Zhuangzi's Butterfly Dream is a famous philosophical anecdote from Zhuangzi, a fundamental text in Chinese Taoism, attributed to the philosopher Zhuangzi, aka Zhuangzou, who lived around the 4th century BCE.

The story goes as follows.

Zhuangzi dreamed he as a butterfly fluttering without care in the world, completely embodying its butterfly nature.

Upon awakening, he finds himself to be Zhuangzi again, and then struck by a puzzling thought.

Was he Zhuangzi dreaming he was a butterfly, or is he now butterfly dreaming he is Zhuangzi?

This narrative explores the nature of reality and the distinction, or like layer of between dream and reality.

It questions the solidity of our identity and the certainty of what we consider to be the real world, suggesting that the boundary of our identity are fluid, and that our sense of self might be a construct shaped by our perception, which can be as deceptive as dreams.