Once, in a certain city, there lived a Brāhmana named Misery. By begging for alms, he collected barleymeal and after eating part of it stored the rest in a clay jar which he hung on a peg in the wall. Placing his cot right under the jar he gazed up at it for hours each night until he fell into a reverie.Night after night he created a scenario in his reverie, which went as follows: 'Sometime this jar will become completely filled with barleymeal: then a famine will strike this land and the barleymeal will fetch a hundred silver coins. With that money I shall purchase a pair of goats; as goats have kids every six months, I shall soon be able to build up a herd of goats. With those, I shall purchase a pair of cows whose calves I shall of course sell to purchase some mares. As the mares start to foal I shall soon acquire a whole lot of horses. By selling the horses I can amass a great store of gold. With the gold I shall acquire a mansion with a courtyard and large halls. Then someone will come to my mansion and offer me his beautiful daughter blessed with all excellences. A son will be born to us whom I shall name Moonbeams. When he is old enough to crawl on all fours, I shall be sitting one day in the garden behind the stables with a book in my hand and be lost in contemplation. Meanwhile, Moonbeams, my boy, will see me sitting there and getting out of his mother's arms, will make for me in his eagerness to ride on my knee; but he will go too near the horses. This will make me angry and I shall shout to the Brāhmani, his mother, "Hey, you! catch hold of the boy, pick him up." But being busy with household chores my wife will not hear. Whereupon I shall rise straight away and give her a good kick on her behind.'One night sunk as he was in a deep reverie, Misery let fly a good string kick upwards and caught the jar, smashing it. All the flour spilled out and fell on poor Misery turning him white all over.
In Aesop's Fables, there's a similar story about a milkmaid (No. 29 in the Barnes & Noble Classics edition, translated by V.S. Vernon Jones):
A farmer's daughter had been out to milk the cows and was returning to the dairy carrying her pail of milk upon her head. As she walked along, she fell a-musing after this fashion: "The milk in this pail will provide me with cream, which I will make into butter and take to market to sell. With the money I will buy a number of eggs, and these, when hatched, will produce chickens, and by and by I shall have quite a large poultry yard. Then I shall sell some of my fowls, and with the money which they will bring in I will buy myself a new gown, which I shall wear when I go to the fair. And all the young fellows will admire it, and come and make love to me, but I shall toss my head and have nothing to say to them." Forgetting all about the pail, and suiting the action to the word, she tossed her head. Down went the pail, all the milk was spilled, and all her fine castles in the air vanished in a moment!
In both stories, a single asset is imagined to be sold and multiplied into ever greater possessions, but then the dreamer, caught up in his or her vision, does something that results in the loss of the one tangible good on which the whole dream is based.
