Dream interpretation

Dream interpretation recurs as both a practical response to distress and a way of thinking about the human mind. In the Rong household, it gives Grandmother Rong an interpreter for the dreams that trouble her; in Mr Auslander’s account of Rong Jinzhen, it becomes evidence of a lifelong encounter with the mysteries of intelligence. The novel distinguishes the ability to interpret dreams from divination, and leaves open how far this acquired skill can explain Jinzhen’s potential as a researcher.

Nightmares and the search for an interpreter

Grandmother Rong’s dreams are not occasional curiosities but a continuing affliction. Though she has nine sons and seven daughters, all of whom survive to adulthood, and occupies the highest position in the family, her numerous descendants and the wealth they have built can feel like burdens when nightmares torment her. She often wakes screaming, and the terror persists into the day. Each morning, local scholars are invited to the Rong mansion to interpret her dreams, but their repeated presence does not make them effective: none proves of much use.

Against this background, Grandmother Rong singles out a young man who has recently arrived in Tongzhen from overseas. His explanations of the inner meanings of her dreams impress her because, in her judgment, they do not go wrong. At times, his interpretations seem to anticipate the significance of people who will appear in the future. That apparent foresight gives the practice an uncanny edge, but the account also carefully qualifies it: the young man is more reliable as an interpreter of dreams than as a diviner.

Mr Auslander’s skill and its limits

The young interpreter’s ability is not presented as comprehensive mastery. He can deal well with the dreams Grandmother Rong has in the first part of the night, but cannot manage those that come toward dawn or the dreams nested within other dreams. If he begins from an incorrect assumption, he seems unable to correct his course. His skill therefore has boundaries: success in interpreting one kind of dream does not grant general command over every form of divination or every part of the night’s experience.

Mr Auslander says he never formally studied divination. What he knows comes from following his grandfather and listening to him, and he regards himself as someone who has merely dabbled rather than an expert. Grandmother Rong nevertheless asks him to bring his grandfather to China, offering to show him silver ingots stored behind a sliding wall panel. Mr Auslander explains that the request cannot be fulfilled: his grandfather is already wealthy and uninterested in earning more, and, being very old, might be frightened by the prospect of crossing the ocean. Instead, he proposes a practical alternative: send someone overseas to study. The exchange sets a limit on what personal expertise and money can secure, while presenting learning as something that might be brought to the family by another route.

A skill passed to Rong Jinzhen

Later, a question about Mr Auslander’s teaching establishes that dream interpretation was among the things he taught Rong Jinzhen, alongside reading books. Jinzhen does not describe himself as someone who interprets other people’s dreams. His stated boundary is that he interprets only his own. The contrast matters: a practice once performed for a distressed household becomes, for him, a private activity directed inward, not a general service he offers to others.

A family recollection presents another side of Jinzhen’s ability. He is said to have interpreted the dreams of the woman who cared for him with striking skill, in a manner compared to the work of a professional shaman. He also read an English-language Bible every day and knew many passages by heart. The account connects these activities with the woman’s recovery from grief: after the death of her daughter, she stayed at home, mourned, had nightmares, and sometimes imagined seeing the dead girl. Jinzhen’s interpretations and Bible stories are credited with helping her recover quickly and with few setbacks. The account does not explain the mechanics of his interpretations; it emphasizes the care and understanding that the practice made possible between them.

That recollection also gives the relationship a longer emotional consequence. The woman treated Jinzhen as family, caring for him through everyday acts such as cooking his meals and making his clothes. The narrator suggests that he had lacked affection earlier in life and that this care affected him deeply. He eventually wrote a message in his own blood as a secret expression of gratitude. Dream interpretation is thus placed within a larger pattern of attentiveness and attachment: it is one part of how Jinzhen responds to the person who welcomed him and how their bond develops.

Dreams, intelligence, and the future

In a letter to a university vice-chancellor, Mr Auslander links Jinzhen’s dream life to the possibility of researching artificial intelligence. He argues that Jinzhen has confronted dreams day and night since early childhood and has gradually acquired remarkable skill in interpreting them. In Mr Auslander’s reasoning, this lifelong attention to dreams amounts to preparation for investigating human intelligence, whose mysteries he regards as essential to the creation of artificial intelligence.

The claim is emphatic but remains Mr Auslander’s argument rather than a demonstrated conclusion. He urges the vice-chancellor not to pursue the project without Jinzhen: if Jinzhen dies of his illness, he says, the older academic should abandon the plan; if Jinzhen survives, the project may yet solve one of humanity’s great mysteries. He presents Jinzhen as uniquely suited to the work, while acknowledging that the possibility depends on his recovery. Dream interpretation thereby shifts from a household practice and a private discipline into a forecast about scientific work, joining the intimate experience of dreams to the novel’s larger question of whether human intelligence can be understood and reproduced.