“By Culture”, the Annual Meeting of Cultural Studies Association Taipei, 3-4 January 2004
Dreams, sex, and the monstrous body:
on the cases of ‘dreaming sex with demons’
in the history of Chinese medicine
* by Hsiu-fen ChenDepartment of History, National Chengchi University E-mail: hfchen@nccu.edu.tw
– Work in progress. Please do not cite without permission –
Introduction
This paper will be the first attempt to discuss the relationship between dreams, sex, and the body in terms of a specific case, namely, ‘dreaming sex with demons’ (meng yu gui jiao 夢與鬼交)1 in the history of Chinese medicine.
In China, there had existed a long history of interpreting dreams. A classical view of dreams prevalent from the Warring States (475-221 B.C.E.) to the Han periods (206 B.C.E. – 220 C.E.) suggested that ‘dreams represented visitations in
* This paper is drafted on the basis of the Chapter 4 of my thesis. See: Hsiu-fen Chen (2003), ‘Medicine,
society, and the making and madness in imperial China’, Ph.D. Thesis, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, U.K..
1 In Chinese, ‘gui’ 鬼 generally refers to ‘the spirits or souls of a dead person’ (e.g. deceased
ancestors), which seems to be equivalent to ‘ghost’ in English. However, the ‘gui’ in ‘meng yu gui jiao’ as recorded in Chinese medical texts actually has more ambiguous connotations. It could possibly refer to ghosts, evil spirits, devils, fox fairies, or a malignant supernatural being. I thus tend to comprehend it as ‘demons’, unless specify otherwise.
which some external entity intruded upon a person’s sleep. It was probably in dreams that people had their closest encounters with the denizens of the other world, for a dream constituted a spirit-sighting’.2 A later yet no less interesting view of dreams came from the doctrines of Buddhism, which ‘frequently used the dream as a metaphor to point out the false, deceptive quality of the phenomenal world’.3 By contrast, dreams in Daoist perspectives ‘not only provided contact with the external spirit world; they could also focus inwardly, permitting access to the spirits and demons of the microcosm’.4 Likewise, dreams that appear in Chinese fictions and dramas commonly ‘serve as a means of communication between the dreamer’s waking world and other levels of existence in other places’.5
Apart from divination, religion and folklore, medical writers and practitioners also provide specific outlooks to survey dreams over millennia. In contrast to non-medical views that often focused on the association of human thoughts with dreams, some major medical writers and physicians in early China tended to regard dreams as an indicator of the body attacked by an environmental factor, ‘(heteropathic)
qi 氣’. In terms of the primary medical concepts, such as yinyang 陰陽, the five
phases (wuxing 五行), the viscera and bowels (zangfu 臟腑), the qi and blood (qixie 氣血), etc., images of dream were likely comprehended as the metaphors of different
qi function at certain parts of the body. Similar explanatory modes applied to
‘dreaming sex (with demons)’ in the same periods. However, such a
2 This idea could be traced back to the Zuozhuan 左傳, in which the majority of dreams are recorded
as spirit visitations. Quoted from Harper, Donald (1987), ‘Wang Yen-shou’s nightmare poem’, Harvard
Journal of Asiatic Studies, 47: 239-283, esp. p. 254.
3 Strickmann, Michel (1988), ‘Dreamwork of psychologists: doctors, Taoists, monks’, in
Psycho-sinology: the Universe of Dreams in Chinese Culture, ed. by Carolyn T. Brown, Lanham:
University Press of America, Inc., p.35, 37.
4 Ibid..
5 Hegel, Robert (1988), ‘Heavens and Hells in Chinese Fictional Dreams’, in Psycho-sinology: the
Universe of Dreams in Chinese Culture, ed. by Carolyn T. Brown, Lanham: University Press of
medical/naturalistic view did not remain unchanged. Other explanatory modes, ranging from ‘demonic invasion’ and ‘parasitic worms’ to ‘emotional pollution’, challenged and complicated people’s understanding of the related phenomena from times to times. ‘Dreaming sex with demons’ was diagnosed either as an illness or as a symptom possibly caused by ‘(demonic) possession’, consumptive diseases, sexual frustration or sexual madness. In certain cases it was engendered as a female disorder which could possibly lead to women’s infertility, or false pregnancy, namely, ‘demonic foetuses’ (guitai 鬼胎). Sometimes it was even thought to be fatal to the afflicted. All these explanations have served as fruitful perspectives to look into the relationship between dreams, sex and the body in the historical contexts of Chinese medicine and demonology.
This paper will be mainly divided into three parts. The first part will trace the classic modes of explaining dreams, in particular ‘sexual dreams’, closely linked to the ailments of ‘qi depletion’ and other related diseases. Secondly, the light will shed on some mediaeval Chinese medical texts, in which the aetiology of ‘demons’ and of ‘worms’ became prevalent owing to the religious influences largely from Daoism. This paper will finally discuss ‘dreaming sex with demons’ in the regard of the emerging genecology in which women’s emotions regulated by ‘blood’ was often emphasized especially in the late imperial period.
Chinese Medical Interpretations of Dreams
Dreams and Sexual Dreams
In the earlier stage of its development, Chinese physicians tended to interpret dreams in terms of bodily pathology. The aetiology of dreams as ailments illuminated by the theories of qi 氣 reveals at least three meanings. First of all, it presumes that
the human body as a dynamic being is accessible by varied atmospheric factors, namely qi, in natural environments. Secondly, outer qi, whether healthy or pathogenic, may enter the human body within which there also exist some sorts of inner qi. Finally, sleeping is a peculiar moment when human body is less defensive to resist heteropathic qi. This idea can be traced back as early as the Huangdi neijing 黃帝內 經 (Inner Canon of the Yellow Lord, hereafter the Neijing or the Inner Canon), the earliest received medical corpus in China.
In the Lingshu 靈樞 (Divine Pivot) of the Neijing, the treatise ‘dreams evoked by excess of pathogen’ (yinxie fa meng 淫邪發夢) explains that when ‘health and pathogen’ (zhengxie 正邪)6 act on a human body, it is ‘restless, disturbing the sleepers’ ‘viscera and bowels’ (zangfu 臟腑),7 circulating with their ‘nourishing qi and defensive qi’ (yingwei 營衛), ascending with their ‘hun-soul and po-soul’ (hunpo 魂魄),8 making them rest uneasily and induce their dreams’.9 That is to say, dreams originate in the confrontation of outer qi with inner qi, which drives one’s hun-soul and po-soul out of the bound of his viscera and bowels and wandering.
6 The Ming physician Ma Shi 馬蒔 (16th century) equated yinxie 淫邪 to zhengxie 正邪, implying
both normal and pathogenic connotations. In other words, normally the ‘six factors’, ranging from Dry, Damp, Cold, Summer-heat, and Wind to Rain, are harmless. When they are excessive, however, they may become harmful to human bodies. But Ma’s contemporary Zhang Jiebin 張介賓 (ca. 1563-1640) excluded zhengfeng 正風 from the category of zhengxie, apparently viewed the latter in a merely pathogenic sense. I simply follow Ma Shi’s interpretation to see zhengxie as ‘orthopathic atmosphere’ (zhengfeng 正風) and ‘pathogenic qi’ (xieqi 邪氣), for both of them can intrude human body. See
Huangdi neijing lingshu zhuzheng fawei 黃帝內經靈樞注證發微 (1580) annotated by [Ming] Ma Shi
馬蒔, firstly published in 1586, reprinted in 1994, Beijing: Renmin weisheng chubanshe, pian 43, p.250; Liu Wenying 劉文英 (1989/2000), Meng de mixin yu meng de tansuo 夢的迷信與夢的探索 (Superstitions and Explorations of Dreams), Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, pp.191-192.
7 In a holistic conception of the body, ancient Chinese medical theories related all organs to each other
and rarely discussed them separately.
8 According to Chinese medical doctrines, ‘that which follows Spirit (shen 神) to and fro is hun; that
which combines with Essence (jing 精) in and out is po. Moreover, ‘the lung stores hun and the liver stores po’. See: Huangdi neijing lingshu 黃帝內經靈樞, the Ming edition, reprinted in 1997, Beijing: Zhongyi guji chubanshe, juan 2(8), p.19; Huangdi neijing suwen 黃帝內經素問, Ming edition, reprinted in 1996, Beijing: Renmin weisheng chubanshe, juan 7(23), p.153. For more detail, see: He Yumin 何裕民 (1995), Zhongguo chuantong jingshen binglixue 中國傳統精神病理學 (Chinese Traditional Psychopathology), Shanghai: Shanghai kexue puji chubanshe, pp.31-35.
Furthermore, the ‘excess’ (you yu 有餘) and ‘deficiency’ (bu zu 不足) of qi manifest themselves in different ‘forms’ (xing 形) of dreams. The Huangdi neijing shows us at least twelve kinds of dream caused by excessive qi. For example, ‘excessive yin(qi) 陰(氣) induces a dream of going through deep water with terror; excessive yang(qi) 陽(氣) induces a dream of great fire burning; the integration of excessive yinqi and yangqi induces a dream of mutual fighting; excessive qi at the upper body results in a dream of flying; excessive qi at the lower body results in a dream of falling; extreme hunger results in a dream of fetching; extreme fullness results in a dream of giving’, and so forth.10 In general, the principle employed to explain these dream images is appealed to the thought of analogy or of balance. On the one hand, yin is always analogous to water while yang is to fire, and images of flying and falling are parallel to up-and-down movements of qi. On the other hand, dreams of fetching and giving certainly reflect bodies of imbalance in complementary dreams: dreaming supplies while being deficient, and dreaming removal while being excessive.11
As the annotators of the Neijing indicated, the nourishing qi (yingqi 營氣) is
yinqi 陰氣 while the defensive qi (weiqi 衛氣) is yangqi 陽氣.12 Also, ‘the Liver masters Blood and stores hun 魂; the Lung masters qi and stores po 魄; the Heart masters fire that is yang and the Kidney masters water that is yin’.13 It is therefore plausible to assert the association of dream images with yinyang, nourishing qi and
10 Huangdi neijing lingshu, p.68; c.f. ‘Mai yao jingwei lun 脈要精微論’ in Huangdi neijing suwen 黃
帝內經素問, annotated by [Tang] Wang Bing, reprinted in 1996, Beijing: Renmin weisheng chubanshe,
juan 5(17), p.102; Huangdi neijing suwen jizhu 黃帝內經素問集注, annotated by [Qing] Zhang
Zhicong 張志聰 (ca.1619-1674), first published in 1670, reprinted in 1983, Tainan, Taiwan: Wangjia chubanshe, juan 3(17), p.65.
11 Huangdi neijing suwen 黃帝內經素問, 1996 reprinted, Beijing: Renmin weisheng chubanshe,
5(17), p.102. Regarding the theories of yinyang, see ‘Yinyang yingxiang dalun 陰陽應象大論’, ibid., 2(5), pp.31-48.
12 Huangdi neijing lingshu zhuzheng fawei 黃帝內經靈樞注證發微, pian 43, p.250. 13 Huangdi neijing suwen jizhu 黃帝內經素問集注, 3(17), p.65.
defensive qi. Besides, in the discussion of dreams not only the theory of viscera and bowels but also of the five phases are taken into account.14 As such, a more comprehensive map of dreams in Chinese medicine can be illustrated as follows:
Viscera, bowels, and other organs
The five phases Dream images
caused by excessive or abundant qi (qi sheng
氣盛)
Dream images
caused by deficient or reversal qi (jue qi 厥氣)
Liver Wood Anger Woodlands and trees;
grasses
Heart Fire Fondness of laugh; fear
and fright
Fire on hills and mountains; fire fighting
Spleen Earth Singing with joy; too
heavy body to be lifted
Mounds & marshes; damage houses in rain and wind; insufficient foods and drinks
Lungs Metal Terror; cry; fly Flying, seeing strange
things of iron; white stuffs, bloody mess
Kidneys Water Split of waist from spine Facing abyss and sinking
in water; being drowned out of boats
Gall bladder Fighting and self-cutting
Small intestine Villages and hamlets
Stomach Eating & drinking
Large intestine Wild field
Urinary bladder Wandering
Genital organs Sexual intercourse
Nape Beheading
Shinbone Walking yet cannot go
further; lodging in vault & cellar
Legs & arms Kowtow in rituals
Womb Urinating
Figure 1. Dream images and their correspondent relations to qi, five phases, viscera, bowels, and other organs15
14 As many scholars try to point out, zangfu in Chinese medicine are not the anatomical entities of
modern bio-medicine. Those organs have more functional and complicated interrelationship one another, according to the theory of systematic correspondence. See: Sivin, Nathan (1997), Traditional
Medicine in Contemporary China, Ann Arbor: The university of Michigan, pp.124-133.
15 Huangdi neijing lingshu 黃帝內經靈樞, juan 7(43), pp.68-69. Huangdi neijing lingshu zhuzheng
fawei 黃帝內經靈樞注證發微, juan 7(43), p.250. Huangdi neijing suwen 黃帝內經素問, juan 5(17),
p.102; juan 24(80), p.569. Huangdi neijing suwen jizhu 黃帝內經素問集注, juan 3(17), p.65; juan 9(80), pp.375-376. For further discussions of their respective meanings, see: Liu Wenying (1989/2000),
From this figure, it is clear to see that all phenomena of dreams, either implying emotional or physical meanings, can be attributed at least to a specific cause, i.e. excessive qi or deficient qi that lodges in a certain organ or a portion of a human body. Moreover, some of the dreams may represent distinctive characteristics (e.g. phase, colour and emotion) corresponding to the organs. For instance, those who dream either ‘anger’ or ‘woodland’ are thought to have dysfunction of qi in their Liver, simply because ‘anger’ and ‘wood’ are traditionally regarded as phenomena closely linked to the Liver. Also, dreams of ‘crying’ or of ‘seeing things of iron, white stuffs and even war’ are usually attributed to imbalance of qi in the Lung, since ‘white’ and ‘metal’ – the metaphor of weapon in wars which usually induce the feelings of terror and sorrow – are seen as manifestations of the Lung. Such an explanatory mode, however, is not always self-consistent, because some of the categories above are apparently overlapped (e.g. fear and fright in the Heart and terror in the Lung; joy in both the Heart and the Spleen). Moreover, the meanings of some cases (e.g. the connection between shinbone and lodging in cellar) seem to be not very comprehensible. Due to the limited scope of this paper, I would rather like to leave these questions behind, and concentrate on the discussion of ‘dreaming sex’ as problematic.
As shown above, ‘dreaming sexual intercourse’ or ‘dreaming sex’ (meng jienei 夢接內) was thought to be a result of deficient qi dwelling in ‘genital organs’ (yinqi 陰器). As the Neijing merely interprets dreams as responses to physical stimuli, i.e., dysfunction of qi circulating in the body, accordingly, a complementary way of treatments was proposed here as ‘to purge while being replete; to replenish while
being depleted’.16
Sexual Dreams and Losing Semen
Given the thread of the Neijing, later medical works also contribute interesting ideas to the related topics, representing ‘dreaming sex’ as a symptom in the context of diseases caused by ‘depletion’ (xu 虛). For example, Jinkui yaolue 金匱要略 (Medical Treasure of the Golden Casket, 219 C.E.) by Zhang Ji 張機 (the 2nd-3rd century) continued to explore the relationship between ‘dreaming of having sex’ and deficient qi. Rather than highlighting on dream images themselves, however, Jinkui
yaolue shifts its focus to the disease caused by deficient qi, defining it in a more
specific range, namely, xulao 虛勞. In so doing, ‘dreaming sex’ became not only one of the dream images indicating deficient qi, but also one of the symptoms belonging to a certain disease called ‘deficiency’.
According to Jinkui yaolue, those who suffer from the disease of lao 勞 (tiredness, exhaustion, consumption) can be diagnosed in terms of the following syndrome: ‘floating and large pulse’ (mai fu da 脈浮大), ‘restless limbs’ (shouzu fan 手足煩), ‘spontaneously seminal emission due to coldness of yin; lassitude (in loins and knees) that impedes walking’ (yinhan jing zi chu suanxiao bu neng xing 陰寒精 自出 痠削不能行). Sometimes the sufferers’ ‘cold qi of semen’ (jingqi qingleng 精 氣清冷) may lead to their ‘sterility’ (wuzi 無子, lit. trans., ‘no son’). Other symptoms such as ‘strain and tension in the abdomen’ (shaofu xianji 少腹弦急), ‘coldness in the genital organs’ (yintouhan 陰頭寒), ‘dizziness and hair loss’ (muxuan faluo 目眩髮 落), may appear as well. For one whose pulses appear to be ‘hollow and slightly
tense’ (koudong weijin 芤動微緊), ‘a man loses semen and a woman dreams sexual intercourse’ (nanzi shijing, nuzi mengjiao 男子失精, 女子夢交). All these symptoms, according to the annotations of Jinkui yaolue, are very much related to ‘yin depletion’ (yinxu 陰 虛 ) of the Kidney. In order to cure such a disease, Jinkui yaolue recommends guizhi longgu muli tang 桂枝龍骨牡蠣湯 (decoction of cassia twig, fossil fragments and oyster shell) as the pharmaceutical remedy.17
With comparison to the Huangdi neijing, the xulao disease as described in
Jinkui yaolue is more clearly defined in terms of recognizable symptoms, diagnosis
and drug therapy. More than solely regarding ‘dreaming sex’ as a response to physical stimuli of qi in the genital organs, Jinkui yaolue situates it in a more complicated sphere, with wider concern to ‘coldness’, ‘losing semen’ and infertility. The discourse of xulao as a newly emerging category of disease in Chinese medical traditions not only reinforces ‘dreaming sex’ as one of the pathological syndromes. It is also characterized as a woman’s symptom in contrast to a man’s ‘losing semen’ in relation to the diseases of xulao or lao. Both ‘dreaming sex’ and ‘losing semen’ as a correlative medical concept had been widely discussed by later medical physicians throughout the ages.18
Sexual Dreams and Demonic Influences
Interestingly, neither the Huangdi neijing nor Jinkui yaolue indicates clearly
17 As Xu Bin pointed out, all these symptoms happen because of ‘yin depletion’ (yinxu 陰虛). Jinkui
yaolue lunzhu 金匱要略論註 (The Commentaries and Annotations on Medical Treasures of the
Golden Casket, commentated and annotated by [Qing] Xu Bin 徐彬, firstly published in 1671, reprinted in 1993, Beijing: Renmin weisheng chubanshe, juan 6, pp.90-91.
18 Apart from ‘dreaming sex’, ‘losing semen’ (shijing 失精 or yijing 遺精) later on had become an
individual medical problem explained by very different causes, largely based on emotional ones, not always related to ‘dreaming sex’ itself. See Shapiro, Hugh (1998), ‘The puzzle of Spermatorrhea in Republican China’, Positions, 6(3): 551-596.
the ‘objects’ of ‘sexual dreams’. The gap was not bridged until the appearance of
Zhouhou fang 肘後方 (Prescriptions to Keep Up Your Sleeve, 315 C.E.), of which
the authorship is attributed to Ge Hong 葛洪 (281-341), edited and added by Tao Hongjing 陶弘景 (456-536), and much later, by Yang Yongdao 楊用道 (12th century). As a medical manual that served for emergency needs, Zhouhou fang contributes less to medical theory than to a number of easily accessible remedies (mainly pharmaceutical) for commoners. When mentioning ‘dreaming sex’ as an illness, it reveals two kinds of dreaming object: people and ‘demons’ (gui 鬼). On the one hand, ‘men and women’s dreaming to have sex with man kind’ (nan nu meng yu ren jiao 男女夢與人交) may be ‘evoked by pathogenic qi due to inner depletion’ (neixu xieqi ganfa 內虛邪氣感發). Meanwhile, it proposes a simple recipe for ‘those who incline to have sexual intercourse with demons in dreams and look ecstatic (nan nu xi meng yu gui tong zhi huanghu zhe 男女喜夢與鬼通致恍惚者)’ without indicating its aetiology. Unlike Jinkui yaolue regarding ‘sexual dreams’ as a symptom of women’s only, Zhouhou fang suggests that both men and women may dream of sex with either human being or ‘demons’. These problems can be solved by herbal formulas, acupuncture or moxibustion.19
Some ideas regarding diseases in Zhouhou fang are echoed by Zhubing
yuanhou lun 諸病源候論 (Treatise on Causes and Symptoms of Varied Diseases,
610), an officially compiled medical work by Chao Yuanfang 巢元方 and others. Similar to the Huangdi neijing, Zhubing yuanhou lun is not a work that represents a single perspective of one author and/or school, but instead demonstrates fruitful knowledge of a wide-range of diseases circulated before 7th century China. Unlike
19 Buji zhouhou fang 補輯肘後方 (Supplementary Collection of Prescriptions to Kept up Your
Sleeve), originally compiled by Ge Hong 葛洪 (281-341), Tao Hongjing 陶弘景 (456-536) and Yang Yongdao 楊用道 in 1144, supplemented and rearranged by Shang Zhijun 尚志鈞 (1996), Hefei:
Jinkui yaolue in which many prescriptions are recorded, however, the currently
survived editions of Zhubing yuanhou lun record no other pharmacological information than ‘remedies for nourishing life’ (yangsheng fang 養 生 方 ) and ‘methods for guiding and pulling’ (daoyin fa 導引法), which are evidently influenced by Daoism.20
In general, Zhubing yuanhou lun provides two observations in the aetiology of ‘sexual dreams’: one is naturalistic, the other is supernatural.
When discussing naturalistic causes, the diseases of both xulao and ‘Cold Damage’ (shanghan 傷寒) are underlined for their close relationship to the depletion of the Kidney. It is well known that in Chinese medical thought the Kidney is the place in which ‘semen/vital energy’ (jing 精) is preserved. When one suffers from
xulao or Cold Damage, as Zhubing yuanhou lun argues, his/her Kidney is deficient
and invaded by pathogen or pathogenic heat, hence ‘dreaming sexual intercourse’ (meng jiaojie 夢 交 接 ) and ‘losing semen in dreams’ (meng xiejing 夢 泄 精 , nocturnal emission).21
The supernatural cause, on the contrary, is usually linked to ‘demonic afflictions’.22 For example, ‘demonic possession’ is thought to be one of the illnesses along with the symptom of ‘sexual dreams’:
Anhui kexue jishu chubanshe, juan 3(18), p.95; juan 4(25), p.183.
20 As for the term ‘Daoism’, unlike Nathan Sivin’s clear distinction between its ‘philosophical’ and
‘religious’ meanings, my usage of this term in this paper, unless specified otherwise, is rather flexible and loose. I mainly follow a popular formulation proposed by Holmes Welch, referring it to ‘all those groups that have taken immortality as their goal – alchemists, hygienists, magicians, eclectics, and in particular, the members of the Taoist church’. See: Sivin, Nathan (1978), ‘On the word “Taoist” as a source of perplexity. With special reference to the relations of science and religion in traditional China’, now in Sivin (1995), Medicine, Philosophy and Religion in Ancient China: Researches and Reflections, Hampshire and Vermont: Variorum, part VI, pp.303-330, the quotation above is from p.305.
21 Zhubing yuanhou lun jiaozhu 諸病源候論校注, compiled by [Sui] Chao Yuanfang 巢元方 et al,
dated 610, annotated by Ding Guangdi 丁光迪, reprinted in 1996, Beijing: Renmin weisheng chubanshe, juan 4(62), p.129; juan 8(71), p. 272.
22 Zhubing yuanhou lun lists varied types of illness related to ‘demons’, ranging from xiewu 邪物,
shesui 社祟, tusui 土祟, fengxie 風邪, guixie 鬼邪, and guimei 鬼魅, to gui 鬼, and so forth. For
As for people possessed by demonic creatures, they have a propensity to be grieved, and their hearts are spontaneously moved. [They are] mentally deranged as if being drunk, speaking frantically with fright and fear, facing walls and crying with sorrow, frequently having nightmares, or having sex with demons and deities. [The reason why they] suffer from periodic cold and fever, full heart and abdomen, short breath, being unable to take foods and drinks is because they are possessed by demons.23
Importantly, women’s ‘sex with demons’, whether within or without dreams, is discussed elsewhere and categorized as one of ‘female miscellaneous diseases’ (furen zabing 婦人雜病). The concept of depletion, again, is employed to explain their aetiology:
The one whose visceral organs are deficient has an inclination towards dreaming. A woman’s dreaming of intercourse with demons is also caused by the deficient qi of her viscera and bowels, depletion and weakness of her guarding Spirit, which may be taken advantage of [by evil] then induces sexual dreams with demons.24
It is noteworthy that ‘women’s dreaming sex’ appears to be a merely emotional
Zhubing yuanhou lun, ibid., juan 2(47), pp.66-67; juan 2 (48), p.70; juan 40(95), p.1149-1150.
23 The original text is: ‘凡人有為鬼物所魅, 則好悲而心自動, 或心亂如醉, 狂言驚怖, 向壁悲啼,
夢魅喜魘, 或與鬼神交通. 病苦乍寒乍熱, 心腹滿, 短氣, 不能飲食. 此魅之所持也’. See: ibid., p.70.
24 The original text is: ‘夫臟虛者喜夢. 婦人夢與鬼交, 亦由臟腑氣弱, 神守虛衰, 故乘虛因夢與
disorder. In addition to the symptom of social retreat, such as ‘detestation for people’ (bu yu jian ren 不欲見人), a female sufferer from this illness may ‘speak and laugh alone, or sometimes burst into tears’ (du yan xiao huo shi bei qi 獨言笑或時悲泣). Her pulses usually ‘appear tardy and deep-sited like a bird pecking’ (mai lai chi fu huo ru niao zhuo 脈來遲伏或如鳥啄). Sometimes her pulses are ‘too continuous to be measured’ (mianmian bu zhi dushu 綿綿不知度數) and her ‘expression does not change’ (yanse bu bian 顏色不變). All these indications, as claimed by Zhubing
yuanhou lun, refer to an illness caused by ‘demonic qi’ (gui qi 鬼氣). Based on the
assertion that ‘a human being is born of delicate qi bestowed by the Five Phases, and nurtured by the spiritual qi of the Five Viscera’, the principle for treatments to resist demonic illnesses naturally sheds some light on the prototype of preventive medicine, which emphasizes the necessity of self-cultivation and self-regulation for the sake of health. Zhubing yuanhou lun therefore states: ‘once yin and yang are regular and harmonious, the Viscera and Bowels are strong and flourishing; hence fengxie guimei 風邪鬼魅 (wind evil and demons) cannot bring any harm at all’.25
By a survey of the multiple aspects of an illness – causes, symptoms, pulse diagnosis, and the principle of treatment – the illness of ‘having sex with demons’ is fully elucidated in Zhubing yuanhou lun. ‘Women’s dreaming of sex with demons’ seems regarded not only as a pathological disease but also manifests itself as an ecstatic experience. Nevertheless, these two explanatory modes of the illness, i.e., naturalistic explanations and supernatural ones, are not necessarily contradictory to each other. Rather, they are actually based on the same presupposition about perceiving the body in mediaeval Chinese medicine. That is, diseases only occur in a deficient body where external influences, whether natural factors or demonic creatures,
take advantage. In other words, the boundary between natural environmental factors and supernatural agencies are not always clear yet somehow obscure especially in religious medical works in mediaeval China.
By examining the exorcist rituals recorded in Zhubing yuanhou lun, for example, they seem being largely illuminated by magico-religious heritage, namely, shamanism and Daoism.26 Certainly this is not an exclusive case, because a number of Sui and Tang medical works are recorded together with those relating to religion, divination and destiny in the same category of bibliography in contemporary official histories.27 This deliberate categorization of medical and religious works together in a degree explains their ambiguous bounds.
In addition to the demonological aetiology of diseases, another characteristic of Daoist medicine would be the method of therapy by ‘the art of bedchamber’ (fangzhong shu 房中術).28 For instance, Sun Simiao 孫思邈 (ca. 581-682), the renowned Daoist physician and medical writer, discussed ‘dreaming sex with demons’
26 Lin Fu-shih 林富士 indicates that some explanations of demonology in Zhouhou fang and Zhubing
yuanhou lun, such as ‘women’s sex with demons’, ‘women’s demonic foetuses’, ‘shibing 尸病’,
‘zhubing 注病’, and so on, are more likely related to the views of shamanism. See Lin Fu-shih (1999), ‘zhongguo liuchao shiqi de wuxi yu yiliao 中國六朝時期的巫覡與醫療’ (Shamans and healing in China during the Six dynasties period [3rd – 6th century C.E.]), Zhongyang yanjiuyuan lishi yuyan
yanjiusuo jikan 中央研究院歷史語言研究所集刊 (The Bulletin of the Institute of History and
Philology, Academia Sinica) 70(1), p.32.
27 Yoshimoto Shouji 吉元昭治 (1992), ‘Daojiao de yixue’ 道教的醫學 (Daoist Medicines), in
Daojiao 道教 (Daoism), volume II, edited by Fukui Koujun 福井康順 et al., trans. by Zhu Yueli 朱
越利 etc., Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, pp.207-209.
28 In a strict sense, of course the techniques of ‘the art of bedchamber’ had been widely used in the
ages much earlier than that of institutional Daoism, probably dated back to the Warring States. The unearthed manuscript ‘He yinyang’ 合陰陽 (Harmonizing yin and yang) from the Mawangdui Han Tombs is just an example. See: Wei Qipeng 魏啟鵬 and Hu Xianghua 胡翔驊 eds. (1992),
Mawangdui hanmu yishu jiaoshi 馬王堆漢墓醫書校釋 (Annotation on Medical Manuscripts of the
Han Tombs in Mawangdui), Chengdu: Chengdu chubanshe, v.2. Besides, some Daoist works during the Six Dynasties, such as Yufang mijue 玉房秘訣 (Secret Incantations for the Jade Bedchamber), also proclaim that sex and correct sexual techniques are helpful in healing ‘dreaming sex with demons’. See: Lin Fu-shih 林富士 (1999), ‘zhongguo liuchao shiqi de wuxi yu yiliao 中國六朝時期的巫覡與醫 療’, pp.34-35. As ‘the art of bedchamber’ in early China played an important in the culture of ‘nourishing life’ (yangsheng 養生), for thorough discussions of the related issues, please see: Lo, Vivienne (1998), ‘The influences of yangsheng culture on early Chinese medical theory’, Ph.D. thesis in History, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
in terms of the disease of xusun 虛損 (depletion and impairment) as below:
Men cannot live without women, and women cannot live without men. The lack of a woman leads to [his] ‘intention’; [his] ‘moved intention’ leads to [his] ‘spiritual exhaustion’; [his] ‘spiritual exhaustion’ hence is ‘to damage life’ (sun shou 損壽). If the mind dwells in perfect and true condition and nothing to be concerned about, it will be extremely great to ensure longevity. However, if there is one thing to be thought about, and one forces oneself to be closes to it, then it is hard for one to maintain therefore easy to lose control. This may cause one’s losing semen, turbid urine, and the illness of having sex with demons. Such a damage is equivalent to hundreds of other damage.29
Generally, Sun’s definition of xusun is very similar as that of xulao 虛勞 in Zhubing
yuanhou lun. This disease was thought to be caused by different reasons, ranging from wulao 五勞 (five types of exhaustion) and liuji 六極 (six extremes) to qishang 七
傷 (seven damages).30 Not only physical dysfunction but also emotional imbalance and dietary problems are taken into account in the related treatises. On the one hand, we see the continuity of medical transmission from the Han to the Tang, since ‘dreaming sex (with demons)’ as one of the symptoms of xulao or xusun had been advocated in Jinkui yaolue, Zhubing yuanhou lun and Qianjin fang. On the other hand,
29 The original text is: ‘男不可無女, 女不可無男. 無女則意動, 意動則神勞, 神勞則損壽. 若念真
正無可思者, 則大佳, 長生也. 然而萬無一有, 強抑鬱閉之, 難持易失, 使然漏精尿濁, 以致鬼交 之病, 損一而當百也. See: Beiji qianjin yaofang 備急千金要方 (Essential Prescriptions Worth of a Thousand for Emergency, 651), by Sun Simiao, reprinted in 1993/1996 in Qianjin fang 千金方, Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe, juan 27(8), p.389.
30 Please compare Zhubing yuanhou lun juan 3, pp.86-88 to Qianjin yifang 千金翼方 (Supplementary
Prescriptions Worth a Thousand, 682), by Sun Simiao, reprinted in 1993/1996 in Qianjin fang 千金方, Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe, juan 15(1), p.130.
however, the demonological explanations of diseases and the employment of ‘the art of bedchamber’ for the sake of ‘replenishment’ (buyi 補 益 )31 became widely accepted in the mediaeval Chinese medicine. This method of treatment was sometimes referred to as ‘healing human being with human being’ (yi ren liao ren 以 人療人).32
Some decades after Sun Simiao, Waitai miyao 外臺秘要 (Essential Secrets of the Palace Library, 752) compiled by Wang Tao 王燾 apparently followed the steps of its predecessors, e.g. Zhubing yuanhou lun in medical theories, and Qianjin
yaofang in prescriptions. It argues that a sufferer from xulao and fengxie 風邪 may
have the symptom of ‘sexual dreams with men/women’. Meanwhile, it also indicates that ‘dreaming sex with demons and deities’ as an illness could originate in ‘demonic possession and spiritual possession’ (guimei jingmei 鬼魅精魅) or in ‘spiritual possession of foxes’ (huli jingmei 狐狸精魅).33 In other words, when the object of sexual dreams is a human being, it is merely a symptom of a naturalistic disease, otherwise it is more likely viewed as a demonic illness.
It seems that the paradigmatic interpretations of ‘dreaming sex with demons’ established during the mediaeval times had not changed drastically in the Song, Yuan and Ming. Their theoretical frameworks indebted to Tang and pre-Tang medical works look rather homogenous. When discussing ‘sexual dreams with demons’ as an illness, for example, Taiping sheng hui fang 太平聖惠方 (Imperial Grace Formulary of the Great Peace Reign, 992) and Furen daquan liangfang 婦人大全良方 (All-inclusive Good Prescriptions for Women, 1237) simply follow Zhubing yuanhoulun 諸病源候
31 Qianjin yifang 千金翼方 (Supplementary Prescriptions Worth a Thousand, 682), by Sun Simiao,
reprinted in 1993/1996 in Qianjin fang 千金方, Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe, juan 15(1), p.130.
32 Qianjin yaofang, juan 27(8), p.388.
33 Waitai miyao 外臺秘要 (Essential Secrets of the Palace Library), by [Tang] Wang Tao 王燾 in
論, interpreting this disorder in terms of ‘depletion of Blood and qi’ and ‘demonic evil’.34 Similar opinions are found in the Ming works, such as Pu ji fang 普濟方,
Qixiao liangfang 奇效良方, Chishui xuanzhu 赤水玄珠,35 and Shoushi baoyuan 壽 世保元.36 Another example is Maiyin zhengzhi 脈因證治37, which simply quotes the opinion of Jinkui yaolue 金匱要略 in discussion of the relationship between lao or
xulao and ‘sexual dreams’.
Dreams, Demons, and Worms: Daoist Views
Despite the similar arguments noted above, however, the differentiated perspectives of looking into ‘dreaming sex’ in different periods should not be ignored, either. In fact, the ramification of the disease xulao into shizhu 尸疰 (transfusion into corpses), chuanshi 傳尸 (transmission from corpses), guzheng 骨蒸 (bone steaming) and laozhai 勞瘵 (consumptive diseases) have complicated the connotations of ‘dreaming sex with demons’ as a medical term. Just as Dai Yuanli 戴 原 禮 (1324-1405) claimed, although the Huangdi Neijing mentions nothing about laozhai 勞瘵 when discussing ‘depletion’ (xu 虛), it does imply the causes of this disease. Later than Zhang Ji’s categorization of xulao as a medical disease in his Jinkui yaolue
34 Taiping sheng hui fang 太平聖惠方 (Imperial Grace Formulary of the Great Peace Reign),
compiled by [Song] Wang Huaiyin 王懷隱 et al., dated in 992, reprinted in 1958, Beijing: Renmin weisheng chubanshe, p.857, 2225; Jiaozhu Furen liangfang 校註婦人良方 (Annotations on Good Prescriptions for Women), written by [Song] Chen Ziming 陳自明 in 1237, annotated by [Ming] Xue Ji 薛己, reprinted by Taipei: Xuanfeng chubanshe, juan 6, p.16.
35 Cai Wenju 柴文舉, Cai Binxin 蔡濱新 eds. (1991), Zhongyi shimeng bianzhi 中醫釋夢辨治
(Interpretations, Diagnoses and Treatments of Dreams in Chinese Medicine), Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, pp.263-265.
36 Shoushi baoyuan 壽世保元 (Longevity and Preserving Vital Energy), by [Ming] Gong Tingxian
龔廷賢 (the 16-17th century), firstly published in 1615, reprinted in 1993, Shanghai: Shanghai kexue
jishu chubanshe, p.523.
37 Mai yin zheng zhi 脈因證治 (Pulses, Causes, Symptoms and Therapy), by [Yuan] Zhu Zhenheng
金匱要略, this disease evolved into different forms, also being labelled as zhengbing 蒸 病 (diseases of steaming) or zhubing 注( 疰 ) 病 (diseases of transfusion).38 Moreover, as Zhubing yuanhou lun 諸病源候論 attributes the causes of xulao to
wulao 五勞, liuji 六極 and qishang 七傷, as mentioned before,39 this kind of seemingly ‘contagious’ diseases recorded in Zhouhou fang 肘後方 and elaborated by
Zhubing yuanhou lun and Qianjin yaofang 千金要方 are closely associated with the
aetiology of shigui 尸鬼 (ghostly corpse), guixie 鬼邪 (ghosts and evils), and ‘worms’ (chong 蟲), etc..40 All these changes to a great extent could be attributed to the influence of Daoist cosmology. It is therefore hard to understand these ideas and their relationship to medical disorders without explaining Daoist conceptions of diseases first.
Let me return once more to the earliest received Chinese medical canon. Although the Huangdi neijing records ‘long worm’, ‘short worm’ as dream images and their corresponding meanings in the discussion of dreams, no clue in the work suggests that they act as agents to evoke ‘sexual dreams’. Nor were these worms regarded as ‘parasites’ by the time of the texts. Not until the Six Dynasties did Daoist masters start to emphasize the harm caused by ‘demons’ and ‘worms’ dwelling in human body. The Daoist pathology from that period onwards was partly characterized by the concept of sanshi (chong) 三尸(蟲) ([worms of] three corpses). In Ge Hong’s
Baopuzi 抱朴子, sanshi are said to live in human body from one’s birth. After one’s
death, the sanshi in one’s body become ‘gui’ 鬼 or ‘shigui’ 尸鬼, freely wondering around and being worshipped by live people. Sanshi were thought to be harmful to
38 Tuiqiu shiyi 推求師意 (In Search for the Thought of the Master), by [Ming] Dai Yuanli 戴原禮
(1324-1405), firstly published in 1443, reprinted in Siku quanshu 四庫全書, vol.765, p.8.
39 Zhubing yuanhou lun jiaozhu 諸病源候論校注, Beijing: Renmin weisheng chubanshe, juan 3,
pp.86-88.
40 Buji zhouhou fang 補輯肘後方, pp.21-25; Zhubing yuanhou lun jiaozhu 諸病源候論校注, juan 23
human being, especially when the body is weak and vulnerable. The imagination of
sanshi was further elaborated in a late Tang Daoist scripture that synthesizes the
related views prevalent in the Six, Sui and Tang Dynasties. According to it, sanshi – ‘shangshi’ 上尸, ‘zhongshi’ 中尸 and ‘xiashi’ 下尸 – lodge at three different parts of the body, hence bring diseases sometimes to the portions of body where they dwell in. For instance, ‘shangshi’ was said to lodge in the head; ‘zhongshi’ lodges in the Heart and abdomen; and ‘xiashi’ lodges in the Stomach. Accordingly, ‘zhongshi’ would possibly be the agent to result in various diseases including ‘having sex with demons and nocturnal emission’; ‘xiashi’, in contrast, would drive a man to indulge in lust, etc..41 The Daoist idea that sanshi play an important role to induce bad dreams and nightmares is also recorded in a Tang biji 筆記, Youyang zazu 酉陽雜俎.42
The influences of Daoist views of diseases in terms of sanshi and worms are particularly distinctive in mediaeval Chinese medicine. For example, Zhubing
yuanhou lun notes that sanshi live along with/in human body. As they are able to
contact with ‘ghosts and spirits’ (guiling 鬼靈), they often summon and guide ‘outer evils’ (waixie 外邪) to harm the body. For the purpose of attaining immortality, people – in particular the afflicted – are therefore required to make an effort to strengthen their Spirit that guards their Viscera, Bowels and other organs in order to resist the pathogenic factors.43 Daoists also regarded worms as a sort of obstruction to ‘immortality’. Hence, to kill or expel worms out of the body became a major task for
41 Lin Fu-shih (2001), Jibing zhongjiezhe: zhongguo zaoqi de daojiao yixue 疾病終結者: 中國早期
的道教醫學 (Terminators of Diseases: Daoist Medicine in Early China), Taipei: Sanmin shuju, pp.72-74.
42 Youyang zazu 酉陽雜俎, by Duan Chengshi 段成式 (ca. 803-863), completed by 860, Wanli 萬曆
edition in Ming times, reprinted in 1981, Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, former part, juan 8, p.84.
43 See Huangdi neijing suwen 黃帝內經素問, juan 5(17), pp.102-3; Zhubing yuanhou lun jiaozhu 諸
病源候論校注, juan 23, p.682; Miyakawa Hisayuki 宮川尚志 (1995), ‘Medical aspects of the Daoist doctrine of the three cadavers (sanshi 三尸)’, in East Asian Science: Tradition and Beyond, ed. By K. Hashimoto et al., Osaka: Kansai University Press, pp.345-349.
cultivation and body nourishment in Daoism.44
According to the Zhengao 真誥 by the famous Daoist Tao Hongjing 陶弘景, there are at least three causes of bad dreams: poyao 魄 妖 (prodigies of the sedimentary spirits), xinshi 心試 (testing the heart [by demons]), and shizei 尸賊 (corpse depredations; the dead plaguing the living).45 In general, the methods for Daoists to treat bad dreams and nightmares were not very different from that for them to heal diseases. Corresponding to their demonological explanations of the causes of these occasions, what the Six Dynasties Daoist Masters often did was aimed to appease the anger of deities and spirits and appeal for their forgiveness. On the one hand, they normally required sufferers to make confession of all the sins and misdemeanors that they might have committed. On the other hand, they performed ritual purification for these people by means of observance, incantations, and talisman. If necessary, they might also suggest the employment of acupuncture, moxibustion, drug therapy, or other alternative ways including the art of bedchamber, etc..46 As a result, not surprisingly, there had been created a number of incantations for the sake of appealing for good dreams and expelling bad dreams.47 Similarly, in Buddhism there had existed incantations aimed to cease horrible nightmares.48
In addition to Daoist and Buddhist traditions, there were alternative methods to expel bad dreams in early China. In his related research Donald Harper states that ‘the conception of language in Han literary culture was strongly influenced by the belief in word magic and the power of speech to enchant those who heard it; and that
44 Lin Fu-shih (2001), Jibing zhongjiezhe: zhongguo zaoqi de daojiao yixue, p.74; Davis, Edward L.
(2001), Society and the Supernatural in Song China, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, p.40.
45 Harper, Donald (1987), ‘Wang Yen-shou’s nightmare poem’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 47:
239-283, esp. p.272.
46 Lin Fu-shih (2002), Jibing zhongjiezhe: zhongguo zaoqi de daojiao yixue, pp.87-113. 47 Liu Wenying (1989/2000), Meng de mixin yu meng de tansuo, pp.139-142.
48 One of the kind of incantations, as recorded in Youyang zazu, is ‘po shan po yan di’ 婆珊婆演底,
this aspect of enchantment was important in fu poetics’. Followed by careful cross-examination of other sources, Harper goes further to argue that the ‘Meng fu’ 夢賦 (Dream fu) by Wang Yen-shou 王延壽 (fl. mid-2nd century C.E.) was probably read as ‘a poem about a nightmare’ as well as ‘an incantation to expel nightmare demons’.49 This interesting survey at least shows one way to demonstrate word magic and its efficacy in the rites of expelling demons and demonic dreams. But it is hard to tell whether a treatment of this kind was somehow related to Daoist ritual incantations.
Turn back to the subject of ‘dreaming sex with demons’. Of the Sui and Tang medical texts, Waitai miyao 外台秘要 is notable for its contribution to establishing the link between ‘dreaming sex with demons’ and chuanshi 傳尸 (transmission by means of corpses).50 Likewise, the Song physician Chen Ziming 陳自明 (ca. 1190-1270) also demonstrates ‘sexual dreams with demons’ in terms of his arguments of laozhai 勞瘵 (consumptive diseases), zhu 疰 (diseases of transfusion) and gu
zhenglao 骨蒸勞 (consumption of bone steaming).51 Even in the Ming medical works, such as Gujin yitong daquan 古今醫統大全 (Great Completion of Medical Traditions, Past and Present), Yixue jinliang 醫學津梁 (The Fords and Bridges of Medicine), Yizong bidu 醫宗必讀 (Essential Reading of Medical Lineage), and
Shenrou wushu 慎柔五書 (Five Works by Mr. Hu), ‘dreaming sex with demons’ as a
symptom is frequently categorized into the disease of laozhai, zhengbing, chuanshi, or
xulao 虛癆.52 Given one of Hu Shenrou’s 胡慎柔 (1572-1636) medical cases, it is
49 Harper, Donald (1987), ‘Wang Yen-shou’s nightmare poem’, p.240, 242. 50 Waitai miyao 外台秘要, volume I, p. 355.
51 Jiaozhu Furen liangfang 校註婦人良方, juan 5, pp.1-2, 9-10.
52 Gujin yitong daquan 古今醫統大全 (Great Completion of Medical Traditions, Past and Present),
by [Ming] Xu Chunfu 徐春甫 (the mid-16th century), firstly published in 1556, reprinted in 1996,
Beijing: Renmin weisheng chubanshe, p.1322, 1325, 1327; Yixue jinliang 醫學津梁 (The Fords and Bridges of Medicine), by [Ming] Wang Kentang 王肯堂 (1549-1613), firstly published in 1641, reprinted in 1986, Taipei: Lixing shuju, pp.36-37; Shenrou wushu 慎柔五書 (Five Works by Mr. Hu),
interesting that the cause of ‘dreaming sex with demons’ and laozhai was attributed to that ‘worms slowly eat the Lungs away (chong shi fei ye 蟲蝕肺也)’.53
Though the demonological aetiology of ‘dreaming of having sex with demons’ illuminated by religious thought did not totally give way to the naturalistic explanations, undeniably, it became no longer dominant and increasingly questioned by some of the late imperial Chinese physicians. In his treatise on ‘women’s dreaming sex with demons’, for instance, Xu Chunfu 徐春甫 showed his disagreement with the prescriptions of ‘expelling evil’ (pixie 僻邪) recommended by Furen daquan
liangfang 婦人大全良方. Xu explained that this illness is actually not caused by
‘demonic possession’ (xiemei 邪魅) but instead caused by ‘depletion of all Blood and
qi, viscera and bowels, original Spirit’ (qixie zangfu yuanshen ju xu 氣血臟腑元神俱
虛).54
Besides, Xu provided no less interesting observation regarding the illness of ‘dreaming sex with demons’: it often occurs to women rather than to men, and female sufferers incline not to talk about it directly.55 His emphasis on the gender aspect of this illness was not occasional, because some of his medical predecessors had already remarked on the interrelationship between women and their ailments of sex, which should not be distinguished from the medical interpretations of ‘dreaming sex’ in late
by [Ming] 胡慎柔 (1572-1636), firstly published in 1636, reprinted in 1985, Jiangsu: Jiangsu kexue jishu chubanshe, pp.49-51; Yizong bidu 醫宗必讀 (Essential Reading of Medical Lineage), by [Ming] Li Zhongzi 李中梓 (1588-1655), firstly published in 1637, reprinted in 1996, Beijing: Renmin weisheng chubanshe, p.337. Wang Kentang’s another work, Zhengzhi zhunsheng 證治準繩 (Standards for Diagnosis and Treatment, firstly published in 1602, reprinted in 1979 by Taipei: Xinwenfeng chuban gongsi) also records ‘dreaming sex with demons’ as a symptom of chuanshilao 傳尸勞. See: v.1, p.52.
53 Gujin yi’an an 古今醫案按 (Compilation of the Past and Present Medical Cases), by [Qing] Yu
Zhen 俞震 (the 18th century), published in 1778, reprinted in 1988, Beijing: Zhongguo zhongyiyao
chubanshe, p.151.
54 Gujin yitong daquan 古今醫統大全 (Great Completion of Medical Traditions, Past and Present),
by [Ming] Xu Chunfu 徐春甫 (the mid-16th century), published in 1556, reprinted in 1996, Beijing:
Renmin weisheng chubanshe, juan 82.
imperial China.
Female Disorders of Sex, Reproduction, and Emotion
Women’s Sexual Frustration and Love Madness
As for women’s ‘sexual madness’, a recent research has told us that in western history entertaining and yielding to illicit or excessive sexual urges were long thought to precipitate insanity. In this way of thinking, ‘Masturbation would lead to uncontrollable fantasizing and a world of delusions. Gratification of lust would produce satyriasis or nymphomania, bringing on premature senile debility; it would also risk syphilis, the long-term consequence of which – general paresis of the insane – was popularly known as the softening of the brain’.56 By examining the medical case histories in a German asylum in the 19th century, another study also suggests that ‘it was nymphomania, not hysteria, that predominated in medical representations of female sexual maladies’.57 Given numerous cases regarding incubi and succubi as recorded in mediaeval and early modern European documents, it seems not difficult for one to claim the close links between sexual madness, dreams and demons.58
In the following discussions I will concentrate on how pre-modern Chinese people, in particular physicians, came to perceive and deal with the problems of women’s sexual madness in both medical and demonological senses.
56 Porter, Roy ed. (1991), The Faber Book of Madness, London and Boston: Faber and Faber, p.462. 57 Goldberg, Ann (1999), Sex, Religion, and the Making of Modern Madness: The Eberbach Asylum
and German Society, 1815-1849, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, p.85.
58 See the analyses in, for example, Elliott, Dyan (1999), Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, and
By the second century B.C.E., Chunyu Yi 淳 于 意 , a famous Chinese physician, once encountered with a female patient who served as a maid in the house of King Jibei 濟北. She had be suffering from ‘loin and back loin pain’, and ‘coldness and heat’ (hanre 寒熱). Various doctors diagnosed her ailment as a typical disease of ‘coldness and heat’. By reading her pulse of the Kidney, however, Chunyu found that her ‘menstrual blockage’ (yueshi bu xia 月事不下) was owing to her ‘inner coldness’ (nei han 內寒). He then suggested that it is her ‘wanting a man yet cannot get one’ (yu nanzi er bu ke de 欲男子而不可得) inducing her ailment, since her ‘pulse of the Liver manifested itself over the top of her left wrist’ (ganmai xian chu zuo kou 肝脈弦出左口).59 Chunyu prescribed drug medicine for her. Her menstruation finally came then she recovered.60
This source is worthy noted not only because it is probably the first medical case record regarding woman’s ailments of sexual frustration in Chinese history. In addition to his characterization of this kind of illness by its ‘standard’ pulse phenomena, which were widely followed by later physicians, this case also reveals two significant facets of an early Chinese physician’s clinical experiences. The first facet is solely related to diagnoses and treatments. Despite Chunyu’s acknowledgment of the physical ailments oriented in love sickness and/or sexual frustration, interestingly, none of the counselling techniques in modern sense (e.g. talk therapy) except a drug recipe was recommended. In so doing, obviously, Chunyu did not turn to an orientation of psychology or psychoanalysis to deal with such a problem. Instead, his treatment by means of pharmaceutical formula did not go beyond early Chinese
59 Kou 口 in here refers to cunkou 寸口. It is an anatomical position located on the ‘pulsing part of
the radial artery at the head of the radius on both wrists’. See: Han ying shangjie zhongyi da cidian 漢 英雙解中醫大辭典 (Chinese-English Dictionary of Traditional Chinese Medicine), ed. by Yuan Yixiang 原一祥, et al., Beijing: Renmin weisheng chubanshe, p.56.
60 Shiji 史記 (Records of the Great Historian), by [Han] Sima Qian 司馬遷 (2nd century B.C.E.),
primary belief in what nowadays is commonly called ‘mind-body holism’, in which the boundary between the mind and the body had not been clearly delineated. In this regard, a somatic malady, despite its origin in ‘emotional disorder’, was thought possibly cured by the usage of medical remedies.
Another aspect related to this medical case is the interaction between Chunyu as a male practitioner and his female patient. By analysing Chunyu’s casebook Lisa Raphals indicates that seven amongst his twenty-five cases are sex-related ailments. We are also told that his descriptions of those ailments seem to contain an element of reproach on males’ losing control of their emotions or sexuality due to ‘moral shortcomings’, while there may be a further element of indirect reproach of the women who provoked such a behaviour.61 Despite that, Chunyu did not reveal any moral condemnation when he diagnosed women’s ailments closely related to emotions and sexual desires.
Later, a famous saying that clearly asserts the necessity of sex for women originates in the Southern Dynasties. Chu Cheng 褚澄, the Liu Song medical writer, claimed that ‘a woman’s [health] won’t be regulated if having no sex with a man ten years after her first menstruation; [her health] won’t be regulated, either, if longing for having sex with a man in ten years after her first menstruation’.62 Chu suggested that women’s sexual activities require a ‘right time’. To engage in marriage and sex ten years after women’s first menstruation would be better for their health. Either too early or too late would be harmful to them. Besides, Chu also argued that ‘nuns and widows’ (shi ni guafu 師尼寡婦) often suffer from ‘struggling between yin and yang,
61 Raphals, Lisa (1998), ‘The treatment of women in a second-century medical casebook’, Chinese
Science 15, pp.7-28, esp. pp.14-15, 24-28.
62 ‘女人天癸既至, 踰十年無男子合, 則不調; 未踰十年, 思男子合, 亦不調.’ Chushi yishu 褚氏
遺書 (Chu Cheng’s Posthumous Work), by Chu Cheng 褚澄, dated in 483, reprinted in Siku Quanshu 四庫全書, v.734, p.546.
periodic cold and fever’ as if the symptoms of ‘nue-illness of warmth’ (wennue 溫瘧), which may turn to become the diseases of lao 勞 if not having been cured earlier. This is simply because they as yin live without yang, hence their sexual desire are hardly satisfied. Chu thus suggested that the remedies that aim to heal the sexual diseases of these women should be distinguished from that applicable to married women including wives and concubines.63 As a result, women of this kind – including nuns, widows and spinsters – were often specified as peculiar patients in the medical arena afterwards. Following Chu Cheng’s doctrines, some physicians in the later ages, in particular after the Song when ‘genecology’ (fuke 婦科 or nüke 女科) had emerged, frequently stressed these women’s physical dysfunction in relation to their unfulfilled sex. Sex, naturally referring to marriage sex, became a popular method suggested by doctors to solve problems of this kind.
Moreover, the later physicians explained further Chunyu Yi’s pulse diagnosis of the woman of sexual frustration in terms of the biological difference between men and women:
Men are dominated by jing 精 (vitality; semen), and women are dominated by Blood. When a man’s jing is abundant, he will think of marriage/sex; when a woman’s Blood is abundant, she will be ready to conceive. The Liver is the organ that governs Blood. By the phenomenon that the pulse of the Liver appears taut and exceed the
cunkou 寸口 upwards until the [acu-point] yuji 魚際, we may judge
63 These words are recorded in Weisheng baojian 衛生寶鑑 (Treasure Mirror for Hygiene), by [Yuan]
Luo Tianyi 羅天益, published in 1281, reprinted in 1963, Beijing: Renmin weisheng chubanshe, juan 18, p.293. Similar record can be found in Yuji weiyi 玉機微義 (Esoteric Meanings of the Jade Secrets, originally by [Ming] Xu Yongcheng 徐用誠 and supplemented by [Ming] Liu Chun 劉純, published in 1396, in Siku quanshu, v.762, p.500
that [her] yin is abundant.64
In this view of biological determinism, not only sex as essential physical need for both sexes, but the necessity of marriage as a social system in which sex is sanctioned, are assured. The medical declaration is in accordance to the major social value. They seem to have mutually defined and inspired.
In the inclination to specify ‘female adults out of marriage’ as problematic, for instance, Xue Ji 薛己 (1486-1558) stated that a maiden may suffer from ‘coldness and heat’ and the pulses of her left hand may appear taut and exceeding the cunkou 寸口. Her ailments of this kind could be similar to nuns and widows’ once her marriage is delayed. To treat these ailment, Xue recommended remedies such as the ‘Small [decoction of] chaihu’ (xiao chaihu [tang] 小柴胡[湯]) plus shengdi 生地 and wumei 烏梅, etc..65 In another medical case Xue recorded that a thirty-something woman had suffered from ‘pain in thighs with unchanged colour’, ‘urinating and passing stool with pain’, and so on. This woman had served in the palace for long time. After retiring she became a man’s concubine. Unfortunately, her husband frequently travelled around. Due to a long term of melancholy and lacking of sex her ‘Seven Emotions, qi and Blood were injured’ (qiqing qixie sunshang 七情氣血損 傷).66 Her physical ailments became worse and could be fatal. Xue described this case as dying of ‘ailments of lack of sexual intercourse’ (nannu shihe zhi zheng 男女
失合之症).67
The association of women’s sexual frustration and their madness could also be
64 Weisheng baojian 衛生寶鑑, juan 18, p.293.
65 Xueshi yi’an 薛氏醫案 (Dr. Xue’s Medical Case Records), by [Ming] Xue Ji 薛己 (1486-1558),
published in 1529, reprinted in Siku Quanshu, v.763, juan 3, p.69a.
66 ‘Seven emotions’ in ancient Chinese medical thought usually refer to joy, anger, sorrow, worry, grief,
fear, and fright (xi nu yu si bei kong jing 喜怒憂思悲恐驚).
found in Zhu Zhenheng’s 朱震亨 (1282-1358) case history. Once he was sent in to see a married female patient. Since her husband had stayed far from home for two years due to business, she lost appetite, frequently lying in the bed, facing the wall, looking as ‘arrested’ (chi 癡). To cure her love sickness and qi blockage due to over yearning, significantly, Zhu did not suggest drug therapy as his predecessors often did. Rather, he recommended a method of what nowadays calls ‘emotional counter-therapy’.68 According to the correspondence relationship between the Five Emotions, Zhu suggested that drive her in fury then her ‘anger’ (nu 怒) can overcome her ‘worry’ (si 思). Her condition was improved by this way, but Zhu told her father that the best way to cure her completely would be to bring her ‘joy’ (xi 喜). Hence they called her husband back. As the doctor predicted, she recovered eventually.69 In his treatise on ‘nuns and widow’s coldness and heat’, similarly, Zhang Lu 張璐 (1617-1700) stated that if a woman was trapped in certain thoughts and did not receive proper medication, it might generate her dian 癲 madness.70
The relationship between women’s superfluous emotions, sexual desires, and love madness was best represented in the case of huadian 花癲 – a sort of
dian-madness exclusively attributed to women. As the early Qing physician Chen
Shiduo 陳士鐸 (ca. 1621-1711) argued, when women’s madness is resulted from ‘yearning’ (simu 思慕) for men whom they cannot attain, they may suddenly go mad
68 This term is used by Nathan Sivin. By examining Wu Kun’s 吳崑 Yifang kao 醫方考 (Research
into Medical Formulas), Sivin shows us the usage of ‘emotional manipulation’ as a kind of ‘emotional counter-therapy’ to cure illnesses in some medical cases of this text. In the medical view of holism, nevertheless, he states that these examples indeed left no need for a special classification of mental or emotional illness in pre-modern China. There is still no split between mind and body or between what modern would call somatic and psychological symptoms. See: Sivin, Nathan (1995), ‘Emotional counter-therapy’, in his Medicine, Philosophy, and Religion in Ancient China, Hampshire: Variorium, Part II, pp.1-19, esp. p.17.
69 This case is recorded in Yifang kao 醫方考 (Research into Medical Formulas), by [Ming] Wu Kun
吳崑 (1552-1620?), firstly published in 1584, reprinted in 1985, Jiangsu: Jiangsu kexue jishu chubanshe, pp.202-3.
70 Zhangshi yi tong 張氏醫通 (Dr. Zhang’s Comprehensive Medicine), by [Qing] Zhang Lu 張璐
and hug any man they meet ‘regardless the sense of shame’ (wang shi xiuchi 罔識羞 恥).71 In the occurrence of this disorder, these women are ‘joyful when meeting men and angry when seeing women’. Some of them will even ‘take off clothes and stay naked’.72 As Chen suggested, love madness as such could only happen to women. The reason is simple: when ‘a woman desires a man, it will induce her evil thought’ (nuzi sixiang qi ren er xin xie 女子思想其人而心邪). Her ‘Liver fire’ (gan huo 肝火) will be driven to burn prosperously and her pulse of the Liver may appear exceeding the cunkou 寸口.73 Although Chen did not explain why men do not have madness of this kind, it is not hard to configure the presuppositions in his thought in two ways. Firstly, women are more emotional than men hence more easily go mad. Secondly, it is more difficult for women to satisfy their sexual desires due to the restriction of social conditions. In a society deeply influenced by neo-Confucian ideology (particularly the Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi’s school) from the Song, one’s bodily dispositions, personal conduct, and social behaviours are always required to conform to ritual propriety. Sexual behaviours were not exceptions. This is one of the reasons why marriage often became a solution to sexual satisfaction recommended by scholarly physicians, since the latter had played a part in the dissemination of Confucian doctrines. As male body was regarded as a ‘salvation’ for female sexual dysfunction, not surprisingly, ‘nuns, widows, and spinsters’ became unique in medical views simply because of their sexual deprivation. Due to their unsatisfied sexual appetite, these women could possibly suffer from ‘sexual dreams at nights’ (ye meng jiatong 夜夢交通) and ‘mutual affection with demonic qi’ (xieqi jiaogan 邪氣交
71 Shishi milu 石室秘錄 (Secret Records of the Stone Chamber), by Chen Shiduo 陳士鐸 (ca.
1621-1711), preface 1689, 1730 edition, reprinted in 1991/1998, Beijing: Zhongguo zhongyiyao chubanshe, juan 1, p.38.
72 Bianzheng qiwen 辨證奇聞 (Strange Records of Diagnoses), by Chen Shiduo, originally dated in
1687, 1763 edition, reprinted in 1995, Beijing: Zhongguo zhongyiyao chubanshe, juan 4, p.138.
感).74 To be sure, the suggestion of marriage was positive for spinsters. For nuns and widows, however, it would be more difficult for them to marry and remarry – unless they neglected their religious belief or ignored crucial social criticism.75 Therefore, some physicians recommended herbal remedies, such as the ‘pill for abstaining from desire’ (duan yu wan 斷欲丸), to help them solve the related problem.76 In cases ‘concretions and conglomerations’ or ‘demonic foetuses’ resulted from ‘sexual dreams’ of a long term, then the ‘powder of fushen’ (fushen san 茯神散) and the ‘pill of peach seed’ (taoren wan 桃仁丸) were suggested.77
Women’s Sexual and Emotional ‘Pollution’
According to a modern survey, the writers of the Huangdi neijing regarded emotions as undesirable yet unavoidable. Emotions should be regulated since they may harm human being in certain ways.78 By the discussions above, I have tried to show how the late imperial Chinese physicians viewed women’s irregular emotions to be closely associated with their disorders in both emotional and physical sense. We
74 Qixiao liangfang 奇效良方 (Good Prescriptions with Amazing Efficacy), by Fang Xian 方賢 ,
quoted from Gujin tushu jicheng yibu quanlu 古今圖書集成醫部全錄 (Synthesis of Books and Illustration, Past and Present: Medical Section, Complete Transcriptions), compiled by Chen Menglei 陳夢雷 et al., completed by 1723, reprinted in 1979, Taipei: Xinwenfeng chuban gongsi, reprinted in 1979, Taipei: Xinwenfeng chuban gongsi, v.15, pp.26-27.
75 Both the governmental and popular praises to chastity explain one of the reasons why widows could
hardly get married again in pre-modern China. In Ming and Qing, particularly, a number of women were either to commit to suicide soon after their husbands’ death, or remained their status of widows for several ten years due to social influence and pressure. See: T’ien, Ju-k’ang (1988), Male Anxiety
and Female Chastity: A Comparative Study of Chinese Ethical Values in Ming-Ch’ing Times, Leiden:
E.J. Brill; Carlitz, Katherine (1994), ‘Desire, danger, and the body: stories of women’s virtue in late Ming China’, in Engendering China: Women, Culture, and the State, ed. by C. Gilmartin et al., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp.101-146.
76 Shoushi baoyuan 壽世保元 (Longevity and Preserving Vital Energy), by [Ming] Gong Tingxian
龔廷賢 (the 16-17th century), firstly published in 1615, reprinted in 1993, Shanghai: Shanghai kexue
jishu chubanshe, p.523.
77 Qixiao liangfang, ibid..
78 Chiu, Martha Li (1986), ‘Mind, Body, and Illness in a Chinese Medical Tradition’, Ph.D. dissertation,
