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Huangdi Neijing · The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon
Lingshu 43 · Excessive Influences and Dreams
Read in English. Switch to Original for word notes, or select text to ask a question.
The Yellow Emperor said: “I wish to hear how excessive harmful influence spreads and overflows.”
Qi Bo said: “A proper-season harmful influence attacks inward from outside but has no fixed dwelling. It then spreads excessively into the zang without settling, travels with nutritive and defensive qi and flies with hun and po, making sleep restless and dreams frequent. Qi spreading excessively in the fu produces excess outside and insufficiency within; spreading excessively in the zang produces excess within and insufficiency outside.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “Do excess and insufficiency have recognizable forms?”
Qi Bo said: “Abundant yin qi brings dreams of crossing great waters in fear. Abundant yang qi brings dreams of great fire and burning. When both yin and yang are abundant, there are dreams of mutual killing. Abundance above brings dreams of flying; abundance below, of falling. Extreme hunger brings dreams of taking; extreme fullness, of giving.
“Abundant Liver qi brings dreams of anger. Abundant Lung qi brings dreams of fear, weeping and flying. Abundant Heart qi brings dreams of frequent laughter and dread. Abundant Spleen qi brings dreams of singing and music, with a body too heavy to raise. Abundant Kidney qi brings dreams of the waist and spine coming apart and losing connection. For these twelve excesses, address and drain them when they arrive, and the text says they cease at once.”
When reversal qi lodges in the Heart, there are dreams of hills, mountains, smoke and fire. In the Lung, dreams of flying and strange objects of metal and iron. In the Liver, dreams of mountains, forests and trees. In the Spleen, dreams of hills, great marshes, ruined houses, wind and rain. In the Kidney, dreams of approaching a deep pool or dwelling submerged in water.
In the Bladder, dreams of wandering; in the Stomach, of food and drink; in the Large Intestine, of fields and open country; in the Small Intestine, of gathered settlements and busy crossroads. In the Gallbladder, dreams of disputes and cutting oneself open; in the genital organs, of sexual intercourse; in the nape, of beheading; in the shins, of trying to walk without advancing, or remaining deep in a pit or enclosure; in thighs and arms, of ritual bowing and rising; in the bao-zhi region, of discharging urine or stool.
For these fifteen insufficiencies, address and supplement them when they arrive, and the text says they cease at once.
The Gallbladder and deep-enclosure phrases contain anomalous graphs. The final “胞植” is retained as bao-zhi because its exact bodily reference is uncertain here; no reconstructed organ name replaces it.
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