Dreaming in the World's Religions

Dreaming in the World’s Religions Dreaming in the World’s Religions A Comparative History Kelly Bulkeley a NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London new york university press New York and London www.nyupress.org © 2008 by New York University All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bulkeley, Kelly, 1962 – Dreaming in the world’s religions : a comparative history / Kelly Bulkeley. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8147-9956-7 (cl : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8147-9956-6 (cl : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-8147-9957-4 (pb : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8147-9957-4 (pb : alk. paper) 1. Dreams — Religious aspects — History. 2. Religions — History. I. Title. BL65.D67B83 2008 204'.2 — dc22 2008004107 New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. Manufactured in the United States of America c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For Hilary Contents Acknowledgments ix Note on Translations xi Introduction 1 1 Hinduism 20 2 Chinese Religions 50 3 Buddhism 79 4 Religions of the Fertile Crescent 110 5 Religions of Ancient Greece and Rome 138 6 Christianity 167 7 Islam 192 8 Religions of Africa 213 9 Religions of Oceania 231 10 Religions of the Americas 249 Conclusion 269 Notes 281 Bibliography 301 Index 319 About the Author 331 vii Acknowledgments I suppose I’ve been working on this book as long as I’ve been interested in dreams. So I really have to thank everybody — all the teachers, colleagues, and students who helped and guided me along the way. Several people have contributed directly to this project in quite valuable ways, so I wish to express special gratitude to Serinity Young, Madhu Tandan, Lewis Rambo, Bill Domhoff , Kimberley Patton, Bart Koet, Lee Irwin, Dimitris Xygalatas, Roger Knudson, Ernest Hartmann, Jeremy Tay- lor, Tracey Kahan, Justina Lasley, Ryan Hurd, Nina Azari, David Kahn, Kasia Szpakowska, Patricia Davis, Kate Adams, Malek Yamani, Jeff Kripal, Eleanor Rosch, Mark Fagiano, Lily Wu, Lana Nasser, Celeste Newbrough, and the anonymous reader who reviewed earlier draft s. I’m also grateful for the patient encouragement of my editor, Jennifer Hammer, and for the professional work of the production staff of New York University Press. ix Note on Translations A comparative study like this one relies on the eff orts of many diff erent translators, who sometimes use diff erent systems of rendering the original language into English. I have used the best translations I could fi nd for each quoted text, and altered the spellings of certain names and titles to conform to my understanding of current transliteration standards. xi Introduction Let us start with what I hope is an uncontroversial assumption: you are a human being. If that is true, then the course of your life follows, and has always followed, a cyclical pattern of waking and sleeping. Like other mammals, you are deeply programmed in your brain and body to alternate between two dramatically diff erent states of being. Th e survival benefi ts of being awake are obvious — that’s when you’re alert, focused, and active in the world, able to provide for your basic physical needs. Less apparent are the survival benefi ts of totally withdrawing from the world and going to sleep, but they are no less vital. You need to sleep. Sleeping is just as essential to your healthy existence as food or water. When you become tired it feels good to sleep, just as it feels good to eat when you’re hungry and drink when you’re thirsty. Conversely, it feels painful when you don’t get enough sleep. Just as you can die from lack of food or water, you would not last long if you were completely prevented from sleeping. When laboratory animals are deprived of all sleep they perish in a matter of days. As it is, you probably sleep between six and nine hours a night. Plenty of people get by on less and others can’t function without more, but your average ratio of time spent awake and asleep is likely to be about 2:1, six- teen or so hours awake vs. eight or so hours asleep. In unusual circumstances (e.g., a natural disaster, a military battle, a family health crisis, a work or school deadline, a really good party) you may be able to stay awake for thirty-six or more hours, but you’ll be in sad shape at the end of it. No one can fi ght the sleeping/waking cycle for long without suff er- ing a big decrease in physical and emotional well-being. Every time you fall asleep your body passes through a series of complex alterations in breathing, heart beat, and muscular tonality. Your brain remains active during sleep, but not because of any external sensory stim- ulation or deliberate intention on your part — rather, your brain is being stimulated by internal sources that function independently of your waking 1 2 Introduction self-awareness. Th e brain’s dynamic functioning in sleep is quite diff erent from its activity patterns while awake, and this is why your waking mind rarely recalls what happens to you while you slumber each night. Th e ex- ception is when you remember a dream. Dreaming A dream is an imagined world of sights, sounds, thoughts, feelings, and activities that you (either as a character in the dream or a disembodied observer of it) experience during sleep. Most people spontaneously remember one or two dreams a week, though the memories may be fl eeting and the images forgotten within a few minutes aft er waking. A few people recall several dreams each night, while others say they never remember any dreams at all. Many of the dreams that people do remember are de- scribed as “bad” dreams, with frightening images and negative emotions that carry over from sleep into the waking state. Such nightmarish dreams occur especially oft en in childhood and adolescence, and perhaps two or three times a year for most adults. If you were asked “What is the most frightening dream you’ve ever had?” I suspect you would have little dif- fi culty bringing to mind the memory of a nightmare that made an especially strong and disturbing impression on you when you woke up. What strikes most people about their dreams is how weird and bizarre they sometimes appear. A dream can put you any place, with anyone, doing anything — the ordinary limitations of waking life are suspended, al- lowing for a seemingly infi nite range of possible scenarios and interac- tions. Sometimes the experience is positive (a joyful ability to fl y), sometimes negative (being chased by a psycho killer), and sometimes it has no emotional content one way or the other. Most dreams include the basic narrative elements of a story (setting, characters, dialogue, action, plot), though oft en in strangely fragmented and distorted forms. Oddities abound in dreams — sudden shift s of time and location, strange mixtures of people and personalities, inexplicable behavior and feelings, extraor- dinary abilities and powers. Nothing is impossible in dreams. Everything seems to be permissible. Th e weirdness of dreaming is only half the story, however. Th e other half is the normality of dreaming, its predictable continuity with the mundane reality of waking life. If you look at a person’s dreams over time you will fi nd that the basic patterns of dream content off er a remarkably Introduction 3 accurate and consistent portrait of that person’s major waking life activities, relationships, and emotional concerns. It is a commonsense idea, really — your dreams refl ect who you are and what is most important in your daily existence. If you are a college student, you probably dream about classes, teachers, and dorm life; if a doctor or therapist, you probably dream about patients, colleagues, and offi ces; if you love playing or watching baseball or both, you will likely dream about that sport; and if you have three sisters and your relationship with the middle one is the closest and most intense, you probably dream about her more oft en than about the other two. Whatever the circumstances, your dreams are rooted in the particular conditions of your waking world. Whereas some dreams may be bizarre and outlandish, most seem rather ordinary, normal, and reality-based. You tend to be in places you know, with people you recog- nize, doing the kinds of things you do in daily life. Dreams are thus a complex weaving together of the strange and the familiar, and this is true for everyone whose dream life has been system- atically studied. Th is leads to the fi rst idea I want to emphasize. Th e basic patterns of your sleeping and dreaming are shared by all humans. Such patterns are a deeply instinctual characteristic of our species. Th e study of dreams is therefore a necessary source of insight for our knowledge of what it means to be human. Th e theories of philosophers, theologians, and psychologists will never do justice to the fullness of our existence if they only focus on the qualities of waking life. We now have available, thanks to the eff ort of many excellent historical and anthropological studies, a wealth of information showing that people in many diff erent places and times have expressed their dreams by means of talking about them, recording them, interpreting them, acting them out in rituals, and drawing creative inspiration from their mean- ings.

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