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Re: Incest: A dream and a question
Dan Carl (danlc@clark.net)
18 May 1995 13:03:18 GMT
In article <3p5nau$8h1@jobes.sierra.net>, susanna@nntp.sierra.net says...
>
>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
>
The plot elements of dreams come from your waking life. My experience,
though, is that the dream's meaning must be extracted from its emotional
content.
How did you feel observing these dream events? Can you elaborate on
"impersonal and extraordinary"?
The in-dream realization that "this was a means by which recessive genes
were occasionally allowed to manifest" sounds like a likely pun of some
sort to me. Check to see if there is some recessive part of your life
that might need to be allowed to manifest - an "urging out" of a
(non-genetic) recessive trait, or something like that.
It seems to me that the dream considers you or some part of your life yet
to come, a "gift of the divine" in at least some sense. Think about
it...
You know yourself; I don't, so I can't do much more than guess at this
stuff. Look for puns, emotional content that reflects something
happening in your waking life, etc.
be great
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