I heard this story in my early teens.
A widowed old man had a dream which featured his wife.
In the dream, she kept saying to him, in their S.E.Chinese dialect of Hokkien (Fújiànhuà / 福建话; Taiwan’s equivalent is called 閩南話 Mǐnnán huà), over and over again, “chair, wipe wipe”.
The next day, it kept re-playing in his head.
He thought, “I know she’d always been a nagger, and I know that I now need to do the housework myself since she’s gone, but why come into my dream to nag me about wiping the chairs in particular? What a strange message!”
After playing the message for the nth time in his head, the sounds “gao yi chit chit / chair wipe wipe” soon became “gao yi chit chit / 9 1 7 7”.
He went and put some money on 9177 at the four-digit lottery shop. And it came up!
(Singapore, 1960s)
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