The Dream Pool Essays represents the earliest known writing about the magnetic compass, movable type printing, experimentation with the camera obscura only decades after Ibn al-Haytham, and includes many different fields of study in essay and encyclopedic form, including geology, astronomy, botany, zoology, mineralogy, anatomy, pharmacology, geography, optics, economics, military strategy, philosophy, etc.

Published in this year by the polymath scientist and statesman Shen Kuo, the book features some of Shen's most advanced theories, including geomorphology and gradual climate change, while he improves Chinese astronomy by fixing the position of the pole star and correcting the lunar error by plotting its orbital course every night for a continuum of five years.

Shen's book is also the first to describe the drydock in China, and discusses the advantages of the relatively recent invention of the canal pound lock over the old flash lock.