Paper short abstract:

Particular dream images are often of uncertain ontological status for Asabano people, who rely on several methods and attendant theories to evaluate whether they are accurate or illusory, and what their source is. This promotes flexibility and agency in distinguishing true from false dreams.

Paper long abstract:

I describe how Asabano people decide which remembered dream sequences represent accurate perceptions of reality versus imaginary thoughts. One approach is judging whether an image matches local religious ideology—if it does, it may be deemed divine and therefore accurate or predictive; if it does not, it may be attributed to a demon, and therefore considered deceitful. Another method is waiting to see if something similar to the dream scenario happens in the future—if it does, this indicates it was predictive and therefore revelatory. Many remembered dreams are of uncertain status, and dreamers may think about or discuss a particular dream's possible source or accuracy. When remembered dream images do not inspire the dreamer with interest or curiosity because of their confused, fragmentary, or dull content, they are usually regarded as meaningless thoughts. The methods used to evaluate the ontological status of particular dream sequences, and the cultural dream theories on which they are based, are multiple and changeable, enabling people to pick and choose whether certain dream vignettes are spiritual communications, sensory perceptions of wandering souls, mystical participation in spiritual perceptions, troubled thoughts deriving from indigestion, or personal thoughts and fanciful images. Indeed, they may be deemed as accurate or illusory predictions based on subsequent outcomes, without any theory being invoked at all. The lack of absolute certainty regarding the ontological status of any particular dream invites speculation, faith, and ongoing possibilities for reassessing the extent to which one's dreams represent reality.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how a community of Melanesian miners understand the relationship between dreaming and the discovery of gold. It argues that the “mirroring process” required to translate oneiric omens into waking events has important implications for how they seek to minimise the impacts and maximise the outputs of their extractive activities.

Paper long abstract:

The Hamtai-Anga people of Mount Kaindi (Papua New Guinea) consider dreams an important means of communicating and interacting with the spirits of the mountain. In the productive fields of hunting and, more recently, artisanal and small-scale mining, certain dreams are understood to predict and facilitate the acquisition of prey and gold. This paper starts from a series of narratives about dreams that led to significant gold discoveries to investigate ethnographically how the Hamtai view the relationship between dreaming experience and future waking events. This exercise will show that the connection between the two should be best described "neither as chance, nor as necessity." (Lima 1999). This is not just because the polyvalent symbolism of dreams makes it hard to identify what events they are meant to predict and facilitate. Rather, even if correctly interpreted the enabling performances of dreams must be "mirrored" in waking life if they are to have an effect. For the Hamtai-Anga of Mount Kaindi, however, this "mirroring" process is tied not just to the waking will of the dreamer (ibid.), but also to the ongoing choice of the human and non-human spiritual entities that interacted with his or her soul in each particular dream experience. In the specific field of gold mining, this has important implications not just for how the miners orient their oneiric and waking life in relation to one another, but also for how they seek to minimise the impacts and maximise the outputs of their extractive activities.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines to what extent the dream-sharing communication is present in modern Slovenian society and what are the reasons for rather "silent" position of dreams in social interaciton.

Paper long abstract:

Proposed paper is based on ethnographic research on dream-sharing communication in modern Slovenia. The research was based on the thesis that dreams are rarely subject of communication; the purpose of research has been to find out to what extent the dream- sharing communication is present in our society and what are the reasons for a presupposed "silent" position of dreams in social interaction. Following the communicative theory of dreaming the research tried to reveal patterns, contents and contexts of dream-sharing in Slovene society.

The study suggests that dream sharing is sometimes part of social interaction ( more frequent between female), but it is mostly within the limits of intimate relations and it usually regards to some "interesting" dreams. On the other hand dream-sharing is more present on internet, or related workshops, which is perceived as esoteric. In the other part of social sphere, where is no communication about dreams, the attitude" I don't dream" prevails.

This attitude seems encouraged by the popular folk saying which describes dreams as something really empty and unreal.

Paper short abstract:

The paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork with Ahmadi Muslims in the UK and discusses Ahmadi understandings and interpretations of dreams in both personal and institutional contexts. The development of new organisational structures built literally on dreams will be explored to suggest how bureaucratic systems based on the dreams of charismatically endowed Khalifas link the mundane with the spiritual world and how such dreams serve to reinforce the faith of believers.

Paper long abstract:

The Ahmadi Muslim movement, founded in the 19th century by a charismatic leader, has been since then one of the most controversial movements within Islam. Yet Ahmadis remain the least known of all Muslim communities and in many Islamic countries they have been defined as heretics and subjected to persecution.

Despite hostility from other Muslim groups the Ahmadis have been able to establish resilient communities whose survival depends on the development of bureaucratically sophisticated organisational structures which sustain local communities and incorporate these into an integrated global media network. These structures, however, are ultimately dependent on their charismatic foundations and on the institution of the Ahmadi Khalifat.

This paper explores the role played by Ahmadiyya interpretations of dreams in sustaining these structures at personal and community levels. Dreams may lead to personal life-changing events and may also institute new organisational structures and offices in this global NRM. For example, the institution of Waqf Nau established by an Ahmadi Khalifa is based on a dream he had for the future of his community. This institution encourages parents to 'donate' a child to the cause of Ahmadiyyat, often before the child is born. The children born into Waqf Nau are selected for special training knowing that their lives are given over to community needs. Parents of such children may not make plans for them as they would for their other children.

Examples of dreams and their interpretations as understood within Ahmadiyya Islam will be developed from both historical and contemporary ethnographic data.

Paper short abstract:

Based on fieldwork in the UK and the Middle East, this paper outlines Ishtakara use in Islamic cultures today. Istakhara involves special prayers before sleep and meditation upon key life choices with subsequent dream interpretation. The paper will explore, with examples, the kinds of Islamic interpretative codes used.

Paper long abstract:

Islam is probably the largest night dream culture in the world today. In Islam, the night dream is thought to offer a way to metaphysical and divinatory knowledge, to be a practical, alternative and potentially accessible source of imaginative inspiration and guidance, and to offer ethical clarity concerning action in this world. Night dreams were one of the forms of revelation experienced by the Prophet Mohammed and the interpretation of 'true dreams', Al-ruya, are part of the belief and practice of Moslems throughout the Islamic world,

Recent studies of the role of night dreams in Islam (Edgar 2007) in the UK, Turkey, Pakistan and Northern Cyprus has shown that dream interpretation and Istikhara (dream incubation) is a significant feature particularly in marriage choice but also sometimes in political and business decision-making. Edgar has shown that dream interpretation is 'an inspirational part of the contemporary militant Jihadist movement in the Middle East'. Istikhara, Islamic dream incubation, was found in these studies to be practised by young and old alike.

Istakhara involves reciting special ritual prayers before going to bed and meditation upon life choices, such as marriage, before sleeping. In the morning the dreamer will try to interpret the meaning of their dream through using Islamic dream interpretation codes. The paper will outline and explore the range and the complexity of interpretative codes used and their relationship to western dream interpretative methods.

Paper short abstract:

The paper explores the complex relationship between belief in fate and belief in the free will which is unfolded in Kyrgyz practices of dream interpretation. Dream interpretation and the magical manipulation of omens, it is argued, are means of experimenting with possible lives under conditions characterised by overwhelming social change.

Paper long abstract:

In Kyrgyzstan dreams are of great significance as sources of omens and divine revelations. Taking its point of departure in my recent fieldwork in the capital of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek, this paper will be concerned with the complex relationship between belief in fate and belief in the free will which is unfolded in Kyrgyz practices of dream interpretation: Through magical practices which manipulate dream omens people sometimes seek to affect what is about to happen, changing the fate that they, in other situations, claim not to have any control of. I will argue that dream interpretation and the magical manipulation of omens can be seen as means of imagining and experimenting with possible lives under conditions characterised by overwhelming social change and unpredictability. Dream omens embody peoples' fears about, and hopes for, how their lives may develop. With the magical acts that people handle dream omens with, they enter a virtual realm, an 'if' land, where they can reflect on how their lives would look like if fate showed up to be one way or the other. Divine signs and magical acts create different kinds of temporality, larger time horizons, to peoples' existence; they create orientations toward imagined futures in situations where the future seems uncertain, and they thereby help people dare to act to bring these imagined futures about.

Paper short abstract:

Departing from ethnographic material of Icelandic society, this paper explores implications of dreaming and dream narration for the establishment and maintenance of social relationships.

Paper long abstract:

The investigation of different conceptions of 'the self' is eminent in anthropological studies of dreaming. In societies, where the dream is viewed as a creation of the mind, self-conceptions are related to the notion of the individual. On the contrary, in those societies where the self is conceived as a multiple self, dreams are often considered to be a true source of knowledge. In this last case, the relationship between the dreamer and other beings in the dream is anthropologically interpreted as a process of identity-making by the dreamer through the inclusion of others.

This paper seeks to explore dreams and 'the other' in the light of 'the other' and not only of 'the self'. I will depart from ethnographic data from the Icelandic society, where dreaming involves two main elements: A partly integration of 'the other' and 'the self', specifically of the dead and the living, and, secondly, various interactions between the dreaming-self and other actors appearing in the dream, whereby each actor's identity is sustained. Upon waking, dreamers might initiate or amend relationships with the people they have dreamed of and know from waking life. Thus, my argument is that a psychological inspired approach, viewing the other as being significant for the dreamer's self in 'making identity', does not appreciate fully the implications of the dream for the initiation and maintenance of social relations and, more than that, for the life of 'the other'.

Paper short abstract:

The paper discuses dream narratives concerning known deceased persons. I argue that attitudes towards this type of dream narratives are specific to traditional as well as to modern society: such dreams are often interpreted as a communication method between the worlds of the living and the dead.

Paper long abstract:

The paper examines narrations in which people describe meetings with deceased persons in their dreams. They understand such dreams as a specific communication method between two allied worlds that need each other. The deceased look for the attention of their relatives and friends: they should pray for them and should not forget them. In return the living people receive information and worldly advice from the world of the dead about forthcoming events.

My ethnography focuses on a local community in Western Slovakia where the Roman Catholic Church has managed to keep its position for a long period. Therefore, the idea of dreams as a communication method between the living and the dead has been rooted in Christian beliefs concerning the after-life that have been confessed by the majority of the local inhabitants in the past as well as in the present. The paper deals with the following questions: (1) to what degree has dream experience been integrated into the public life of the local community and what are the conditions of this integration; (2) how the dream narration is treated in the public discourse; and (3) what are the interpretations of the dreams. I am interested especially in the changes to the interpretations of the dreams that have currently occurred as a result of the post-socialist transformation processes after 1989.