Amira Mittermaier
Amira Mittermaier grew up the child of two psychologists (one Freudian one, Jungian); she found their models of dreaming (it's generated by the self, is always about the self, and every dream-figure is an aspect of self) too narrow. As an anthropology student, the fieldwork for her dissertation was in Cairo (2003-4), studying Egyptian dreamwork. She published her conclusions in Dreams that Matter: Egyptian Landscapes of the Imagination (2011, University of California Press).
It's a window into a dreamwork-tradition going back to the Prophet himself, with ancient interpreters like Sīrīn still read and respected. To a California hippie like me, used to comparing different cultural traditions, many of them shamanic and oral (thus contemporary), Islamic dreamwork seems history-obsessed and insular--deep in time, but culturally narrow. A bit like the Chinese that way.
I'm always hungry for dreams (ancient or modern) and the dreamer's interpretations, not dream-theories or sociological explanations for dream experiences. Mittermaier assumes her readers will be scientific and secular, resulting in a lot of wasted pages, explaining how Egyptians often accept a spirit world most westerners don't. Duh! I personally find Islam's immense literary & religious tradition claustrophobically narrow, with dreams arising from only three sources, God, the Devil, and personal fears & desires. Better than Freud, I admit--he only believed in the third--but still pretty limited. Still, these are dreams and dreamwork from a different angle, and I'm grateful for any examples at all.
RELATED TOPICS: dream ESP & societal aspects of ESP - Islam - contemporaries Marc Ian Barasch, Deirdre Barrett, Stanley Krippner, Davi Kopenawa, Sidarta Ribeiro - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
What this site is - Add your dreams! - How to read blurbs - Ratings - Copyright - Downloading - The World Dream Bank has 4000 dreams plus 1000 pages on dreamwork, shamanism, surrealism, fantasy, worldbuilding, creativity and genius. Site © Chris Wayan 2001-2022.
| DOG GHOST: by a Cairene woman, c.2003, a dream implying either dog-souls or ESP. A woman dreamed her dog, who had died, visited--looking upset. So she checked the dog's grave. It had been bulldozed that day... |
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| EYES INWARD: by Amira Mittermaier, c.2004, a creepy dream of spiritual quest The dream group I've been interviewing in Cairo was in the desert, jamming rods in their eyes and eating batteries to power their inward vision. "That's how they do it," I think... |
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| GHARIB: by Shaykh Hāfiz, c.1350?, twin psychic dreams (or ghostly visitations?) Hafiz dreamed that Gharib, a war hero whose body was lost, wanted a tomb in Suez. Two dreams guided Hafiz to find his body and move it to the Suez mosque now named for him... |
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| ISTIKHARA: by Nabila, c.2000, an incubated dream warning Unsure about her suitor, she prayed for clarification & insight. That night, she dreamed darkness fell on her & her sister. She told him "No", and... |
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| SALWA'S DREAM: by Salwa Alshebeny, c.1990, a life-changing dream When Salwa was young she looked worldly, but dreamed the Prophet saw beneath appearances, and led her to a house of angels. Later she became... |
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| SCRATCHES: by Amira Mittermaier, c.2003, a Natalian dream I dreamed I quarreled with dream-group leader Shaykh Qusi. I woke shocked to find two long scratches on my left cheek... |
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| SĪRĪN'S INITIATION: by Ibn Sīrīn, c.700, a shamanic dream Sirin hungered to understand dreams. He dreamt he met Joseph (who interpreted Pharaoh's dreams). Joseph made Sirin peer down his throat, deeper and deeper, until Sirin could see Joseph's heart... |
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