Communing With the Gods, 2
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I |
2 |
Anthropology of Dreaming |
35-66 |
p. 37 "private"?
"No one can observe the dreams of Dreams are private experiences and the best one can do is ... approximate the dreaming of the Other". {This incorrect allegation must have been carelessly (and unintendedly) retained from an earlier draft of this book.} |
{This allegation is in flagrant contradiction of pp. 377-83 infra, discussing "co-dreaming (a.k.a., "shared dreaming," "mutual dreaming"), wherein multiple persons dream the same dream (which is undertaken by teams of expert dreamers).} |
pp. 38-9 Adolph Bastian in New Guinea & in Togo : origin of Structural Anthropology
p. 38 |
"Adolph Bastian (1826-1905) ... published an astounding amount of ethnographic ... information on dream beliefs and practices ... among the peoples of New Guinea and Togo, Zur Mythologie und Psychologie der Nigritier ... . |
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p. 39 |
In that one volume alone, he recorded ... that the soul leaves the {material} body {in order to occupy a dream-body in a dream} and may morph {in shamanic-style dreaming} into animal forms, soul-loss {such as, by the soul's being captured in a dream by dream-deities}, and dream visits at night by ancestors". |
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"It is curious that North American anthropology has paid so little attention to Bastian. ... see Koepping 1983". |
{The reason why this was ignored by the United-States anthropology is quite evidently that it would thereby have granted great respectability to AmerIndian theology (which is heavily based on dream-experiences), and then the then-vicious U.S. government would have been less capable of continuing its policy (as of the 19th century ChrAira) of grossly maltreating and abusing its AmerIndian tribal peoples.} |
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"structuralist thinking that predominated in Bastian's thinking ... passed on through him to Tylor and E'mile Durkheim (1858-1917), then through Lucien Le'vy-Bruhl (1857-1939) and ... to Claude Le'vi-Strauss (1908-2009; see Koepping 2007) ... . ... And, of course, the same strain exists in the history of psychology as well ... again starting with Bastian and passing eventually to Carl G. Jung (1875-1961) and thence to Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) and |
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James Hillman (1926-)." |
{"James Hillman (1926-2011)" (OAC:"JHP").} |
Koepping 1983 = Klaus-Peter Koepping : Adolph Bastian and the Psychic Unity of Mankind. St Lucia : Univ of Queensland.
Koepping 2007 = Klaus-Peter Koepping : "Bastian and Le'vi-Strauss : ... Teleologies". In :- Manuela Fischer, Peter Boltz, Susan Kamuel, & Emily Schalk (edd.) : Adolph Bastian and His Universal Archive of Humanity. Zu:rich : Georg Ohms. pp. 23-31.
OAC:"JHP" = Online Archive of California : "James Hillman Papers". http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8vh5tns/entire_text/
pp. 40-1 structure in biology & "psychic unity of mankind"
p. 40 |
"Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) had earlier developed the notion of |
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structure in biology he called "ur-phenomenon" (Ger : Urpha:nomen), |
[fn. 3 ""ur-" meaning ... "archetypal," ... -- hence the structure underlying biological appearances (Seamon and Zajonc 1998:4, 25-27)."] |
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but Bastian was really the first serious proponent of the psychic unity view in ethnology during the 19th century. ... Every human mind inherits a complement of species-specific "elementary ideas" (Elementargedanken), and hence the minds of all people, regardless of their race or culture, operate in much the same way, structurally speaking. ... |
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p. 41 |
From this perspective, the social group has a kind of group mind, a social "soul" (Gesellschaftsseele) ..., in which the individual's mind is embedded and influenced." |
Seamon & Zajonc 1998 = David Seamon & Arthur Zajonc (edd.) : Goethe's Way of Science : a Phenomenology of Nature. Albany : State Univ of NY Pr.
pp. 41-2 a dream of the author (Ch.D.L.)'s, wherein he recognized a bear as his "personal totem or familiar {spirit}"
p. 41 |
"In one of the most important lucid dreams, ... I noticed a huge brown bear ... |
{"Shirley MacLaine, in one of her current books, recounts a story of a recurring dream in which she is always being chased by a ferocious bear and ... At that point, the "ferocious" bear turned into a Sweet and Shy looking Yogi Bear type character, and ... said : "... It’s your dream!"" ("RD&WhThATTY")} |
p. 42 |
eating berries. ... Looking at the bear, it nodded and went back to eating berries. In that instant I knew, in the dream, that I had found my personal totem or familiar, and so it has turned out to be." |
"RD&WhThATTY" http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Recurring_Dreams_What_Are_They_Trying_To_Tell_You.html
{Anthropologists (and occultists) who describe shamanry (especially in Siberia and in North America) typically designate the divine dream-entity under whose care the shaman is taken, as the shaman's personal "spirit-guide" (or "guiding spirit"), and any animal-spirit recruited in the dream-world for the shaman's assistance as "spirit-helpers" (or "helping spirits"). Here, the author (Ch.D.L.) might seem to have acquired a sort of spirit-helper without having first obtained a spirit-guide. But in certain ethnic cases (especially for Inuit shamans) the shaman is empowered in the dream-world by a praedatory animal (such as, indeed, a bear), who may perform some extreme action (such as, devouring the flesh off the mortal dreamer's dream-body, which skeleton thereupon will regrow new flesh in that dream) imparting spiritual power (such as, of healing ailments), which power the newly-made shaman will retain upon awaking from that dream.} {A totem is not so much shamanic, as much as it is an entity told of in a clan's origin-myth, and having obligatory conventional rites performed (in the ordinary walking world) for it by officers appointed by the clan's governing council.}
p. 43 multilineal evolutionism in anthropology
"Bastian held that ... forces mold the unique evolutionary track ... . He advocated a kind of "multilineal" evolutionism of the sort later espoused by Julian Steward (1902-1972) and his "cultural ecology" approach that influenced so many ethnologists in the 20th century." |
p. 44 Andrew Lang
"Andrew Lang (1844-1912) was ... a prolific poet, novelist, historian and collector ... of folklore and fairy tales. He was also interested in psychical research ... and was one of the founding members of the Society for Psychical Research ... . He wrote a book in 1897 ... that examined the relations between dreaming and paranormal phenomena." |
Lang 1897 = Andrew Lang : The Book of Dreams and Ghosts. London : Longmans.
p. 45 Edward Tylor
"An animistic society holds ... that all animate (animals, birds, trees, crops) and inanimate (rivers, mountains, air) forms have an inner spiritual essence or "soul," and that these souls may be directly experienced by people as animated spirits in their dreams ... . ... |
{According to Siberian and AmerIndian shamanry, animate beings have, each, a soul and an guardian-spirit (or guardian-angel); inanimate entities may have guardian-spirits. Guardian-spirits of animate and of inanimate entities may be visited in dreams.} |
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He emphasizes that ... the spiritual soul is derived from dream experiences in which the soul ... "quits the {material} body" {occupying a dream-body instead} and wanders around ... -- that they are the experiences had by their dream-selves wandering about in another dimension of reality." |
{N.B. This description would apply only to the dreamer, and not to any other beings encountred in the dream. That persons appearing as semblances of known persons are not themselves can be easily established by asking them (when awake) whether they met one in a recent dream; their denial is an absolute disproof. Rarely are actual "souls" of mortals (other than one's own self) encountred in dreams; such dreams are truly extra-ordinary.} |
{Another good instance of traditional religion (of the Siberian/AmerIndian type) is Neo-Platonism (wherein all living beings repeatedly incarnate, and there are supernatural exemplars of species); whereas a semi-instance could be Zaratustrianism, where each species hath (a couple, one for each gendre) its supernatural fravas^i-pair, even though animals do not necessarily undergo metempsychosis.}
p. 46 religions based on direct personal experience
"religions are commonly founded in direct personal experience, sometimes in the dream state, sometimes in other A[ltered]S[tatesOf]C[onsciousness]-like visions, drug trips {to Otherworldly realms}, ... or "waking dreams," and so forth. That is why ..., ... under whatever appellation, |
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the experience of one's spiritual self separating from one's physical body happens all the time in dreams ... . |
{Actually, the only dreams wherein this may occur are dreams of projection of the astral body, which cannot occur until one is very adept at astral projection in the waking-world. But it ("the experience of one's spiritual self separating from one's physical body") must, of course, also occur with each such experience in in the waking-world.} |
Such experiences, shared by people everywhere, call out for comprehension". |
pp. 46-7 Trobriand dreaming
p. 46 |
"a Polish ethnographer, Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942), ... became quite interested in dreaming, as reported in his volumes Sex and Repression in a Savage Society (1927) and The Sexual Life of Savages (1929). Trobriand Islanders ... do make a distinction ... |
p. 47 |
between between normal (Malinowski calls these "free" dreams) and important dreams had by {politically} powerful people and having to do with magic and spirits (Malinowski's "official" dreams; 1927:93)." |
pp. 49-50 Franz Boas : extension to the United States of methodology of Bastian in Germany
p. 49 |
"Franz Boas (1858-1942) ... spent a formative period researching the Inuit of Baffin Island, before returning home to study with Bastian during 1886-87 at the Royal Ethnological Museum in Berlin. ... Boas migrated to the United States and eventually ended up Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University where he put together the first department of anthropology {in the United States of America} ... . ... |
p. 50 |
The American approach to the study of dreams was to be limited to recording the dreams of informants, along with their interpretations and associated stories, rituals, dramas". |
{Curiously,
prior to his taking up the study of anthropology, "Franz Uri
Boas*
(1858-1942) received a Ph.D. in physics in 1881 under Karsten at
Kiel." "Alfred Marston Tozzer (1877–
1954)
received a Ph.D. in 1904 from Harvard University, and he studied at
Columbia University in fall 1904 under Franz Boas and Adolph
Bandelier." "David Humiston Kelley (1924-2011) received a
Ph.D. in 1957 from Harvard University. He was Alfred Tozzer's last
graduate student."
http://www.donstonetech.com/Charts/AcademicGenealogy/KelleyAcademicGenealogy.htm
}
p. 51 "psychological anthropology"
Out of "the case for the study of dreaming ... was born the "culture and personality" school of Margaret Mead (1901-1978), Ruth Benedict (1887-1948), Abram Kardiner (1891-1981)." |
p. 52 Dorothy Eggan : indigenous interpretations of dream-omens
"One of the most avid dream ethnographers during the mid-20th century was Dorothy Eggan (1901-1965). In an article in 1949, she took her fellow ethnographers to task for shirking their responsibility |
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to collect dreams from societies in which dreaming is held to be important. ... |
{Just about the only dreams worthy of being recorded are the more extra-ordinary ones attained by shamans.} |
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In true Boasian tradition, Eggan collected hundreds of dreams from her Hopi informants ... . The Hopi have very clear consensus of elements arising in dreams. |
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For instance, to dream of ... means death, because ... peoples in the American southwest use ... to cleanse the body of the deceased. |
{Far more useful would be an indigenous theory of how the dream-deities are, or become, aware of the probable future in the waking-worlds; and of how those dream-deities construct the dream-scenery so as to indicate those probable futures.} |
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Also, specific kinds of dreams require actions due to beliefs {whose? the dream-deity's own beliefs?} associated with dream symbolism. |
{This would require explanation as to how this is known. Do deities in the dream tell the dreamer what specific action is required?} |
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"Of great importance in the recording of their dreams is a Hopi belief that they are significant and that |
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in order to negate the effects of a bad dream it must be told immediately on awakening, even though a reluctant listeners must be aroused in the middle of the night". |
{Herein, what would be more useful would be an indigenous theory of how the dream-deities are able to cancel some provisional future event in the waking-world by means of a ritual performed by the mortal dreamer in the waking-world.} |
Eggan 1949 = Dorothy Eggan : "Significance of Dreams for Anthropological Research". AMER ANTHROPOLOGIST 51:177-98.
{It could be supposed that the mortal "listener" (to the account of the "bad dream") is expected to dispatch a helper-spirit (who would also be listening) into the dream-world to cope with whatever situation may have gone astray for the person recounting the dream.}
{Only an expert shaman could reasonably be expected to be aware of the dream-deities' purposes, motivations, and means of interconnecting actions between dreaming-world and waking-world. There would be no point in asking opinions on these matters from ordinary layfolk, who could only surmise without experiential background.}
p. 53 Claude Le'vi-Strauss on structuralism
p. 53 |
"Myths are often strange and surreal with fantastic characters ... and unpredictable outcomes. ... What struck Le'vi-Strauss ... was that |
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these weird stories recur over and over across cultures. |
{The most evident cause for unworldly, unearthly events in myths as expounded in similar detail in countries diverse and numerous, is that in a wide variety of such countries numerous mortal dreamers have, while dreaming, visited the same divine worlds wherein similar events are to be witnessed.} |
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This must be, he argued, ... the same as ... |
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an underlying structure of the novel, a` la Roland Barthes' (1915-1980) analysis of literary forms, or |
{Forsooth, dream-deities do compose structured novels which are available to be read in the vast libraries in the dream-worlds, so readily to be visited by dreaming mortals.} |
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[of] a symphony, a` la Heinrich Schenker's (1868-1935) analysis of the structure of classical music." |
{Indeed, deities abiding in dream-worlds do compose structured music, which can be heard in mortals' dreamings.} |
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p. 53, fn. 5 |
"Le'vi-Strauss ... was ... aware of the Schenkerian analysis of the symphonic form (Littlefield and Neumeyer 1992) and was ... influenced by the writings of C. G. Jung ... (see d'Aquili 1975 on Le'vi-Strauss' debt to Jung)." |
Littlefield & Neumeyer 1992 = Richard Littlefield & David Neumeyer : "Rewriting Schenker". MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM 14.1:38-65.
d'Aquili 1975 = Eugene G. d'Aquili : "Influence of Jung on the Work of Claude Le'vi-Strauss". J OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES 11.1:41-8.
p. 54 Adam Kuper et al. on myths in dreaming
"Adam Kuper (1941-) ... has sketched out a structuralist method for analyzing dreams (Kuper 1979, 1983, 1986 ...). ... Kuper notes (1979:645) notes that in many societies, myth and dreaming interpenetrate -- that is ... "... much of the content of dreams tends to become articulate in myths, and myths, or parts of myths, are retold in dream" (Burridge 1972:129; see also Eggan 1955; Kracke 1992; Brown 1992)." |
Kuper 1979 = Adam Kuper : "A Structural Approach to Dreams". MAN (n.s.) 14.4:645-62.
Kuper 1983 = Adam Kuper : "The Structure of Dream Sequences". CULTURE, MEDICINE & PSYCHIATRY 7:153-75.
Kuper 1986 = Adam Kuper : "Structural Anthropology and the Psychology of Dreams". J OF MIND & BEHAVIOR 7.2-3:333-44.
Burridge 1972 = Kenelm Burridge : "Cargo". In :- Pierre Manranda (ed.) : Mythology. Harmondsworth : Penguin. pp. 127-35.
Eggan 1955 = Dorothy Eggan : "Personal Use of Myth in Dreams". J OF AMER FOLKORE Vol. 68 (No. 270), pp. 445-53.
Kracke 1992 = Waud H. Kracke : "Myths in Dreams ...". In :- Barbara Tedlock (editrix) : Dreaming. Cambridge Univ Pr. pp. 31-54.
Brown 1992 = Michael Brown : "Ropes of Sand : ... Aguaruna Dreams". In :- Barbara Tedlock (editrix) : Dreaming. Cambridge Univ Pr. pp. 154-70.
p. 55 "holocultural" study
"Another kind of research began to emerge during the second half of the 20th century -- the holocultural study; that is, a study in which a hypothesis is tested by correlating various traits using a worldwide sample of cultures." |
p. 56 percentages of societies emphasizing so-called ""control of the supernatural" dreams" (COSD) {These would better be styled /dreams involving obtaining co-operation from deities/ : immortal deities residing in the omnipotent dream-world always (and inevitably) control mortals' affairs in the material world, never contrariwise; but mortals by humbly beseeching deities encountred in dreams may be able to secure co-operation from those deities in ameliorating subsistence-conditions for themselves in the waking, material world.}
d'Andrade 1961 (tabulating information from HRAF) |
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# of societies |
societies advocating COSD |
with agriculture & animal-husbandry |
20 |
25% |
with agriculture, not animal-husbandry |
19 |
58% |
with hunting/fishing |
25 |
76% |
d'Andrade 1961 = Roy G. d'Andrade : "Anthropological Studies of Dreams". In :- Francis L. K. Hsu (ed.) : Psychological Anthropology. 1st edn. Homewood (IL) : Dorsey. pp. 296-332.
HRAF = Human Relations Area Files
{Our explication :- It is quite feasible to meet in dreams deities who can be cajoled into sending individual animals in the species which they control, to the vicinity of the hunter/fisher, so the hunter/fisher can readily catch them. It is more difficult to meet in a dream a deity who can affect growth of agricultural plants; and still more difficult to meet a deity who can simultaneously affect both the growth of agricultural plants and also the flourishing of domestic animals. D'Andrade apparently never read enough about shamanic dreaming to be aware of this basic correlation of powers of dream-deities with practicable feasibilities of subsistence in the material, waking-world; so that he instead came up with an unlikely and rather meaningless supposed "explanation".}
p. 57 trance merging into dreaming
"Bourguignon (1972) carried ... further by reasoning that "hallucinogenic {i.e., involving deities observably/noticeably/patently praesent} trance" states are closely allied with COSD {dreaming involving deities observably/noticeably/patently praesent}; |
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so closely in fact that it is hard to tell where trance leaves off and dreaming begins". |
{Where there be a smooth transition of a waking-state (such as, a trance) into a dreaming-state -- without intervening loss of consciousness/memory --, this is known as /wake-induced lucid deaming/ (WILD).} |
Bourguignon 1972 = Erika Bourguignon : "Dreams and Altered States of Consciousness in Anthropological Research". In :- Francis L. K. Hsu (ed.) : Psychological Anthropology. 2nd edn. Cambridge (MA) : Schenkman. pp. 403-34.
p. 57, fn. 6 percentages of societies emphasizing (or not) COSD, which societies also emphasize (or not) trances
Bourguignon 1972 (tabulating information from HRAF) |
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of 37 with trance |
23 (62%) have COSD |
14 (38%) lack COSD |
of 17 without trance |
5 (29%) have COSD |
12 (71%) lack COSD |
p. 58 a false allegation (cited by the author as if it were true) about dreaming
[quoted from Hall & Domhoff 1963a, p. 309] "Major acts of friendliness like saving a life, protecting someone from danger, or rendering a major service are rare. |
{My father, while he was alive on this planet, regularly used to dream of rescuing persons who were about to be killed in accidents. (This is characteristic of anarchists who are seeking to rescue, by largely material means, humanity from capitalism.) I myself have never experienced any such dream, simply because no one hath ever been in any danger, trouble, nor difficulty in any dream of mine -- only joy, peace, and beauty prevail in that wondrously divine world of splendor and of glory.} |
Love, altruism, humanitarianism, benevolence, generosity, and unselfishness ... are not characteristic of the dream world. |
{Neither have I, nor hath any of my closest acquaintances, ever experienced a dream involving personal aggression (though I have certainly experienced dreams of vast rallies against the United States government, and against capitalism generally); every dream throughout my life hath been of great love, altruism, humanitarianism, benevolence, generosity : the essence of communism/socialism. |
Hate and violence are". |
However, pro-capitalists' dreams are indeed full of hate and violence simply because that hideous evil known as "capitalism" (viz., domination of a nation by a single tyrant as "caput/head"), or otherwise as "monotheism" (domination of heaven by a single tyrant), is indeed by its very nature created-and-upheld by hatefulness combined with violence.} |
Hall & Domhoff 1963a = Calvin C. Hall & Bill Domhoff : "Aggression in Dreams". INTERNAT J OF SOCIAL PSYCHIATRY 9:259-67.
{I have heard reports of dreams of personal aggression only from pro-capitalist military-combat veterans, capitalist-stooge agents of capitalist-inspired crimes against humanity. Very evidently, H&D collected dream-reports entirely (or almost entirely) from capitalist-stooge dupes of capitalist-militarist crimes against humanity; and surely must have been capitalist-stooge warmongers themselves (as are most conventional political-state-hireling "psychologists").}
pp. 58-9 gendre-ratios of dream-persons in dreams
p. 58 |
"Hall and Domroff (1963b) published yet another study in ... dreams collected ... . The percentage male characters for male dreamers was 64. ... The |
p. 59 |
percentage male characters for female dreamers was 52 ... . The fact that males dream of male characters more often than {about twice as often as} female characters, and that females dream of both sexes more or less equally may be a universal property of dreaming cross-culturally. This hypothesis "is suggested by evidence from the dreams of two widely separated ethnic groups, the Hopi of southwest United States and the Yir Yoront of Cape York, Australia. ..." (ibid:279)" |
Hall & Domhoff 1963b = Calvin C. Hall & Bill Domhoff : "A Ubiquitous Sex Difference in Dreams". J OF ABNORMAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 66:278-80.
{Our explication :- Men tend to be involved with more interesting activities (making tools, building houses, etc.) than women (whose activities : largely tending young children, managing pet animals, etc., are less interesting than men's). Because the dream-world is intent on keeping mortal dreamers interested and actively involved in the dream, it will tend to focus (especially for male dreamers) mainly on interesting (and thus largely male) activities; for a lack of interest and delight in a dream is usually a cause for its promptly ending with the dreamer's waking. H&D's claim that the dream is required to involve "problems" is itself problematic; for, indeed, puzzling or wondring about some problem, difficulty, or quandary is another cause for prompt waking of the dreamer from sleep -- indeed, it is a usual cause for my own waking from a dream. [written Feb 24 2015]} {Never-the-less, by ingestation of certain herbs selected for their propensity to induce intensely socialized dreams (e.g., the herb damiana), there will result, even in a male, the propensity to dream mainly of females (such as we have found by personal experience), mainly because females are, by far, more inclined, by nature, to social activities. [written Oct 2017]}
p. 59, fn. 7 difference in topics between men's dreams and women's dreams (Colby 1963)
"Men also tended to dream of ... coitus, death and animals more often than women, and |
{Some females have erotic dreams often; and some males seldom have erotic dreams. (In fact, that is the experience in my own circle of acquaintances.) This factor would seem to depend on other circumstances.} |
women dream about mother, clothes and female figures more often than men.} |
{If women dream of clothes, this may be so mainly in cultures where women are expected to select clothing (or, in primitive conditions, to make the clothes). Whether they dream of clothing much otherwise is doubtful.} |
Colby 1963 = Kenneth Mark Colby : "Sex Differences in Dreams of Primitive Tribes". AMER ANTHROPOLOGIST 65:1116-22.
{Our comments :- Where men are expected to handle funerals and to visit graves, they will naturally dream about these matters; but where women are expected to perform those rites instead, they will do the dreaming instead. Where men tend animals more than women, men will dream more of animals; but where women do the tending of the animals, they will do most of the dreaming about those animals. Not to take these cultural factors into account is absurd. [written 2015]} {However, in the special case dreaming about animals who talk in the language of the mortal dreamer, such dreams may as readily be men's dreaming as women's dreaming. [written 2017]}
p. 60 "deep within" what mind of whose construction?
"for structualists the dream is, like a myth {every myth being a record of a dream} ..., the manifestation of a deep {viz., deeply supernatural} structure {viz., divine construction} within the unconscious {though the mortal dreamer be always entirely conscious in every dream?!} mind of each member of the group." |
{Despite of whatever these features may be in regard to mere mortals : yet, for the dream-scene-constructing dream-deities, the dream's structure may be neither "deep" nor "unconscious". Only where dream-deities can be understood as thoroughly actively controlling a passive mortal's mind from the vantage of their august palaces in transcendent planes-of-existence, can any allusion to a mortal's "unconscious mind" enter into consideration of the sublime theology.} |
p. 61 attitude toward the derogatory type of "racism"
"Boas ... was understandably against racism in any form (Stocking 1974). He thus stood opposed to what Graham Richards (1998:137) calls the late Victorian "scientific racism" of the evolutionists." |
Stocking 1974 = George W. Stocking, Jr (ed.) : A Franz Boas Reader : the Shaping of American Anthropology, 1883-1911. Univ of Chicago Pr.
Richards 1998 = Graham Richards : "The Expeditions' Psychological Research 1898-1913". In :- Anita Herle & Sandra Rouse (editrices) : Cambridge and the Torres Strait : Centenary Essays on the 1898 Anthropological Expedition. pp. 136-57.
{Contrasting against the derogatory type of "racism", there is (as could be expected) its opposite, viz., the laudatory type of racism, whereby devotees will regard other racial types than their own as inhaerently better than their own. Although greed-maddened capitalism is always promoting a derogatory type of racism of the most vicious and depraved sort, yet never-the-less communism (i.e., the "communion of the saints") is always promoting a laudatory type of racism of the most beneficent and beneficial sort. [written Oct 2017]}
p. 62 told from childhood to ignore dreams -- told this by materialistic culture
"In modern materialist Western cultures, children are typically taught to disattend their dream states ... (see Mageo 2003b; Wax 2004). Children are taught from infancy that dreams are not real ... . Elementary schools typically do not address one's dream life". |
Mageo 2003b = Jeannette Marie Mageo : "Theorizing Dreaming and the Self". In :- Jeannette Marie Mageo (editrix) : Dreaming and the Self. Albany (NY) : State Univ of NY Pr. pp. 3-22.
Wax 2004 = Murray L. Wax : "Dream Sharing as Social Practice". In :- Charles Stewart (ed.) : Anthropological Approaches to Dreaming. Special issue, DREAMING 14.2-3:83-93.
pp. 63-6 entheophilic worldviews of polyphasic cultures
p. 63 |
"Dreams ... tend ... to inform culture ... with respect to spiritual issues (see Blainey 2010 on "entheophilic" vs "entheophobic" worldviews; see also Walsh 2007:Chap. 24). {Entheophobic} Western societies are what we call monophasic {viz., reductionist (materialist)} cultures (... McManus, Laughlin and Shearer 1993; LaHood 2007 ...; Rodd 2006) which tend to skew |
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the development of consciousness away from ASC and |
{Objection to terminology :- Waking-state consciousness is as much [or more] "altered" (away from to natural state of the soul) as is any other state.} |
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toward perceptual and cognitive processes oriented outward to the external world." |
{Objection to terminology :- The dream-universe is as "external" (so experienced by the consciousness) as is the waking-universe.} |
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p. 64, fn. 9 |
"in many societies one's identity is essentially polyphasic -- ... one's identity transcends the limits of the waking ego structure (Laughlin 1989, 1994a; Laughlin, McManus and Shearer 1983; Walsh and Vaughan 1980), and ... the native's understanding of dreaming may be couched in transpersonal terms (see ... Ewing 1994 ...)." |
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p. 64 |
""People in the medieval and early modern period often saw dreams as communications from God ... . For the ancients, dreams were ... visitations. ..." (Pick and Roper 2004:3; see also Parman 1991:Chap. 2 and 3; Kruger 2005). ... there are in excess of 4000 cultures on the planet today, and roughly 90% of them seek out and value experiences in ASC, and especially in dreams (... Bourguignon and Evascu 1977). |
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p. 65 |
We call these polyphasic cultures, meaning that they value experiences had in the dream-life, as well as those had in trance states ... (see Locke and Kelly 1985). ... I with to imply ... that there are also societies whose dream cultures are intermediate between extreme monophasic and polyphasic systems, and that societies do, in fact, range from no interest in dreaming to intense interest in dreaming with every combination in between. |
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... there exists a kind of watershed {or, in analytic-algebra terms, "inflection-point"} ... where disattention to ASC altogether will produce an extremely monophasic standpoint, identity and culture conjoined to an extremely materialistic political economy." |
{In the place of multiple planes-of-existence resided in by multiple categories of deities, there is substituted (in the theologic cosmology) only a single plane (the material plane of the waking-state), whereof the various deities become mutually aequated through a process of "consubstantiation" -- which is aequivalent in a materialistic world to a consolidation of [inter]national wealth into the grip of a single tyrant/despot.} |
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"But polyphasic cultures ... are societies in which dream experiences are often conceived by most people as different {surreal} aspects of reality, not unreality {irreality} ... . |
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Their sense of identity incorporates memories of experiences had in dreams and other ASC, as well as in waking life. |
{Not only "memories", but also ongoing praesence throughout waking life, of the deities encountred in dreams; for such deities, after having manifested themselves in dreams with promises to assist the mortal dreamer in waking-life, remain a continual praesence in waking-life, invisibly observing from the astral plane the deeds and needs of the prote'ge'-mortal.} |
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What we call {visiting, or being ensconced in} a "dream{-world}" may be {Otherworldly deeds of} the polyphasic ego (soul, spirit, shadow, etc.) of a person experiencing another domain of reality (e.g., Herr 1981:334 on |
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fuzzy boundaries between ... dream, hallucination and vision; |
{A dream may transfigure itself (via "sleep-paralysis") into a waking vision; or a waking vision may transmute itself (through "wake-induced lucid dreaming" process) into a dream.} |
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Merrill 1992 on this issue among the Rama`miru {sic : read "Rara`muri". /Ramamiru/ is a Romanian name and a Tamil name.} of {northwestern} Mexico). One can thus understand why the ethnographer Jean-Guy Goulet's Guajiro (a South American people {specifically, the tribe inhabiting the paeninsula, of that name, jutting from the northeast coast of Colombia}) hosts would not allow him to live with them unless he |
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"knew how to dream" (1994:22). |
{would demonstrate respect and admiration for dreaming, whether one's own, or that of others} |
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One may also understand why the anthropology of dreaming has for generations focused upon polyphasic cultures, |
{implying, of course, that antipathies of anthropologists themselves are "at odds with" {in discord with, in opposition to} materialism} |
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p. 66 |
perhaps because they are so at-odds with ... Western ... materialist expectations |
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(see ... Kennedy and Langness 1981 ...; O'Nell 1976 ...; von Grunebaum 1966 ...; Woods and Greenhouse 1974)." |
Blainey 2010 = Mark Blainey : "Towards an Ethnometaphysics of Consciousness". ANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 21.2:113-38. http://smartsheep.org/running-head-towards-an-ethnometaphysics-of-consciousness
Walsh 2007 = Roger Walsh : The World of Shamanism. Woodbury (MN) : Llewellyn.
McManus, Laughlin, & Shearer 1993 = John McManus; Charles D. Laughlin; Jon Shearer : "The Function of Dreaming in the Cycles of Cognition". In :- Allan Moffitt; Milton Kramer; Robert Hoffman (edd.) : The Function of Dreaming. Albany (NY) : State Univ of NY Pr. pp. 21-50.
LaHood 2007 = Gregg LaHood : "One Hundred Years of Sacred Science : Participation and Hybridity in Transpersonal Anthropology". RE-VISION 29.3:37-48.
Rodd 2006 = Robin Rodd : "Piaroa Sorcery and the Navigation of ... Affect". ANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 17.1:35-64.
Laughlin 1989 = Charles D. Laughlin : "Transpersonal Anthropology : Some Methodological Issues". WESTERN CANADIAN ANTHROPOLOGIST 5:29-60.
Laughlin 1994a = Charles D. Laughlin : "Transpersonal Anthropology, Then and Now". TRANSPERSONAL REVIEW 1.1:7-10.
Laughlin, McManus, & Shearer 1983 = Charles D. Laughlin; John McManus; Jon Shearer : "Dreams, Trance and Visions". PHOENIX : THE J OF TRANSPERSONAL ANTHROPOLOGY 7.1-2:141-59.
Walsh & Vaughan 1980 = Roger Walsh & Frances Vaughan : Beyond Ego : Transpersonal Dimensions in Psychology. Los Angeles : J. P. Tarcher.
Ewing 1994 = Katherine R. Ewing : "Dreams from a Saint". AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST 96.3:571-83.
Pick & Roper 2004 = D. Pick & L. Roper : "Introduction". In :- Daniel Pick & Lyndal Roper (edd.) : Dreams and History : the Interpretation of Dreams ... . London : Routledge.
Parman 1991 = Susan Parman : Dream and Culture. Westport (CT) : Praeger.
Kruger 2005 = Steven Kruger : Dreaming in the Middle Ages. Cambridge Univ Pr.
Bourguignon & Evascu 1977 = Erika Bourguignon & T. L. Evascu : "Altered States of Consciousness ... : a Holocultural Analysis". BEHAVIOR SCIENCE RESEARCH 12.3:197-216.
Locke & Kelly 1985 = Ralph G. Locke & Edward F. Kelly : "A Preliminary Model for the Cross-cultural Analysis of Altered States of Consciousness". ETHOS 13.1:3-55.
Herr 1981 = Barbara Herr : "The Expressive Character of Fijian Dream ... Experiences". ETHOS 9.4:331-52.
Merrill 1992 = William Merrill : "The Rara`muri Stereotype of Dreams". In :- Barbara Tedlock (editrix) : Dreaming : Anthropological ... Interpretations". Cambridge Univ Pr. pp. 194-219.
Goulet 1994 = Jean-Guy Goulet : "Dreams and Visions in Other Lifeworlds". In :- David E. Young & Jean-Guy Goulet (edd.) : Being Changed by Cross-cultural Encounters. Peterborough (ON) : Broadview Pr. pp. 16-38.
Kennedy and Langness 1981 = Joh n G. Kennedy & L. L. Langness : "Introduction". ETHOS 9.4 (special issue on dreaming) :249-57.
O'Nell 1976 = Carl W. O'Nell : Dreams, Culture and the Individual. San Francisco : Chandler & Sharp.
von Grunebaum 1966 = G. E. von Grunebaum : "Cultural Functions of the Dream as Illustrated by Classical Islam". In :- Gustave Edmund von Grunebaum & Roger Caillois (edd.) : The Dream and Human Societies. Berkeley : Univ of CA Pr. pp. 3-21.
Woods & Greenhouse 1974 = Ralph L. Woods & Herbert B. Greenhouse (edd.) : The New World of Dreams. London : MacMillan.
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Charles D. Laughlin : Communing With the Gods : Consciousness, Culture, and the Dreaming ... . Daily Grail Publ, Brisbane, 2011.