Dreaming Spaces

Dreams are enigmatic things. There’s a long world-wide tradition of shamans and mystics from culture world-wide putting their dream time to good use, rather than just drifting randomly. The tasks they claim to carry out during their dream time include healing, predicting the future, finding good locations for hunting and foraging, and generally relaxing and having fun. Stories of shamans using dream trances for healing and communicating with their spirits are especially common in anthropological research, but there are many accounts of dreams used for far stranger purposes than talking to spirits.

Sunset in Criação Velha, Pico Island Azores by Ulrich Thumult

In “A Pattern of Islands” by Arthur Grimble, a British colonial officer wrote about his early career stationed in the Gilbert & Ellis Islands of the South Pacific at the start of the 20th century. In one fascinating chapter, he tells how the natives of one island decide to throw a huge feast, at which the food is going to be large fish. Rather than let the fishermen actually go out and actively hunt the fish, the village shaman went to sleep, and entered a lucid dream. He then located a school of fish from within his dream. Once he had found them, he moved himself to them in the dream, and politely asked them to come to the beach which his hut was upon, so that the villagers could eat them. In return for their selfless generosity, he promised the fish that they would be honoured guests at the feast at which they were served.

The shaman then woke up, and told Grimble about the dream. A few hours later, Grimble was shocked to see a number of large fish swim straight into the bay and as far up into the shallow waters as they could get. They then remained passively in the water while the fishermen of the village went amongst them, slaughtering them and dragging the carcasses up onto the beach to prepare them for the feast at which they would be both honoured guests and main course.

But it gets stranger than that. There are stories of a small Indonesian tribe in which all the people shared a common dream. Every night, all the people would dream of the same city, a wondrous place of islands covered with tall, thin spires and connected by airy walkways. The astounding fact is that during these dreams, all the people were fully aware of all the other dreamers, and could interact with them normally. When they awoke the following morning, they would all remember exactly what had happened, and what they had said to whom, as would those people they had talked to. In effect, life continued as if they were awake, but just in a different location.

Just imagine what might be achieved if we could harness our dream-time on an everyday basis…