Imagery of ritual actions in religious dreaming: steps toward a theory and method of the cognition of dreamt ritual interaction

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Dream simulation
• religious dreaming
• ritual imagery
• cognition
• cultural transmission

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their invaluable and encouraging comments on an earlier version of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

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Andreas Nordin

Andreas Nordin is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies, and a Lecturer in the Department of Cultural Sciences, University of Gothenburg. His primary areas of research are cognitive and evolutionary anthropology, cultural transmission, dreaming, moral notions, honour and reputation, religious cognition, and the cognitive science of religion.