The Dream Pool Essays (梦溪笔谈) was an extensive book written by the polymath Chinese scientist and statesman Shen Kuo (沈括) (1031-1095) by 1088 AD, during the Song Dynasty (960-1279) of China. Although Shen was previously a highly renowned government official and military general, he compiled this enormous written work while virtually isolated on his lavish garden estate near modern-day Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province. He named the book after the name he gave to his estate, the "Dream Brook". The literal translated meaning is Brush Talks from a Dream Brook, and in his biography in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Shen Kuo is quoted as saying:

"Because I had only my writing brush and ink slab to converse with, I call it Brush Talks."

Book chapters of the Meng Xi Bi Tan:
Total number of paragraphs: 584

The Humanities:

Official life and the imperial court (60 paragraphs)
Academic and examination matters (10 paragraphs)
Literary and artistic (70 paragraphs)
Law and police (11 paragraphs)
Military (25 paragraphs)
Miscellaneous stories and anecdotes (72 paragraphs)
Divination, magic, and folklore (22 paragraphs)

The Natural Sciences:

On the I Ching, Yin and Yang, and 5 elements (7 paragraphs)
Mathematics (11 paragraphs)
Astronomy and calendar (19 paragraphs)
Meteorology (18 paragraphs)
Geology and mineralogy (17 paragraphs)
Geography and cartography (15 paragraphs)
Physics (6 paragraphs)
Chemistry (3 paragraphs)
Engineering, metallurgy, and technology (18 paragraphs)
Irrigation and hydraulic engineering (6 paragraphs)
Architecture (6 paragraphs)
Biological sciences, botany, and zoology (52 paragraphs)
Agricultural arts (6 paragraphs)
Medicine and pharmaceutics (23 paragraphs)

The Humanistic Sciences:

Anthropology (6 paragraphs)
Archeology (21 paragraphs)
Philology (36 paragraphs)
Music (44 paragraphs)