Dream Travelers Sleep Experiences and Culture in the Western Pacific [Paperback]

In dreams, part of the self seems to wander off to undertake both mundane tasks and marvellous adventures. Anthropologists have found that many peoples take this experience of dreaming at face value, assuming that their spirits literally leave the body to travel, meet other spirits, and acquire valuable knowledge - with dramatic consequence for relationships, social organization, and religions. Dream Travellers is about Melanesian, Aboriginal Australian, and Indonesian peoples who hold this assumption. Several leading anthropologists contribute theoretically and ethnographically rich chapters, showing that attention to these peoples' dream lives deeply enhances our understanding of their cultures and waking lives as well.List of Illustrations Preface About the Contributors Dream Travels and Anthropology; R.I.Lohmann Dreaming and the Defeat of Charisma; J.Robbins Dreaming and Ghosts Among the Hagen and Duna of the Southern Highlands, Papua New Guinea; P.J.Stewart & A.J.Strathern Dreamscapes: Transcending the Local in Initiation Rites among the Ngaing of Papua New Guinea; W.Kempe & E.Hermann Ambrymese Dreams and the Mardu Dreaming; R.Tonkinson 'This is good country. We are good dreamers': Dreams and Dreaming in the Australian Western Desert; S.Poirier Dreams, Agency, and Traditional Authority in Northeast Arnhem Land; I.Keen Tiwi Island Dreams; J.C.Goodale The Cultural and Intersubjective Context of Dream Remembrance and Reporting: Dreams, Aging, and the Anthropological Encounter in Toraja, Indonesia; D.Hollan Supernatural Encounters of the Asabano in Two Traditions and Three States of Consciousness; R.I.Lohmann Beyond the Mythologies: A Shape of Dreaming; W.Kracke

Dream Travelers is a fine contribution to the current renewed interest in the study of dreams. The volume presents the research of a diverse group of distinguished anthropologists, all with experience in the rapidly changing societies of the Western Pacific.They show how these transformatiolC3