---
title: "Dream Pool Essays"
chunk: 4/5
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Pool_Essays"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:31:47.882363+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

A house belonging to Li Shunju was struck by lightning. Brilliant sparkling light was seen under the eaves. Everyone thought that the hall would be burnt, and those who were inside rushed out. After the thunder had abated, the house was found to be alright, though its walls and the paper on the windows were blackened. On certain wooden shelves, certain lacquered vessels with silver mouths had been struck by the lightning, so that the silver had melted and dropped to the ground, but the lacquer was not even scorched. Also, a valuable sword made of strong steel had been melted to liquid, without the parts of the house nearby being affected. One would have thought that the thatch and wood would have been burnt up first, yet here were metals melted and no injury to thatch and wood. This is beyond the understanding of ordinary people. There are Buddhist books which speak of 'dragon fire' which burns more fiercely when it meets with water instead of being extinguished by water like 'human' fire. Most people can only judge of things by the experiences of ordinary life, but phenomena outside the scope of this are really quite numerous. How insecure it is to investigate natural principles using only the light of common knowledge, and subjective ideas.

=== "Strange Happenings" ===
A passage called "Strange Happenings" contains a peculiar account of an unidentified flying object. Shen wrote that, during the reign of Emperor Renzong (1022–1063), an object as bright as a pearl occasionally hovered over the city of Yangzhou at night, but described first by local inhabitants of eastern Anhui and then in Jiangsu. Shen wrote that a man near Xingkai Lake observed this curious object; allegedly it:

...opened its door and a flood of intense light like sunbeams darted out of it, then the outer shell opened up, appearing as large as a bed with a big pearl the size of a fist illuminating the interior in silvery white. The intense silver-white light, shot from the interior, was too strong for human eyes to behold; it cast shadows of every tree within a radius of ten miles. The spectacle was like the rising Sun, lighting up the distant sky and woods in red. Then all of a sudden, the object took off at a tremendous speed and descended upon the lake like the Sun setting.

Shen went on to say that Yibo, a poet of Gaoyou, wrote a poem about this "pearl" after witnessing it. Shen wrote that since the "pearl" often made an appearance around Fanliang in Yangzhou, the people there erected a "Pearl Pavilion" on a wayside, where people came by boat in hopes to see the mysterious flying object.

=== Swords ===
Around 1065 Shen Kuo wrote about the assembly methods for swords, and the patterns produced in the steel:

Ancient people use chi kang, (combined steel), for the edge, and jou thieh (soft iron) for the back, otherwise it would often break. Too strong a weapon will cut and destroy its own edge; that is why it is advisable to use nothing but combined steel. As for the yu-chhang (fish intestines) effect, it is what is now called the 'snake-coiling' steel sword, or alternatively, the 'pine tree design'. If you cook a fish fully and remove its bones, the shape of its guts will be seen to be like the lines on a 'snake-coiling sword'.

=== Chinese clothing ===
Shen Kuo observed that the Chinese since some centuries prior had entirely adopted barbarian fashions.

中國衣冠，自北齊以來，乃全用胡服。窄袖、緋綠短衣、長靿靴、有鞢帶，皆胡服也。窄袖利於馳射，短衣、長靿皆便於涉草。胡人樂茂草，常寢處其間，予使北時皆見之。雖王庭亦在深荐中。予至胡庭日，新雨過，涉草，衣褲皆濡，唯胡人都無所沾。帶衣所垂蹀躞，蓋欲佩帶弓劍、帨、算囊、刀勵之類。
The clothing of China since the Northern Qi [550–557] onward has been entirely made barbarian. Narrow sleeves, short dark red or green robes, tall boots and metal girdle ornaments are all barbarian garb. The narrow sleeves are useful when shooting while galloping. The short robes and tall boots are convenient when passing through tall grass. The barbarians all enjoy thick grass as they always sleep in it. I saw them all do it when I was sent north. Even the king's court is in the deep grasses. On the day I had arrived at the barbarian court the new rains had passed and I waded through the grass. My robes and trousers were all soaked, but the barbarians were not at all wet. With things hanging from robe and belt they walk about. One perhaps might want to hang items like a bow and blade, handkerchief, coin purse or knife from the belt.

== Book chapters ==
On the humanities:

Official life and the imperial court (60 paragraphs)
Academic and examination matters (10 paragraphs)
Literary and artistic (70 paragraphs)
Law and police (11 paragraphs)
Military (25 paragraphs)
Miscellaneous stories and anecdotes (72 paragraphs)
Divination, magic, and folklore (22 paragraphs)
On natural sciences:

On the I Ching, Yin and Yang, and 5 elements (7 paragraphs)
Mathematics (11 paragraphs)
Astronomy and calendar (19 paragraphs)
Meteorology (18 paragraphs)
Geology and mineralogy (17 paragraphs)
Geography and cartography (15 paragraphs)
Physics (6 paragraphs)
Chemistry (3 paragraphs)
Engineering, metallurgy, and technology (18 paragraphs)
Irrigation and hydraulic engineering (6 paragraphs)
Architecture (6 paragraphs)
Biological sciences, botany, and zoology (52 paragraphs)
Agricultural arts (6 paragraphs)
Medicine and pharmaceutics (23 paragraphs)
Humanistic sciences:

Anthropology (6 paragraphs)
Archeology (21 paragraphs)
Philology (36 paragraphs)
Music (44 paragraphs)
(Total number of paragraphs = 584)

== See also ==

Chinese classics
Chinese literature
History of science and technology in China
List of Chinese writers
Technology of the Song dynasty

== Notes ==
^ a: Shen Gua (1031–1091) et les Sciences, Revue d'Histoire des Sciences et de Leurs Applications (1989)
^ b: Florilège des notes du Ruisseau des rêves (Mengxi bitan) de Shen Gua (1031–1095) by Jean-François Billeter and 31 of his Geneva University students, in Études Asiatiques (1993)
^ i: See Greek fire

== References ==

=== Citations ===