Lu monologues that a good and happy life ought to have a certain level of prestige, wealth, and glory, and immediately after he finishes speaking he falls into a deep slumber.
He grew old inside the pillow and upon his dying breath wrote a memorandum about his life and divine fate explaining that his strife was in vain.
This theme is evident in the moral of "The World Inside a Pillow" as the man Lu realizes that all of his strife was in vain.
"The Governor of Nanke" is a work that was regarded by the Chinese literary critic Lu Xun as a superior dream tale to "The World Inside a Pillow".
The episode "Puhoy" of the American animated television series Adventure Time explores a similar story line when the show's main character Finn builds a giant pillow fort.