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Of all the human behaviors anthropologists consider, perhaps the most conceptually challenging are those that cannot by directly observed. This volume draws from rich ethnographic data to offer theoretical and methodological tools for mapping the intersections between two such behaviors: dreaming and imagination. Although Western perspectives tend to cast these as personal experiences contained within individual minds, each contributor explores diverse cultural and historical contexts to demonstrate how these behaviours are always in some sense cultural and influenced by social others. The cross-cultural approach suggests theoretical flexibility and expands the study of imagination across multiple disciplines.
“This is an excellent work and will rank as a top resource in its field ... The editor has skillfully persuaded the contributors to orient their works around core issues of the imagination. This establishes a high degree of conceptual and methodological consistency through the book.” • Kelly Bulkeley, Director, ‘The Sleep and Dream Database’
“Makes an argument for how the theme of dreams and dreaming may take on a more central role in advancing anthropological theory. This is ambitious and refreshing, and I appreciate it a lot.” • Maria Louw, Aarhus University
Matthew D. Newsom is an Assistant Professor of anthropology in the Department of History, Sociology, and Anthropology at Southern Utah University. His research on the topics of dreaming and collective memories among young German adults has appeared in several edited volumes, including New Directions in the Anthropology of Dreaming (Routledge, 2020).
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Dreams and the Imagination in Anthropology
Matthew D. Newsom
Part I: Dreaming Imaginaries
Chapter 1. Dreams, Narratives, and (Moral) Imaginaries
Jeannette Marie Mageo
Chapter 2. Attributing Dream Experience to Spiritual Others to Explain Dreamed Foreshadowing Among the Asabano
Roger Ivar Lohmann
Chapter 3. Imagining Berlin: Emotional Memories, Models, and Values
Matthew D. Newsom
Part II: Imagining Dreams
Chapter 4. Imagining Enlightenment: Pristine Awareness in Tibetan Buddhism
Bruce Knauft
Chapter 5. Dreams, Dreaming, and the Status of the Imaginary in Indigenous Worlding Practices
Sylvie Poirier
Chapter 6. Imagining Dreams in Art and in Anthropology
Lydia Nakashima Degarrod
Afterword: Dreaming and the Imaginal Spectrum
Robin E. Sheriff
Index