Dr Iain R. Edgar
Department of Anthropology
Cultural dreaming or dreaming cultures? The anthropologist and the dream
Anthropologists have historically been more concerned than sociologists with the
study of dream as an aspect of the social life of the groups they studied. This probably
arises from three intersecting factors. First, many of the societies they studied
respected the dream and clearly acted upon the insights apparently gained from them.
Secondly, therefore, the study of dream became a part of the holistic analysis that
partly defined the enterprise of social anthropology. Thirdly, anthropologists were
aware that dream and myth had similar features, both being sequences of vivid images
and depending upon inner visualisation for communication and impact' (Kracke, 1947,
p.32). Kracke regards myths and dreams as being 'closely related', and refers to
Burridge's use of the term 'myth-dream' to describe the situation in societies, such
as Rastafarian cults, which do not make a clear separation of the two imaginative
forms. Myths have been analysed as if they were the dreams of a culture (Abraham,1979,
pp.153-210). Moreover, as myth for Lévi-Strauss (1966, p.17) is a form of bricolage,
so the dream for Kracke is a form of bricolage in that the dream gathers:
from among the day residues ready to hand, and uses them to express metaphorically
an emotional conflict, and to work out (or work toward) some resolution of it (1987,
p.38).
Kracke (1987, p.33) demonstrates in his analysis of Kagwahiv Indian Amazonian society
that the Kagwahiv Indians make a fruitful exchange between the associations and interpretations
made from their myths and the way they explain their dream imagery to themselves.
However, as well as similarities there are differences also, as whilst 'a dream recounted
ends as a narrative, a myth begins as one' (Kracke,1987, p.36).
The development of anthropological studies of dreaming.
Anthropologists have therefore constantly been confronted with their subjects' concern
and different evaluation of dream contents and alternative conceptions of the distinction
between objective and subjective reality. Tylor (1871, p.88) perhaps began the cross-cultural
interest in dreaming through his understanding of non-literate people's lack of a
hard distinction between reality and illusion (Parsifal-Charles 1986, p.477), and
his perception that myth creation, mythogenesis, was a product of dreaming by way
of animism. Freud's work in the early twentieth century stimulated the first main
phase of anthropological enquiry into dreaming. Seligman (1921,1923,1924) sought
to test the Freudian hypothesis that the latent meaning of dreams was universal across
cultures (Tedlock, 1987a, p.20). Colonial workers were invited to to provide manifest
dream materials which were analysed to discover so-called 'type-dreams'. This analysis
was conducted without consideration of their cultural and communicative context.
Later, Lincoln (1935, p.22) in his study of North American Indian dreams developed
a distinction between 'individual' and correspondingly unimportant dreams, and 'culture
pattern dreams' which were significant for the group and actively pursued. Although
Lincoln perhaps is given the credit for the development of a typology of dreaming
based on ethnographic research (Parsifal-Charles,1986, p.291), even his results are
now considered ethnocentric (Tedlock,1987a, p.21). The 1940s and 1950s saw the development
of the content theory of dream analysis (Hall, 1951, pp.60-3; Eggan, 1952, pp.469-485;
Hall and Van de Castle, 1966, p.17). This attempt to quantify and consequently to
analyse cross-culturally partly reflected the culture and personality school of social
anthropology. The culture and personality school of North American anthropology sought
to identify and analyse core personality traits as being formed by cultural influences.
This has continued into the 1980s with the work of Gregor (1981, p.353). Indeed the
content analysis of dreams is still used in psychological research. Catalano (1987),
for example, recently sought to prove through content analysis that the dreams of
emotionally disturbed adolescents are different from those of normal adolescents.
The voluminous extraction of dream symbolism by these anthropologists allowed the
compilation of numerous manifest dream reports and their cross-cultural analysis
for personality and cultural variables. Whilst this approach does attempt to value
the dream positively as psychodynamically and culturally significant, it is, in fact,
an approach that decontextualises dreams. The importance of dream narration, dream
discourse and indigenous dream theory is almost entirely ignored. Moreover, Crapananzo
(1981, pp.145-158) has argued that the ethnocentricism of the content analysis school
of dream analysis is based on an epistemology that reduces language to a merely referential
function.
The development of ethnopsychiatry from the 1950s onward by Devereux (1980) is another
anthropological landmark in the analysis of dreaming. Devereux (1969, pp.139-168)
in his work with North American Indian groups sought to further integrate a Freudian
approach into anthropological fieldwork. Devereux (1966, p.213) applied Freudian
concepts of transference and reality-testing to dream reports as well as making a
critical analysis of the concept of the pathogenic dream. He was concerned particularly
with the notion of causality that underpins this concept. In a study of a Crow Indian
Devereux (1969, p.139) analysed his Indian patient's dream within the cultural context
of the Crow Indian vision quest and showed how he himself used this cultural context
for therapeutic work with this patient. Devereux's work effectively initiated the
subject of ethnopsychiatry or transcultural psychiatry. For instance Devereux was
able to use in therapy his Crow Indian patient's cultural belief that success in
the dream world anticipated successful behaviour in waking reality. Devereux (1969,
p.165) showed how the Crow Indian incorporated Devereux as therapist within the identity
of a Crow Indian Spirit Being. Devereux facilitated the patient's orientation to
reality through the therapeutic use of the patient's culturally sanctioned and prolific
dreaming. However, as Obeyesekere (1990, p.21) has pointed out in his criticism of
Devereux's culturally specific reflexivity, for Devereux the 'manipulation of ethnic
symbols' may only provide adjustment but not introspective self-awareness or 'curative
insight'.
Another psychoanalytically orientated anthropological approach to the analysis of
dreams was that of D'Andrade (1961, pp.327-8) who analysed the function of dreams
in sixty-three societies, using material from the Human Relations Area Files. D'Andrade
concluded that dream usage arose out of anxiety, and that in hunter-gatherer societies,
where there was a need for more self-reliance than in pastoral-agrarian societies
there was also significantly increased use of dreams. By the 1970s dreamwork was
beginning to be considered within the context of the cultural system of which it
was a part. Crapanzano (1975, pp.145-158) analysed the metaphorical usage of saints
and jnuns in the dreamworld of the Moroccan Hamadsha. He showed that personal use
of particular dream symbols, and their performative function in terms of conflict
recognition and possible solution, were firmly embedded within the 'implicit folk
psychology' of the culture.
I have already noted that the similarity between myth and dream is an abiding theme
in social anthropology. Kuper (1979, pp.645-662) and Kuper and Stone (1982, pp.1225-1234)
attempted to apply the structuralist method of analysis of myth, developed by Lévi-Strauss
(1963, pp.206-231), to dream. Kuper considered that the similarity between myth and
dream was that both are attempts to cope with problems of reality. These authors
proceed to analyse certain dreams and dream sequences as if they constituted a systematic
argument which used an ordered set of transformations to reach a resolution. In their
analysis they attempt to show that the binary rules that structure mythical thought
can be transposed to our understanding of dream content. Whether a structuralist
approach of this kind marks a major breakthrough in the understanding of the dream
in society is unclear. Tedlock recognised that Kuper had succeeded in discovering
'underlying linguistically coded analytical rules' (1987a, p.27) within the dream
narrative. However she and others have raised various criticisms of this approach.
The observance of rules does not imply that such rules generate the dream material.
Kracke (1987, pp.50-52) as we have seen, argues that myth and dreams are also essentially
different in that myths move from verbal narration to sensory imagery whilst dreams
move from imagery to narration. Hence the narrative texts of dreams and myths, whilst
related as we have already seen, are still dissimilar.
A structuralist approach, which is concerned with the analysis of the 'latent' analytical
binary structure of the dream, can then be a part only of the cultural understanding
of dream material, particularly as it is not concerned with the importance of the
communicative context of the dream report itself.
A communicative theory of meaning
Anthropologists have continued to develop the concept of the dream report. Tedlock
suggested that the manifest dream content:
should be expanded to include more than the dream report. Ideally it should include
dream theory or theories and ways of sharing, including the relevant discourse frames,
and the cultural code for dream interpretation (1987a, p.25).
Tedlock describes this perspective as a communicative theory of dreaming. This theory
has to consider the dream narration as a communicative event involving three overlapping
aspects: the act and creation of narration, the psychodynamics of narration, and
the culturally bounded group (emic) interpretive framework. Such a theory considers
the analysis of dream as more than that of an hermeneutically based text. It is also
a social and cultural process or activity with expressive and instrumental outcomes.
When this takes place then, we may take seriously Herdt's proposition:
that culture may actually change experience inside of dreams, or that the productions
of dreaming do actually become absorbed and transfomed into culture (1987, p.82).
The communicative theory of dreaming then, alerts us to the importance of the psychodynamics
of the social setting and the interpretive framework of the participants. The social
anthropologist is concerned with the analysis of an interpretive framework which
necessarily structures both narration and interpretation. The Tedlock (1987) volume
seeks to redefine the boundary between the psychology and the social anthropology
of dreaming. The customary distinction between psychology's field being the intra-personal
and anthropology's being the social is broken down. Psychology needs to understand
how the dreamer uses concepts and language which are, of necessity, culturally based
to narrate dreams. Anthropology, on the other hand, has to recognise that the communication
and framing of dream narratives are always dependent upon the dream theory of the
culturally bounded group.
Such an overview of the continued interest of social anthropology and the dream would
not be complete without brief reference to Jedrej and Shaw's edited work on the role
of the dream in African social and religious life (Jedrej and Shaw 1992). This collection
of essays makes both theoretical and ethnographic contributions to our understanding
of dreams in human affairs through its wide-ranging consideration, both historical
and contemporary, of the often prophetically-understood use of dream imagery in this
continent.
References
Abraham, K. (1979), 'Dreams and Myths: a Study in Folk Psychology' Clinical Papers
and Essays on Psychoanalysis, Hogarth Press, London.
Crapanzano,V. (1975), 'Saints, Jnun, and dreams: an essay in Moroccan ethnopsychiatry',
Psychiatry, 38.
Crapanzano,V. (1981) 'Text, Transference and Indexicality', Ethos, 9: 122-48.
D'Andrade, R. (1961), 'Anthropological Studies of Dreams', in Hsu. F. (ed.), Psychological
Anthropology: Approaches to Culture and Personality, Dorsey, Homewood, Ill.
Devereux, G. (1966), 'Pathogenic dreams in Non-Western societies', in Grunebaum,
V. and Caillois R. (eds.), The Dream and Human Societies, University of California
Press, Berkeley.
Devereux, G. (1969), Reality and Dream. Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian, New
York, International Universities Press.
Eggan, D. (1952), 'The manifest content of dreams: A challenge to social sciences',
In American Anthropologist vol.54.
Gregor, T. (1981), 'A content analysis of Mehinaku dreams', Ethos vol.9.
Hall, C. (1951), 'What people dream about', In Scientific American, vol. 184,
no. 5.
Hall, C. and Van De Castle, R. (1966), The Content Analysis of Dreams, New
American Library, New York.
Herdt, G. (1987), 'Selfhood and Discourse in Sambia Dream Sharing', in Tedlock, Barbara
(Ed.), Dreaming: Anthropological and Psychological Interpretations, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge.
Kracke, W. (1987), 'Myths in Dreams, Thought in Images: an Amazonian Contribution
to the Psychanalytic Theory of Primary Process', in Tedlock, Barbara (ed.), Dreaming:
Anthropological and Psychological Interpretations, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge.
Jedrej, M. and Shaw, R.(Eds.) (1992), Dreaming, Religion and Society in Africa,
Brill, Leiden.
Kuper, A. (1979), 'A structural approach to dreams', Man, vol. 14.
Kuper, A. and Stone, A. (1982), 'The dream of Irma's injection: a structural account',
American Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 139.
Lévi-Strauss, C. (1963), 'The structural study of myth', in Basic Books,
New York.
Lévi-Strauss, C. (1966), The Savage Mind, University of Chicago Press,
Chicago, Ill.
Lincoln, J. (1935), The Dream in Primitive Cultures, William and Wilkins,
Maryland.
Obeyesekere, G. (1990), The Work of Culture, University of Chicago Press,
Chicago.
Parsifal-Charles, N. (1986), The Dream: A Critical, Descriptive and Encyclopaedic
Bibliography, Locust Hill Press, West Cornwall, Ct.
Seligman, C. G. (1921), 'Notes on dreams', Sudan Notes and Records, vol. 4.
Seligman, C. G.(1923), Type dreams: a request', Folklore, vol. 34.
Seligman, C.G. (1924), Anthropology and psychology: Presidential Address, Journal
of the Royal Anthropological Institute, vol. 4.
Tedlock, B. (1987a), 'Dreaming and Dream Research', In Tedlock, Barbara (ed.), Dreaming:
Anthropological and Psychological Interpretations, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge.
Tylor, E. (1871), Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology,
Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art and Custom, John Murray, London.
If you are interested in how anthropologists have used dreams of their informants
and even their own dreams then go to cultdream2 for a summary and references.
link to cultdream2
If you are interested in seeing my 10 minute video clip of my presentation of a paper on my use of my dreams during my fieldwork in a therapeutic community then go to:
If you are interested in the subject of how dreams contribute to myths and identities
of nationalisms, such as Zionism and Serbian national identity then go to cultdream.political
link to cultdream.political
For further information about dreamwork go to the Association for the Study of Dreams
websites
link to http://www.ASDreams.org
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