Abstract Index Conference Index

ABSTRACT

Russian Pagan Calendar for Precognitive Dreaming

Maria VOLCHENKO (Moscow, RUSSIA), Ph.D. in Philosophy and Logic, dream practitioner and teacher, artist, poet, author of the book "Prisoners of Dreams", a member of Tos-Deer (the Russian Federation Central Religious Organization of Tuvan Shamans), ASD member.

E-mail: socol@orc.ru
Moscow, RUSSIA

Summary of Presentation.
The paper is the first attempt to collect and describe as a system information on pagan Russian dream rituals connected to certain calendar dates and periods. The Orthodox Church had to accept the dates and to include them in the list of Christian holidays. Some of these dream tuning rituals were able to survive seventy years of official atheism as well. A description of holidays, rituals, chanting, and objects used for tuning dreams is given. The aim of the paper is to introduce the Russian tradition of dream work.

Learning Objectives.
A) Specify three learning objectives of the presentation and
B) three evaluation questions which participants should be able to answer after attending the presentation (this is for the use of the ASD's Continuing Education credit program).
A) 1. Cross-cultural research (Russian Slavic and Siberian traditions of dream work).
2. Pagan dream work tools.
3. History of dream work.
B) 1. What kind of modern techniques of dream work have pagan roots?
2. What are the similarities in dream traditions in different cultures (examples)?
3. What are common features of different dates and time periods good for dreaming?

Abstract.
Russians used to believe their dreams, to speak of them, and to treat them as something important. Russian dreamers respect dream reality and take for granted cooperation of dreams and day life. They always put forward the same question concerning a strange, strong, extremely bad or nice dream, "What could happen in my life connected to this dream?" Due to this feature of Russian soul and mentality some pagan traditions survived till now, while prints of some others can be found in many old and some new books. In childhood I learned about them from my grandmother. I have learned more from other people who still keep this knowledge, as well as from ethnographic books, Russian fairy tales, and Russian fiction of previous centuries.

Mainly, the tradition tells about dream incubation and tuning. Rituals for tuning and incubation are connected to certain calendar dates and periods, days of the week and time of day. There are different objects that are used in the rituals in order to create a bridge between dream and day realities.

The paper is the first attempt to reconstruct a pagan dreamer's calendar based on Russian Slavic folklore. It also gives a description of holidays, rituals, chanting, and objects used for tuning dreams. The aim of the paper is to introduce the Russian tradition of dream work that has very deep roots in pre-Christian Slavic culture.