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Incest: A dream and a question
Susanna Dorr (susanna@nntp.sierra.net)
14 May 1995 19:57:17 GMT
I'm rarely blessed with lucid dreaming, so when a particularly cohesive
and vivid (and contentually surprising) dream occurs, I take notice.
I maybe should preface this telling and the question it leads to by saying
that I am the only grandchild of my maternal grandparents, who were first
cousins. I never met them (they died long before my birth), and their
relatedness was only made known to me by my mother when she believed me
past child-bearing age (mom always had unusual notions of courtesy). So
the dream may have been some sort of story to soothe my personal psyche,
though it felt impersonal and extraordinary.
In the dream, I was an observer of a tribal scene. My sense was of
ancientness, certainly pre-Columbian, and perhaps central American. The
occasion of my observation was the celebration of a 52-year lunar cycle.
On this occasion, normal incest taboos were relaxed. One sibling pair
was selected for sacrament (I've forgotten the selection process). They
were, on this singular and sacred occasion to couple, and any offspring
resutling from this coupling was considered a gift of the divine. I was
aware, while dreaming, that this was a means by which recessive genes
were occasionally allowed to manifest.
Not long after having this dream, during an idle conversation with a
horse-breeder, I was told that the way to get a really stunning colt was
to inbreed. The risk was great; the results tended to be catastrophic or
spectacular. (Now _this_ conversation did have personal meaning to me,
since I don't experience myself as catastrophic. But the dream and the
notion of a people occasionally urging out recessive traits, much like
the horsebreeder did, was intriguing.)
Has anyone read or heard of such a ritual, anywhere? Reference was made
to Hawaiians on the previous incest thread, but the sense of things was
different.
Thanks,
Susanna
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