Tag Archives: dreams

Talking About Nightmares

Nationality: American
Age: 55
Occupation: Nurse
Residence: Tulsa, OK
Performance Date: March 15th, 2016
Primary Language: English

The informant is my mother, Dayna Rayburn, born in 1960 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She grew up in Tulsa, before going to college at the University of Oklahoma and graduating with a degree in nursing. She has worked at St. Francis Hospital in the newborn nursery for thirty years.

In this piece, my mom discusses the practice of not talking about your dreams before breakfast, and gives some explanation as for why we do it.

Mom: Do you remember when I would say “don’t talk about dreams before breakfast”.

Me: Yes, but why don’t you say where you heard that.

Mom: I think it was my grandmother. She must have told my mom, and I remember one day when I was really little I ran into the kitchen where my mom was and told her I had a bad dream. Before she would let me talk about my dream, she made me sit down and eat something. I think it was a banana. It didn’t have to be a full course meal: just something little.

Me: Why couldn’t you talk about your dreams before breakfast?

Mom: I don’t know. My mom just always said it was bad luck. It might be an old Indian thing. She heard it from her grandma, like I said.

Me: So why do you follow it?

Mom: I guess I believe in it? I think it’s just a nice thing to do, whether or not it stops bad luck. I think it calms you down. When I went into the kitchen, I was probably running. I still do it to this day, and I know I’ve told you and Alyssa about it.

Me: Yeah, I’ve even told Allen [my roommate] and a few other people about it. They’ll send me a text saying “I just had the worst dream” and I’ll reply back “Have you had breakfast yet?”

Mom: [laughs] They probably think you’re crazy.

Me: I mean, yeah.

Mom: Just tell them that your mom does it.

Me: I’m sure that will help.

This is an interesting belief my mom has, because we both believe in it without really knowing why we do it. I think we do it because we think we’ll be so worked up after waking up from the nightmare that we’ll just worry and put more stress on ourselves. In order to combat that, my mom tells me to eat something. This gives me time to calm down and think rationally about whatever my nightmare was, and remind myself that it was only a dream. I think the reason why we’re told to eat something is because eating is usually one of the first things we do in the morning, and it takes a bit longer than brushing your teeth, which means we have a longer period of time to cool down.

Dreams Mean…

Nationality: Jamaican American
Age: 19
Occupation: USC student athlete
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 1, 2015
Primary Language: English

The informant was born and raised into the American culture and way of life. Her mother’s side of the family is in touch with their Jamaican culture and heritage and as the informant grew older she was able to become more into with the beliefs and customs of Jamaica.

Jamaican Dreams

Informant…

“In the my culture deaths and marriages are often predicted by ones close family members. It is believed that if a family member dreams about someone in their family’s wedding the person being dreamt about will die soon. I think we believe in being able to predict deaths because life and death is a big deal in our culture. Marriage is also an important aspect in my culture as well and is ritualized. When a person dreams about a family member’s death that is consider a prediction of that family member’s wedding.”

I asked the informant if she had ever had a dream like this or known someone who did and it became true. She told me that she didn’t know anyone who had ha a dream like this and she personally  has never had one. I asked where she learned this belief from snd she said that she remembers her grandma telling her about it when she was younger before she passed away.

Analysis…

Being able to predict someones death could be a blessing and a curse. Knowing that someone you love is going to die soon has to be difficult to handle. However on the other hand being able to predict a wedding is exciting. Death and Marriage are two major stepping stones in most cultures and they are ritualized because of that. Marriage you are become one with someone else and you are able to start a family, but death is the end of your life and the start of your after life whatever you believe that may be. I think that is why they are both made such such a big deal out of and ritualized with customs and rituals and why cultures have so many beliefs centered around these two major life events.

Greek Nightmares

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/30/14
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

In Greek tradition if you have a bad dream and you tell someone before you eat anything your nightmare will come true.  However the same thing is not true if you have a good dream.  If you tell a good dream before eating in an attempt to make it come true, the gods will see through your trickery and it will not happen.

My roommate is half Greek and she learned this tradition from her mother.

This tradition is interesting because it reaffirms the power of spiritual beings as being above us.  This is humbling in a way and reinforces the idea that mere mortals should never try and outsmart the gods cause they will always be one step ahead.  The tradition is also interesting because it speaks to a very negative aspect of the culture, in this situation no matter what you do, it ends up with nothing good happening.

The tradition seems to also be related to the idea that if you have a wish and you tell it to someone it will not come true, like birthday wishes or wishes on a shooting star.

Pigs Bring Wealth

Nationality: Korean
Age: 40
Occupation: Housewife
Residence: Sunnyvale, CA
Performance Date: 3/16/2014
Primary Language: Korean
Language: English

Pigs Bring Wealth

The Informant:

She was an elderly who came to the U.S. in the early 1990s. Although Christian, she says she still believes in this superstition a little bit.

 

돼지 꿈구면 행운이다.

돼지는 한국에서, 이 뭐냐, 돈이야. 옛잘에 모든 사업 아니면 일하는분들은 돼지머리를 잘라서 절을 하는거야. 절하다가 코에다가 돈 집어넣고, 입에도 넣고, 귀에다 넣고, 아므튼 늘수있는데에다 넣는거야. 

If you dream of a pig it’s good luck.

Long ago, a pig is a form of income. It is equal to money or wealth. People who ran businesses or stores would cut off a pig’s head, lay it on a table, and bow down to it. While bowing down, as a sign of worship, they would stick money in its nose, mouth, ears, anywhere on the head that they could. They did this so that they would succeed and become rich.

 

Superstitions in India

Nationality: Indian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/23/13
Primary Language: English

“From India, um, there’s a superstition that if you if you- if the base of your tongue is, like, dark it’s, like, kind of black, it’s called having a black tongue and it means that like when you say something it’s more likely to come true. So my mom has a black tongue, so people will, like, call, relatives will, like, call her and say, like, ‘Hey, like, could you, like, pray me for me or do this…’ or something because like it’s more likely to come true because she has a black tongue.

And then there’s the dreaming thing, which is that if you die in a dream it, uh- according to Indian superstition, if you die in a dream, then that’s good luck for the rest of your life. Which is in opposition to what a lot of the rest of the world believes happens if you die in a dream, um, yeah. That’s it.”

My informant learned of these superstitions from her family when she was growing up. She says they are common beliefs throughout India and was surprised when she first discovered they were not common in the United States. My informant was born in India, but raised in Japan, the USA, and India.

These beliefs are not of great personal importance to my informant, other than making her feel connected with her family in India. She does not believe they hold any significant truth.

What my informant was referring to was the popular Western idea that if one dies in a dream, one has died in reality.