TL;DR: Chu Công giải mộng is an anonymous folk dream-interpretation book that borrows the name of Chu Công and has no identified compiler or date, so its readings are folk belief, not prophecy. It has a dedicated section 金银 珠玉 绢帛 (gold and silver, pearls and jade, silk): seeing gold, silver and treasure means wealth and rank, picking up money is highly auspicious, but money in a dream in autumn or winter is inauspicious, and an armful of pearls and jade is highly inauspicious. The book has no line that directly interprets a dream of losing money.
What is Chu Công giải mộng and who wrote it?
Chu Công giải mộng (周公解夢) is a dream-interpretation book handed down in Chinese folk tradition. It is anonymous, borrows the name of the Duke of Zhou, and has no identified compiler or date[1]. Each omen in the book is a seven-character line, arranged into 27 sections such as heaven and earth, sun moon and stars, boats and carts, insects[1]. Because it carries the name of the Duke of Zhou, a real historical figure of the Zhou dynasty, many people mistakenly believe this is an ancient book written by the Duke of Zhou himself. Tradition attributes the compilation of the book to the Duke of Zhou, but modern research does not treat that as proven, and the book itself has no preface confirming its author.
This is a folk text: it records what people believed, not what has been verified. The poem that opens the book states its own premise:
> "夜有纷纷梦 神魂预吉凶" (Chu Công giải mộng, anonymous)[1]
Close translation: At night there are many dreams, the spirit soul foretells good and ill. This is the premise of the whole book: dreams are treated as signs that foretell. Nhật Nguyệt does not assert that this premise is true, only records it so the reader knows what basis the book rests on.
What omen is dreaming of money, gold and silver according to the book?
The book devotes its ninth section to valuables, the section 金银 珠玉 绢帛 (gold and silver, pearls and jade, silk). The lines in that section that speak directly of gold, silver and money include[1]:
- 金银宝者主富贵: seeing gold, silver and treasure means wealth and rank.
- 金银珠玉大吉利: gold, silver, pearls and jade are highly auspicious.
- 拾得钱物皆大吉: picking up money or goods is highly auspicious.
- 还人钱物疾病去: returning money or goods to someone means illness goes away.
- 钱春夏吉秋冬凶: money in a dream is auspicious in spring and summer, inauspicious in autumn and winter.
- 珠玉满怀主大凶: an armful of pearls and jade is highly inauspicious.
So the book does not treat every dream of gold and silver as a good omen. Gold, silver and treasure mean wealth and rank, but holding an armful of pearls and jade is a highly inauspicious omen, and whether money is good or bad also depends on the season. A reader must remember exactly what they did with the money in the dream: saw it, picked it up, returned it or shared it out.
Outside that section, many lines in the section 地理 山石 树木 (land, mountains and stones, trees) also read as gaining wealth, even though what is seen in the dream is not money: carrying stones into the house (运石入家主富贵), finding wealth while walking in the mountains (山行得财有福禄), carrying water home (担水来家得财喜), felling a great tree (砍伐大树多得财), entering a fruit orchard (入果园中大发财)[1]. These are omens of gaining wealth in other situations, not lines that interpret dreams of money.
What about dreaming of losing money or losing possessions?
The book has no line that directly interprets a dream of dropping or losing money. The closest are two lines about dividing wealth: 家中分财主离散 (dividing wealth within the household means separation) in the gold and silver section, and 与人分金主分散 (sharing gold with others means dispersal) in the section 刀剑 旌节 钟鼓 (swords, banners and tallies, bells and drums)[1].
The other lines that foretell loss of wealth are all tied to images that are not money: 失落刀剑主破财 (dropping a sword means loss of wealth), 井枯涸者家财散 (a dried-up well means the household's wealth scatters), 掇盆脱底主财散 (lifting a basin whose bottom falls out means wealth disperses)[1]. Using these lines to interpret a dream of losing money is an inference of later readers, not the word of the book.
In which sections does the book place omens about wealth?
The table below gathers the book's lines about gold and silver, money, and gaining or losing wealth, with the section in which the book places each[1]:
| Line from the book | Meaning | Book section |
|---|---|---|
| 金银宝者主富贵 | Gold, silver, treasure: wealth and rank | Section 9 (金银 珠玉 绢帛) |
| 金银珠玉大吉利 | Gold, silver, pearls, jade: highly auspicious | Section 9 (金银 珠玉 绢帛) |
| 拾得钱物皆大吉 | Picking up money or goods: highly auspicious | Section 9 (金银 珠玉 绢帛) |
| 还人钱物疾病去 | Returning money or goods: illness goes away | Section 9 (金银 珠玉 绢帛) |
| 钱春夏吉秋冬凶 | Money: good in spring and summer, bad in autumn and winter | Section 9 (金银 珠玉 绢帛) |
| 珠玉满怀主大凶 | An armful of pearls and jade: highly inauspicious | Section 9 (金银 珠玉 绢帛) |
| 家中分财主离散 | Dividing wealth at home: separation | Section 9 (金银 珠玉 绢帛) |
| 与人分金主分散 | Sharing gold with others: dispersal | Section 5 (刀剑 旌节 钟鼓) |
| 失落刀剑主破财 | Dropping a sword: loss of wealth | Section 5 (刀剑 旌节 钟鼓) |
| 井枯涸者家财散 | A dried-up well: household wealth scatters | Section 8 (门户 井灶 橱厕) |
| 道中得财主通达 | Finding wealth on the road: things go smoothly | Section 13 (道路 桥梁 集市) |
| 受人纸钱主大吉 | Receiving votive paper money from someone: highly auspicious | Section 17 (文书 笔墨 兵器) |
| 运石入家主富贵 | Carrying stones into the house: wealth and rank | Section 2 (地理 山石 树木) |
| 担水来家得财喜 | Carrying water home: gaining wealth, good news | Section 2 (地理 山石 树木) |
| 入果园中大发财 | Entering a fruit orchard: great wealth | Section 2 (地理 山石 树木) |
The lines that speak directly of gold, silver and money sit in section 9. The other lines containing the character 财 (wealth) are scattered across many sections, and there wealth is the omen, not the thing seen in the dream.
How did people of the past record dreams?
Nam Ông mộng lục by Hồ Nguyên Trừng, compiled in 1438, has a chapter titled 入夢療病 (healing through a dream): King Trần Anh Tông had eye pain for more than a month that medicine did not cure, and he dreamed of a monk who rubbed his eyes with his hand and gave his name as Quán Viên. He woke free of pain and was fully cured a few days later. The king had the monks asked, and there was indeed a monk Quán Viên at Đông Sơn pagoda who looked just like the man in the dream, so the king made him national teacher and rewarded him generously. The monk gave all of it away as alms, keeping not a single coin[2].
Nam Ông mộng lục records the dream as something that happened and had consequences, not as a sign to be read good or bad from a table as folk dream books do.
Is reading money matters by hexagram the same as dream interpretation?
No. It is a different method: a hexagram is cast to ask about money, and no dream image is read. The book Thiên thời, địa lợi, nhân hoà by Bạch Huyết and colleagues (1998), in its section on predicting requests for wealth, says that the body trigram is oneself and the use trigram is money. Body overcoming use means having wealth, use overcoming body means not having wealth, body generating use means gaining but with loss, and use generating body means good news and increase. To know the day on which wealth will be obtained, look at the qi of the trigram that generates the body trigram; to know the day of losing wealth, look at the qi of the trigram that overcomes the body trigram[3].
The book Chu dịch dự đoán by Thiệu Vĩ Hoa, in Nguyễn Văn Mậu's translation, gives an example about money thought to be lost: a woman could not find 90 đồng from selling watermelons, the author cast a hexagram and judged the sum to be more than 80 but under 100 đồng and the money not lost. That evening at home she remembered the wallet she had left under the counter. The explanation rests on the number of the hexagram Hằng, the moving line, and the wealth line not being strong in the month marker[4].
Both methods read hexagrams, not dreams, so they cannot be used to check or replace the readings of Chu Công giải mộng.
Nhật Nguyệt's suggestion when you have a dream about money
Nhật Nguyệt's suggestion: if you want to look up a dream of money, gold or silver in Chu Công giải mộng, look it up by what you did with the money in the dream (saw it, picked it up, returned it, shared it out) in section 9 of the book, and only then turn to the wealth-gaining lines in other sections. Do not lump every dream with money into one omen, because the book itself records money as sometimes auspicious and sometimes not.
Do not rely on those readings to decide money matters. The book is anonymous and undated, so its value is as cultural material. If the dream makes you anxious, the practical step is to review the money you actually have, not to consult a table of omens.
