Remembered scenes and separate source reading
Choose water, river, tree, butterfly or dragon by the detail you remember. Keep scene notes, later associations and identifiable cultural sources separate.
Choose the page that answers your concrete question. You can finish with a precise fragment and an unknown detail; a scene does not need a symbolic verdict. These guides use original recording examples and identify any separate cultural material they discuss.
Start with water if the condition or container is the question. Use the river guide when banks, current or crossing are actually remembered.
Your question: Do you remember high water, a rise across moments, a container or your own action?
Record the level you saw. A remembered high level does not fill an earlier rise; an unclear setting can remain unknown.
Your question: Were you on a bank, following a course, beginning a crossing or arriving somewhere?
Keep position, route, attempt and completion separate. Starting across a bridge does not establish arrival.
A visible part, an already-fallen branch and a witnessed fall are different details. Preserve that difference before choosing an association.
Your question: Did a branch fall, was it already down, or did someone pick, offer or leave fruit?
Write the observed condition and action in order. Roots or another person’s identity need not be supplied when absent from memory.
A remembered creature, being a butterfly and reading a museum object or a classical story answer different questions. Keep their sources separate.
Your question: Were you observing a butterfly or recalling yourself as one, and what ending do you remember?
Keep the viewpoint. A later association with Zhuangzi can be recorded without inserting the book’s identity question into your scene.
Your question: Was it a creature, carving, picture or costume, or is the form uncertain?
Keep your remembered form separate from a named object or text you look up later. A historical description does not supply a dream forecast.
A river can include water, a branch and a butterfly. Follow another guide only when its question helps describe a component you actually remember. You do not need to assemble a score from several symbol pages or turn a missing detail into a new object.
Invented example: “I stood near moving water and noticed a branch already on a bank. I do not remember crossing or seeing the branch fall.” The river page helps with position and an unknown crossing; the tree page helps only if the branch’s condition matters to the note. Neither supplies a destination, cause or future event.
If you want to preserve recall, use the first-note and later-addition guide. Put an association discovered after reading on a later line. If your question concerns a named classical passage, choose its speaker and edition in the classical dream-story guides. A sourced story can be useful reading without becoming an explanation of your own dream.
For a claim attributed to Zhougong, the dream-book titles and editions guide helps identify the source object. This directory does not establish an ancient entry for each image, diagnose sleep, or show what another person intends.