In Bad Places: Seventeenth-Century Finnish Nightmares as Spatial Experiences
Abstract
The starting point of the article is the results which have been produced by analysing modern populations’ dreams within psychological research. The article focuses on early modern Finns’ bad dreams and utilises descriptions from court records between 1607 and 1707. The analysis covers nightmare experiences of a total of 43 people living in different areas of Finland and even outside it. The focus on nightmares in the study is explained by the fact that virtually all dreams recorded in early modern official records were nightmares, and their context was usually suspected witchcraft.
The study’s main question deals with the role of space in the nightmare experience: what was told of the surroundings where the dream took place? According to psychological studies on dreaming, dreams often take place in familiar surroundings, yet place is the element which changes most often in dreams. Early modern nightmares seem to confirm these patterns. Even dreams in which the dreamer experienced a kidnapping to a witches’ coven, the surroundings are based on elements which were present in the dreamer’s waking reality.
Keywords: early modern; witchcraft; dreams; nightmares; spaces; experiences
