Brief Notes on Dreams in Dream of the Red Chamber

These days loneliness weighs heavier than usual, with no one to tell, so I read Dream of the Red Chamber again. No great enlightenment, but deeper than before. Cao Xueqin’s brush and feeling leap from the page; dream passages are sometimes ethereal, sometimes vivid and shifting. Below, notes on dreams in the novel.

1 Baoyu’s Strange Dream Within a Dream

From Chapter 56 (abridged translation):

Baoyu grew puzzled: if it must be unreal, it also seems real; if real, no one witnessed it. Troubled, he lay on his bed and fell asleep, arriving in a garden. “Besides our Grand View Garden, there is another?” Girls came—all maids. “Besides Ying’ou, Xiren, Ping’er, there are still these?” The maids laughed: “How did Baoyu get here?” Thinking they meant him, he smiled: “I wandered here—whose family’s garden is this? Sisters, show me around.” They laughed: “You’re not our Baoyu. He looks clean, his mouth clever.” “Sisters, is there another Baoyu here?” “The name Baoyu—we use it by the Old Lady’s order to bless him long life. We call him and he is pleased. You stinking brat from afar, don’t misuse the name—or we’ll beat your rotten flesh.” “Let’s go before Baoyu sees us talking to this stinker and thinks we’ve been polluted.”

“No one has ever insulted me like this—could there really be someone like me?” He walked into a courtyard. “Besides Happy Red Court, another courtyard?” On the terrace, inside, a youth lay on a couch; girls sewed and played. The youth sighed. A maid asked: “Baoyu, why sigh instead of sleep? Worried about your sister’s illness again?” The youth said: “I heard the Old Lady say there is a Baoyu in the capital with my temperament—I didn’t believe it. I dreamed I went to a garden in the capital; sisters called me stinking brat and ignored me. I found his room—he slept, empty shell, true nature gone.” Baoyu said: “I came looking for Baoyu—you are Baoyu?” The youth pulled him down: “So you are Baoyu? This is no dream.” “How is it a dream? Truer than true.” Someone called: “The master summons Baoyu.” Both panicked—one Baoyu left, one cried “Baoyu come back!” Xiren heard him call himself in sleep, woke him: “Where is Baoyu?” Still dazed, he pointed outside: “Just left.” Xiren laughed: “You’re dream-muddled. Rub your eyes—that’s your reflection in the mirror.”

This is among the finest dream writing—strangest and freshest—one true, one false; one real, one illusory. Dream-Baoyu dreams the same dream. Jia Baoyu carries the myths of Crimson Pearl repaying tears and the stubborn stone longing for the mortal world. The “real” Baoyu is Zhen (true) Baoyu—no jade at birth, no tear debt, no myth—yet in the text he appears only in asides and dreams. Truth and illusion invert.

Jia Baoyu’s life is Zhen Baoyu’s dream of Nanke—hence the spirit jade showing illusion everywhere. Zhen Baoyu must receive the jade first. Jade is stubborn stone with inscribed marks—a record. He carries it as if dreaming Jia Baoyu’s life, like Lu Sheng dreaming his whole life.

2 Daiyu’s Terrifying Dream

From Chapter 82 (abridged):

Restless, tossing like a windlass, she sighed, shed tears, lay down in her clothes. A maid said: “Master Jia Yucun outside asks for the young lady.” “I studied with him but am not a male student—why see me?” She sent refusal. The maid said: “Perhaps congratulations—people from Nanjing come to fetch you.” Fengjie, Lady Xing, Lady Wang, Baochai came smiling: “Congratulations and farewell.” Daiyu panicked. Fengjie said: “Your father is grain intendant in Hubei, remarried happily. You’re left here improperly—Jia Yucun matches you to your stepmother’s kin as second wife; people come to take you home. Your stepmother decides; Brother Lian escorts you.” Cold sweat. She insisted it was Fengjie’s joke. Lady Xing signaled Lady Wang—they left smiling. Daiyu knelt before Grandmother Jia: “Save me! I’d rather die than go south! I’d be Grandmother’s maid.” Grandmother smiled blankly: “Not my affair.” “Save me—I won’t spend extra money.” “Useless. Women must marry; staying here is no end.” “I’d work as a servant here—please decide.” Silence. “You were always kind—now you won’t help!” Grandmother said: “Ying’ou, take her out to rest—she tires me.” Knowing pleas failed, she rose to kill herself—no real mother; even kin seemed false. “Where is Baoyu?” He stood grinning: “Congratulations, sister.” She seized him: “Heartless!” “You have a match—we each go our way.” “Brother, who should I follow?” “Stay if you won’t go—you were promised to me.” Hope flickered: “I am resolved—will you let me go?” “Stay. Don’t believe me—see my heart.” He slashed his chest; blood flowed. She held his heart: “Kill me first!” He clawed the wound: “See my heart.” She clutched him, weeping. “My heart is gone—I cannot live.” He fell. She screamed. Zijuan called: “Wake, lady—bad dream.” She turned—it was nightmare.

Freud said dreams reflect waking life—refraction of thought, feeling, wish, fear; in fiction they mirror character and inner world. Sometimes absurd dreams tie to real concerns; sometimes the dream self is the true self.

This nightmare follows the garden raid; sisters scatter like late-spring flowers. Daiyu fears her fate: loves Baoyu, cannot leave, yet marriage rests with Grandmother. Baoyu opens his chest; she cannot find her own heart—we will not see a happy ending.

Then Daiyu dies at Bamboo Lodge. When Baoyu hears:

He wailed and collapsed. Darkness—no direction. A figure approached. “Where is this?” “The road to the underworld—you’re not due.” “An old friend died; I came seeking and lost my way.” “Who?” “Lin Daiyu of Gusu.” Cold laugh: “Daiyu lived unlike others, died unlike ghosts—no soul to seek. Mortal souls gather in life, scatter in death. Go back.”

Few strokes, devastating. To be continued…