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The observations and concepts expressed in this book are based on a combination of field and library research. It represents a sincere effort to bring together two of the fundamental sciences having to do with human nature, namely anthropology and psychoanalysis.
Following an informative introduction by Professor C. G. Seligman
the text begins with Part I consisting chiefly of an historical review of dream interpretation as expressed in the ancient Hebrew, Egyptian, etc. cultures, through the Middle Ages and in the modern psychoanalytic school and its derivatives.
Part II is an anthropological and descriptive and where possible an analytic study of the dreams from primitive cultures. In this presentation the author offers material to elucidate (a) “the nature of the form and content of the two classes of primitive dreams, the important sought vision of cultural significance and the ordinary individual dream (b) the function of the dream in primitive society, and the beliefs and theories about it (c) the relation of the manifest content to the immediate culture (d) the influence of dreams on primitive culture and the extent to which culture items have originated in dreams (e) the forms and symbols of primitive dreams together with their distribution and their content of varying meanings and (f) whether analyses of primitive dreams and symbols with associations lead to the same latent motives and meanings as similarly analyzed dreams and symbols of non-primitives.”
Not many dreams of primitive peoples have been thoroughly analyzed owing to the difficulty in obtaining associations, but the content of the dream lends itself to observation and it may be related with the cultural environment of the dreamer. However, when individual associations are obtainable an individual psychology is disclosed. The dream culture pattern conforms to a definite stereotyped system laid down by the special type of culture, and “exists only while a native culture is in full force, but disapp