is also characteristic of other texts that were written later.

For example, the famous doctor Sun Simiao says in his text from 1,500 years ago entitled Bei Ji Qian Jin Yao Fang (Essential Formulas for Emergencies worth a Thousand Ducat in Gold):

The waxing and waning fluctuations in one’s body, they all commune with the heavens and earth, and respond to [all] categories of objects. That is the reason why when yin qi is strong, then one dreams about wading in great floods and is frightened. When yang qi is strong, then one dreams about wading in great fires and about being burnt and scalded. When yin and yang are both strong, then one dreams about birth and killings [i.e. life and death].
–Arts of Daoism, written by Xing de and translated by John Hausen and Allen Tsaur; used with permission of the translators

In this same text, Sun Simiao writes about the use of the acupuncture point Du 26 for the treatment of “sleep paralysis.”

The concept of sleep paralysis is also discussed in the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing. The Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing, or The Divine Farmer’s Materia Medica, is the oldest surviving Chinese herbal medical text. It was written around 2,000 years ago. It includes descriptions of which herbs to use to prevent “oppressive ghost dreams”. This term, in Chinese “Meng Yan”, is commonly translated as “nightmares.”

The first surviving Chinese text about sleep and dreams is the Zhou Gong Jie Meng (The Duke of Zhou’s Explanation of Dreams), written approximately 2,500 years ago. This text describes eight categories of dreams, two of which are: ju meng, or fearful dreams; and e meng, dreams of surprise. The former seems to refer more to nightmares, while the latter seems to refer to a sort of sleep paralysis that has relation to meng yan, or oppressive ghost dreams.

This same book describes also a more symbolic interpretation of dreams:

If one’s own body [wears] white clothes [in one’s dreams], then people are scheming. If one combs one’s hair or cleanses one’s face [in one’s dreams], the hundred worries will all be gone. If one pays respect to one’s superiors, it is greatly auspicious and prosperous. If sweat effuses from one’s body, it is chiefly inauspicious and bad.
–Arts of Daoism, written by Xing de and translated by John Hausen and Allen Tsaur; used with permission of the translators

Chinese texts also describe Shui Gong, or Sleep Work. This is the Chinese variation of sleep and dream yoga that is also practiced in Tibet. The Daoist text Chi Feng Sui (Marrow of the Red Phoenix), written 500 years ago, contains a practice referred to as Sleeping Gong from Mount Hua, attributed to Chen Tuan, or Chen Xiyi. This is a short poem written by Chen Tuan about sleeping gong:

In common people, nothing is of importance.
Only sleep is of importance
Throughout the world each and every person regards it as rest,
While their ethereal souls depart, their spirits remain motionless.
Attained people are fundamentally without dreams.
Their dreams are essentially their roaming in the immortal [realm].
Realized Ones are fundamentally without sleep,
When they sleep, they float on the mist and clouds.
Inside the furnace they are near the medicine,
Inside the vessel, there is another heaven.
One would suppose that within a dream,
it is the foremost mystery in the human world.
–Arts of Daoism, written by Xing de and translated by John Hausen and Allen Tsaur; used with permission of the translators

Whether it is for relatively minor health concerns, or for deeper and more complex illness and symptoms, Chinese medicine and dreamwork offer a directly accessible path for healing.

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