Dreaming and Reality: A Neuroanthropological Account

Dreams are experienced as real across cultures, and the ways people interpret and use them vary. The text introduces dream anthropology, showing universal patterns in how societies experience, express, and use dreams. It distinguishes monophasic cultures (which treat waking reality as primary) from polyphasic cultures (the majority, which consider dreams real). Neuroscience supports a natural realism behind experiences in alternative states of consciousness, suggesting a transcendental set of constraints and possibilities that shape how experiences, especially archetypal dreams, are modeled, expressed, and socially interpreted.

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Abstract

In what sense is dreaming real to people of different cultures? How do they come to conclude that dreaming is real, and how do they use dreams to expand their knowledge and control of real events? The reader is introduced to dream anthropology and shown that there are universal patterns to how dreams are experienced, expressed, and used by societies. The distinction between monophasic and polyphasic cultures is described, the latter being the majority of societies that consider dreaming as being in some sense real. Neuroscience supports the notion that there is a natural realism behind the experience of reality in any and all alternative states of consciousness (ASC), and that whatever the ASC, there is a transcendental set of obduracies and affordances that condition the modeling, expression, and social interpretation of experiences, most especially those encountered in archetypal (or special) dreams.