賴聲川的千禧年劇作《如夢之夢》涵蓋了旅人跨世紀、跨文化的生命之旅。主角五號病人的旅行路線透露了藏傳佛教圖騰「曼陀羅」的空間結構，隱喻式地傳達「修行」與「旅行」的連結。然而，藏傳佛教的「曼陀羅」圖騰較偏向結論式的宗教觀點。若以此單一視角來探討本劇，似乎過於簡化旅行過程中與異己相遇時的種種可能性。因此，本文將納入德勒茲 (Gilles Deleuze) 與葛塔力 (Félix Guattari) 對於生命路線型態的觀點，比較「曼陀羅」結構與「德勒茲」旅行路線的異同；並探討《如夢之夢》如何成功地融合呈現兩者——輪迴的色彩亦充滿各種旅行議題的著墨。

A Dream Like a Dream is Stan Lai’s millennium stage work thatencompasses No. 5 Patient’s epic-like journey. In his cross-culture/century trip, No. 5 Patient is not merely traveling, but also practicing the Buddhist rules. It is evident that Stan Lai infuses the Tibetan Buddhist’s philosophy into this play. Due to its religious implication, in recent years the Mandala structure of this work has been foregrounded in many studies, which highlights the subject of transmigration, suffering, and Nirvana.Though the play is embedded with the metaphors of Buddhism, it would be reductive if we read this play with only one religious perspective.To avoid such reduction, this study will take the issue of “encountering the other” into consideration by bringing Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s notion onto the traveler’s lines of travel. It accordingly aims to reveal how A Dream Like a Dream manifests a fusion of the Mandalian structure and Deleuzian lines of travel. This complementary model will expose the problematic reading of fixing this play under the general structure of Mandala.