Zhuangzi's Butterfly Dream 庄周梦蝶
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The story
More than two thousand years ago, the Chinese thinker Zhuangzi lay down for a nap, and dreamed he was a butterfly.
In the dream he fluttered from blossom to blossom, light and carefree, completely content. He had no idea anyone named Zhuangzi had ever existed.
Then, suddenly, he woke. There he was again, solid and heavy on his mat. Unmistakably Zhuangzi.
But now he wasn't sure. Was he a man who had dreamed he was a butterfly? Or a butterfly, now dreaming that it was a man?
Surely there is some difference between the two, he said. He called it the transformation of things. So, which one are you? Follow for more ancient stories.
What the original text says
Zhuangzi, Inner Chapters (内篇), Chapter 2, “Qiwulun” (齐物论, On Seeing Things as Equal). Key line: 昔者莊周夢爲胡蝶……周與胡蝶，則必有分矣，此之謂物化。
The narration above is a short adaptation. Read the fuller retelling.
A later interpretation
Lu Xixing (Ming) reads “the transformation of things” as dream and waking, past and present, merging into one: “one yet two, two yet one” (一而二，二而一).
A modern reading (ours)
Zhuangzi uses a dream to loosen our grip on fixed identities. The text calls this “the transformation of things” (物化).
Source
Zhuangzi, Qiwulun chapter (c. 4th c. BCE, public domain); checked against the Chinese text on zh.wikisource.org. Retold in English; illustrations are AI-generated.