Dreams as Communication Method between the Living and the Dead. Ethnographic Case Study from Slovakia

The paper discusses dream narratives concerning deceased persons who were close to narrators. The author argues that the attitudes towards this type of dream narratives are specific in traditional as well as in modern society: such dreams are often interpreted as communication method between the worlds of living and dead people who need each other. The paper focuses on a local community in Western Slovakia and deals with the following questions: (1) to what degree has dream experience been integrated in public life of the local community and what are the conditions of this integration; (2) how the dream narration is treated in the private and public discourse; and (3) what are the interpretations of the dreams. The author is interested in the changes of interpretations of the dreams that have currently occurred as a result of postsocialist transformation processes after 1989. *** V prispevku so obravnavane sanjske pripovedi o pokojnih, ki so bili blizu pripovedovalcem. Avtorica meni, da so odnosi do takšnih sanjskih pripovedi posebni v tradicionalni in sodobni družbi: sanje so pogosto interpretirane kot metoda komunikacije med svetovoma živih in pokojnih, ki potrebujejo drugi druge. Članek se osredinja na lokalno skupnost na zahodnem Slovaškem in obravnava naslednja vprašanja: 1. Do katere stopnje je sanjska izkušnja vključena v javno življenje lokalne skupnosti in kateri so pogoji takšne vključenosti; 2. kako je sanjska pripoved obravnavana v zasebnem in javnem diskurzu; in 3. kakšne so interpretacije sanj. Avtorico zanimajo spremembe v interpretacijah sanj, ki so nasledek postsocialističnih procesov transformacije po letu 1989.