TL;DR: The folk book Chu Công giải mộng has no separate entry for "dreaming of the dead"; it only has scattered lines about seeing the deceased, seeing a coffin, or seeing a ghost. Those lines point both to good fortune such as wealth and to worries such as illness or a funeral, so they must be read as a group rather than as one isolated line. The book is anonymous and borrows the name of the Duke of Zhou, its date is unknown, and dreams are a psychological phenomenon, not a certain prediction.
What Is Chu Công giải mộng and Why Do People Consult It?
Chu Công giải mộng (周公解夢) is a dream-interpretation book handed down in Chinese folk tradition. It has no named compiler and no fixed date; all that is known is that it borrows the name of the Duke of Zhou of the Zhou dynasty for its title[1]. Its contents are arranged by category of object, such as heaven and earth, sun moon and stars, boats and carts, insects, with each omen written compactly in a single seven-character rhymed line[1].
The book opens with an introductory poem: "夜有纷纷梦 神魂预吉凶", meaning that at night there are many dreams, and the spirit and soul foretell good or ill[1]. This line shows the book's underlying idea: a dream is treated as an omen. That is the view of one tradition of dream divination, not a conclusion of modern dream research.
In Vietnam the book is widely known through Nôm and Quốc ngữ reprints and popular translations, usually called a "dream interpretation book" or "Chu Công giải mộng". From the seventeenth century onward, this kind of dream-divination book was classed among popular fortune-telling works, circulating alongside other books of divination[2].
Dreaming of the Dead or a Deceased Loved One: What Does the Original Book Say?
It must be said plainly at once: in the existing text of Chu Công giải mộng there is no separate entry for dreams of the dead or of a deceased loved one. The book only has scattered lines in different sections, each line describing one specific scene. So to understand what the book says about this dream, the relevant lines must be gathered together.
The lines directly related to the deceased and the realm of the dead in the book:
| Line in the book (original Chinese) | Meaning | Omen recorded |
|---|---|---|
| 見亡人 | Seeing a dead person | The book places it in its own group and does not state good or ill in this line |
| 死人復活 | A dead person coming back to life | Concerns an old matter recurring, an old person returning |
| 與亡人語 | Talking with a dead person | Concerns something that must be remembered, words not yet fully said |
| 見棺槨 | Seeing a coffin | Concerns wealth, added possessions |
| 棺槨入宅 | A coffin entering the house | Concerns a major matter in the household, usually sad or weighty news |
| 見鬼 | Seeing a ghost | The book places it among omens of unease, possibly illness |
The table above gathers lines from the sections on "geography, mountains and rocks, trees and wood" and on "human affairs"[1]. What stands out is that the book is not consistent in one direction: within the same group of "the dead", one line leans toward wealth, another toward illness, another is neutral. People in the past read a cluster of near-meaning lines and weighed them by their own circumstances rather than treating one line as a verdict.
Why Does the Folk Book Record Contradictory Omens?
A folk book forms by gathering many sources over many generations, so the same object can appear in two places with two different omens. For example, seeing a coffin is usually recorded as an omen of wealth, but a coffin entering the house is recorded as sad news. This contradiction is not a printing error; it reflects how people in the past distinguished by context: seeing an object out on the road differs from seeing it inside one's own home.
This way of reading shows that the folk book is not a mechanical lookup table but a set of suggestive lines for people to measure against their own situation. The book does not teach that dreaming of X certainly means Y; it only states that dreaming of X was held by people in the past to possibly relate to Y.
A Deceased Loved One Appearing in a Dream: Different Understandings
Beyond Chu Công giải mộng, a dream of a deceased loved one is understood in several other ways, and these ways do not agree with one another.
- In Vietnamese folk belief, a deceased loved one appearing in a dream is often regarded as "coming to visit", especially around death anniversaries, the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, or Tết. In this understanding, the dream is an occasion for the living to remember and make offerings to the deceased, not necessarily an omen of the future.
- In the understanding of dream-divination books, such a dream is looked up as a specific omen: seeing a dead person may correspond to an old matter being raised again, and talking with a dead person may correspond to something not yet settled[1].
- In the modern psychological view, dreams of a deceased loved one often appear during grief and are regarded as the mind's way of processing loss. This view is not part of the folk book and does not accept that a dream is an omen.
These three understandings do not wholly exclude one another, but they also cannot be merged into a single conclusion. The reader should know which understanding they are standing in.
Is Dreaming of the Dead a Certain Omen?
The folk book records omens, but the book itself does not assert that a dream is a certain prophecy; it says that when fortune or misfortune is about to come, good or ill omens are necessarily known in advance, because the spirits communicate and foretell it.
In Vietnamese literature, dreams are also often used as an image for life, not as a forecast. Sách Việt Nam văn học sử yếu by Dương Quảng Hàm (1941) includes a passage quoting a remark on dreaming, to the effect that while dreaming one does not know one is dreaming, and only on waking does one know, and that the greatly awakened see life as one great dream[3]. That is a philosophical way of speaking, not a way of looking up omens.
For the same dream phenomenon, people of the past could interpret it as an omen or use it as material for discussing perception.
Omen Lines Related to the Deceased in the Book
For ease of reference, below are the lines in Chu Công giải mộng related to the dead, funerals, and the realm of the dead, gathered by group[1].
| Group of scenes | Book line | Omen recorded |
|---|---|---|
| The deceased | 見亡人 (seeing a dead person) | Placed separately, good or ill not stated |
| The deceased | 與亡人語 (talking with a dead person) | An old matter raised again, words not fully said |
| The deceased | 死人復活 (a dead person coming back to life) | An old matter recurring |
| Funerals | 見棺槨 (seeing a coffin) | Wealth, added possessions |
| Funerals | 棺槨入宅 (a coffin entering the house) | Weighty news in the household |
| The realm of the dead | 見鬼 (seeing a ghost) | Unease, possibly illness |
| The realm of the dead | 與鬼鬥 (fighting a ghost) | Placed among matters of confrontation |
| The realm of the dead | 鬼入宅 (a ghost entering the house) | Something strange in the household |
It should be stressed: this table is a lookup table from the book, not a forecast table. The book records an omen, and the article copies that omen without adding or removing anything.
Why Does the Book Have No Entry for "Dreaming of a Deceased Loved One"?
Chu Công giải mộng classifies by the object seen in the dream, not by emotional relationship.
This is an easily misunderstood point: many later popular dream-interpretation versions add entries by family relationship on their own, but that is the addition of a later compiler, not present in the original. When consulting, one should distinguish the original part from the added part.
How Should One Read a Dream Sensibly?
Dreaming of the deceased is a common phenomenon, especially in the period after losing a loved one. If consulting a folk book, one should look up the whole related group of omens rather than a single line, and should treat it as a reference view. If the dream repeats many times and causes prolonged anxiety, turning to family or a mental-health professional is a more practical way to handle it than looking up omens.
Old books also show that dreams were once used as a way of speaking about life, not only for divining events. In Nam Ông mộng lục by Hồ Nguyên Trừng (1438), the author records many stories of the Lý and Trần dynasties, including stories related to dreams and omens, but the book's main purpose is to record people and events. This shows that in old documents a dream was both a subject of divination and material for storytelling.
For the question of what omen it is to dream of the dead, the book Zhou Gong Jie Meng has no separate entry, only scattered lines, and those lines are not consistent in one direction. The reader should know that this is an anonymous book borrowing the name of the Duke of Zhou, and that a dream is a complex psychological phenomenon, not a verdict.
