Imagery of ritual actions in religious dreaming: steps toward a theory and method of the cognition of dreamt ritual interaction
Religion November 21, 2023 DOI: 10.1080/0048721x.2023.2284200 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Ethnography Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Hindus in Nepal |
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Keywords | Dream Cognition Ethnography Relation database Epistemology Aesthetics Cognitive psychology Anthropology Psychotherapist |
| Citations | 1 |
| Key findings | Dream imagery about rituals can be systematically analyzed using cognitive and evolutionary theories of ritualization and dream simulation theories. |
Abstract
The research literature on religious dreaming demonstrates the commonness of supernatural agent (SA) imagery, as well as various ritualistic and divinatory uses of dream content in the waking state.Less well mapped is the related domain of dream imagery about rituals (DIR).This article aims to provide a survey and analysis of DIR items and interactions in line with dream and ritual theories, with case illustrations from dream reports based on ethnographic fieldwork among Hindus in Nepal.The analysis relies on an understanding of "ritual" based on their assumed "obvious aspects" and traits, and on theoretical assumptions drawn from cognitive and evolutionary accounts of ritualization in relation to prominent strands in dream research such as threat simulation theory, and social simulation theory.The aim is to develop a novel strategy for exploring imagined ritual traits in dreaming.This undertaking contributes to the methodology and theoretical understanding of religious dream cognition.
Comparable studies
Other qualitative studies on dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Other as a Nightmare: The Israeli-Arab Encounter as Reflected in Children's Dreams in Israel and the West Bank Jewish and Arab fifth to seventh graders living in various settings in Israel and the... | 1989 | Qualitative content analysis | n = 212 |
| Nonwaking Responses to Waking Stressors: Dreams and Nightmares1 Men from the cohort eligible for military duty during the Vietnam Conflict, varying in... | 1990 | Survey interview study | n = 442 |
| Communing with the Gods: The Dreaming Brain in Cross-cultural Perspective | 2011 | Phenomenological study | |
| Partial memory reinstatement while (lucid) dreaming to change the dream environment. Lucid dreamers | 2020 | Qualitative study | |
| Strange themes in pandemic dreams: Insomnia was associated with more negative, anxious and death‐related dreams during the COVID‐19 pandemic Global survey participants | 2022 | Longitudinal mixed-methods study | n = 2,240 |
Citations in the library
Cites 25
- Consciousness, dreams and virtual realities Philosophical Psychology 1995
- The threat simulation theory in light of recent empirical evidence: A review The American Journal of Psychology April 1, 2009
- State Dissociation, Human Behavior, and Consciousness Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry September 1, 2011
- Altered States of Consciousness within a General Evolutionary Perspective: A Holocultural Analysis Behavior Science Research August 1, 1977
- Religious Experience Reconsidered: A Building-Block Approach to the Study of Religion and Other Special Things Sociology of religion February 24, 2011
and 20 more in the library