MIND OVER MATTER

The great Indian dream

The Indian Night: Sleep and Dreams in Indian Culture; Claudine Bautze-Picron (ed), Rupa & Co., Rs 395.

Ever since Sigmund Freud published his seminal The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900, and offered the beginnings of a template with which to understand and interpret dreams, much has been written about this remarkable phenomenon that all of us experience. In fact one of the most important tools available to psychoanalysts and some psychotherapists is dream analysis. Dreams are considered to deliver to the conscious mind, various aspects of one’s unconscious conflicts, unfulfilled wishes, fears and anxieties, and have been a rich source of material for the analyst to explore the client’s mind-space. Since dreams are rarely simple and straightforward, going through a process called ‘dream work’, it is the ‘latent content’ rather than the ‘manifest content’ of dreams that are of special interest to the analyst. Symbolism plays an important role in the formation of dreams, and although there are several universal symbols that can be and are used by analysts, the study of culture-specific dreams and symbols is of great importance, even if the Indian literature on the subject is rather limited. Which is why I approached the reading of The Indian Night: Sleep and Dreams in the Indian Culture edited by Claudine Bautze-Picron with great enthusiasm.

The book is a compendium of papers presented (and I am sure subsequently expanded, for most of them are extremely long) at a 2004 conference on “Sleep and Dreams in the Indian World: Comparative Enlightenments” held at Paris. Well structured, starting from the physiology of dreams both from the Western as well as Ayurvedic perspectives, the papers proceed to explore the meaning of dreams, and the representation of dreams and sleep in practice as well as in language and literature. Although most of the papers are based on ancient Sanskrit texts and relate to the Hindu experience of dreams, a few of them examine the meaning of dreams in Buddhism, Jainism, Muslim mysticism, and Japanese civilisation. It is fascinating to read how Charaka pre-empted Freud by millennia and not only recognised the therapeutic value of dreams, but also classified them to facilitate diagnosis and treatment. Equally engaging are the papers referring to the use of dreams in literary narrative, particularly the all too short discussion on nightmares in Tamil short stories.

A quick glance at the contributors to this rather heavy volume (it weighs 1.3 kg in paperback form) reveals that most, if not all, of the writers are experts in Indology and Sanskrit, which, perhaps, explains why I did not find the links to modern psychological theory that I was hoping to find. Also, bar two, all the other writers are of Western European (mainly Francophone) origin and affiliation, who aside of possessing obvious expertise in their respective fields, bring to their writing the elaborateness that one tends to associate with academics from that part of the world. At several places, the writing is certainly too elaborate, thereby lending some of the papers an unnecessary touch of the esoteric. However, all the papers are exceedingly well researched and peppered with extensive quotations of English translations from the original Sanskrit. The bibliography alone is worth the price of the book. If you are of academic bent of mind, you will enjoy the rich content in this book, but if, like me, you are seeking some more specific answers, be prepared to wade through reams of words before you find those nuggets you are looking for.

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