Dreaming and its Discontents: U.S. Cultural Models in the Theater of Dreams

Abstract

Drawing together research in cognitive anthropology and psychology, this article argues that REM dreamers enlist metaphors associated with a cultural model in waking life to stage scenes that represent their recent and past problems with the model—be these ones of mastery or with the adequacy of the model for addressing life circumstances. These scenes provide a space where dreamers discover how and why a model is working badly and where they practice and experiment in order to move on to a new stage—both by better mastering models and by better adapting them. Dreamers’ difficulty with one model often involves problems with others. Dreams disclose these linkages. I develop this argument through ethnographic, life history, and dream data collected from U.S. undergraduates at a northwestern university. The models described herein, then, are regional but are also common in U.S. mainstream, middle‐class culture more broadly, particularly among young people.

Dreaming of the Kardashians: Media Content in the Dreams of US College Students

“…I will argue that while media dreams generally and celebrity dreams specifically are not new, recent cultural shifts favor their proliferation as never before. Following Mageo's suggestion (e.g., , , , ) that dreams ponder the cultural contradictions and obstacles encountered by the enculturating self, as well as Hollan's idea that dreams “reflect back to the dreamer how his or her current organization of self relates various parts of itself to itself” (, 177), I describe dreams in which young, middle‐class women “try on” the celebrity self—even while in waking life, they disavow what they see as its sordid implications.…”

“…In her own analysis of college students’ dreams, Mageo (, ) similarly notes a troubled preoccupation with the perfectible female body, which she dubs the “pinup model.” Defining it as an enduring, “mainstream” model for sexuality in the United States, Mageo underscores its double‐edged quality: the pinup is mesmerizing (and hence empowered) but also, in its objectification, abjectly subjugated (, 188). In the age of the Kardashians, I would suggest, this double‐edged quality persists, but the classic pinup model's association of sexual allure with the fantasy of attracting a wealthy provider is updated: the middle man, as it were, has become dispensable.…”

“…The study of dreaming has an illustrious if scattered history in anthropology (see Bulkeley 2001;Heijnen and Edgar 2010;Laughlin 2011;Mageo 2003;Stewart 2004;Tedlock 1987 and 1991 for reviews of the literature). Since the 1980s, anthropological studies of dreaming have tended to focus on emic dream theories and their links to indigenous ontologies (see, for example, Guss 1980;Kracke 2006;Peluso 2004;Poirier 2005;Smith 1998;Watson 1981); dream sharing as a situated (and often shifting) cultural practice (see, for example, Edgar and Henig 2010;Louw 2010;Mittermaier 2010;Pandya 2004;Price-Williams and Degerrod 1989;Qureshi 2010) and the ways in which notions of self, culture, and history are under construction and at play in dreaming (see for example Ceccioni 2011;Edgar 2011;Ewing 1990;Hollan 2004Hollan , 2013Kirtsoglou 2010;Lohmann 2003Lohmann , 2010Mageo 2003Mageo , 2011Mageo , 2013Mageo , 2015Stephen 1996;Stewart 2012).…”

“…This analysis, moreover, contributes to efforts to theorize the imbrication of dreaming, self, and culture. My analysis builds on the work of two anthropologists, Jeannette Marie Mageo (e.g., , , , ) and John L. Caughey (), both of whom have documented the prominent place of cinematic content in American dreaming. In exploring one possible direction an expanded discussion of media dreams might take, I focus specifically on celebrity dreams.…”

Young Americans’ Dreaming in the Specular Age

“…Our dream samples frequently contain abundant content from TV series, films, and video games—and the waking associations students bring to their dreams often call on these same sources. Although the presence of media content in dreams is understudied (for exceptions, see Gackenbach and Boyes ; Mageo , , , ; Sheriff ), this content is unsurprising. When New England interviewees were in middle school, they lived in homes with multiple TV sets, and they moved through public spaces that were teeming with ambient televisions.…”