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Dreaming of the Prehistoric Rock Art on Ometepe Island, Nicaragua 

Ryan Hurd is an MA candidate at John F. Kennedy University in the Consciousness and Transformative Studies and Dream Studies programs. He holds a BA in anthropology, and has worked extensively as a field archeologist. After fifteen years of dream journaling, he is interested in exploring dreams from the crossroads of culture, ecology and spirituality. 

Abstract

The Pre-Columbian rock art of Ometepe Island, Nicaragua is as mysterious as the revered wall paintings of Paleolithic Europe. Often overshadowed by the impressive stone ruins of the empires to the north and south, Nicaragua contains one of the richest distributions of rock art in the world. The cultural creators have long since vanished, and archaeologists are not even sure when the art was made. Consisting mostly of carvings on boulders, the petroglyphs of Ometepe Island are enchanting to modern eyes. Swirls, vortices, and long meanders blend into animal and human-like figures on boulder faces that dot the slopes of the Maderas Volcano. Join me in a graphics-rich exploration of this tropical island on Lake Nicaragua, where the imaginal realm comes alive through this largely undocumented collection of ancient art.

            This paper presentation emphasizes the subjective domains of an integral research methodology into the prehistoric rock art of Ometepe Island, Nicaragua. The fieldwork for this project was undertaken in January 2006 as part of an archaeological survey for petroglyphs on Ometepe Island, in cooperation with the Nicaraguan Government and the Ometepe Petroglyph Project.

            Rock art has been notoriously resistant to modern investigations into all aspects of the creation of the images, questions that range from “How old is it? Why was it made?” and especially “What does it all mean?”

A more integral methodology for the study of rock art situates the researcher in the context of the study. As findings in cognitive neuropsychology suggest that the construction of expectation precedes perception (or as Goethe said, “Seeing is knowing”), then the imaginal realm of the researcher is almost as important to investigate as the objects of inquiry themselves. While meaning is culturally mediated, all modern peoples share the perception of the geometric “building blocks” of visual imagery. This imagery is known ethnographically and cross-culturally to originate, in part, from visionary states that include trance, hallucinogenic reverie, out-of-body experiences, and, of course, dreams. It is dreams that will lead us in this inquiry today.

This study explores the construction of the see-r and the seen by conducting phenomenological text analyses of the researcher’s dream reports. Lucid dreams were also incubated to direct the dreamer towards the phenomenon of rock art as it is perceived in his mind. Natural themes will be discussed, developing a narrative that reveals how the researcher structured the experience of investigating rock art on Ometepe Island. The presentation of this pilot study will be a visual feast of some of the most beautiful – and unpublished – rock art in the world that will hopefully remind all of their own visionary capabilities.  

References include: 

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Lange, F. (2005). The petroglyphs of Isle de Ometepe. Recovered on-line on 8/13/05: http://www.lasuerte.org/omepetro.htm 

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Winkelman, M. (2000) Shamanism: the neural ecology of consciousness and healing. Westport: Bergin and Garvey.

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