Seven Words in a Dream That Predicted His Life

Jiang Yixuan visited Weisu Temple—dedicated to Tang dynasty poet Wei Yingwu—to seek a prophetic dream, hoping a deity would enter his dreams with a revelation. That night, Jiang Yixuan dreamed he was in a grand mansion with tall gates. On the mansion's walls, four distinct calligraphy styles—regular, cursive, clerical, and seal—each featured a line of text, all containing three characters that read "Forty-One."

Underneath the regular script was the character "sad." The cursive script had the character "leave" below it. The clerical script was accompanied by the character "remain," while the seal script included the character "joy." Jiang Yixuan awoke from his dream with the three characters "Forty-One" etched in his memory but could not decipher the deity's message.

Shortly afterward, Jiang Yixuan's father, Mr. Rongzhai, died in the forty-first year of the Qianlong reign (1776). It was then understood that the regular script's "Forty-One" and the character "sad" predicted his father’s death in the Qianlong year forty-one. This confirmed the prophecy linked to the regular script line.

Jiang Yixuan himself passed away at the young age of forty-one. The cursive script’s "Forty-One" and "leave" were thus realized.

Although Jiang Yixuan loved writing poetry during his life, much of it was lost. After his death, friends gathered his works and found that only forty-one poems had survived. This fulfilled the clerical script's "Forty-One" and "remain."

In the twenty-fifth year of the Jiaqing reign (1820), Jiang Yixuan's nephew, Jiang Taijie (1771-1829), was promoted to oversee the daily records. The emperor compassionately posthumously honored Jiang Yixuan with the title of Grand Councilor. Remarkably, this was the forty-first year since Jiang Yixuan’s death, thereby fulfilling the seal script's "joy."

This story from the Qing Dynasty illustrates how a scholar sought a dream through incense burning and prayer, wishing for divine intervention. In the unseen realm, heaven answered his petition with a dream, using four styles of calligraphy to predict the fates of him and his family, even events beyond his lifetime.

Though Jiang Yixuan did not witness a deity appearing in his dream, he perceived the response through the dream's experience.

Similar tales are woven through Chinese folklore. According to "Zi Bu Yu," the Yu Qian Temple hosts a Dream Prayer Hall, where scholars prayed for dreams before imperial exams. In the second year of the Zhengde reign (1507), the gifted scholar Tang Bohu prayed at Jiuli Lake and dreamt of "an immortal bestowing him with a load of ink," after which his literary talent blossomed. Tang Bohu later built the "Dream Ink Pavilion" in Suzhou to commemorate this event, with Zhu Zhishan authoring the "Record of the Dream Ink Pavilion."

In reality, an insurmountable barrier exists between humans and other realms. However, during deep and profound dreams, under specific influences, this barrier seems to easily dissolve.

These stories raise questions about the space seen in dreams and who might be observing human thoughts and desires from the unseen realm. They suggest that humans are not alone in the universe, and other beings may be attentive to our thoughts and emotions, providing responses to this world.