Making Dreams

Spirits, vision and the ontological effects of dream knowledge in Cuban espiritismo

Authors

• Diana Espirito Santo University of Lisbon

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30676/jfas.116541

Abstract

In this paper the significance of dreaming and dream communication in Cuba is explored, principally from the point of view of mediums in the Afro-Cuban religious practice of espiritismo in Havana. I suggest that dreams are both continuous with, and epitomize, the experience of mediumship and prophecy,where ‘vision’ is a fundamental trope, and are thus important sources of insight and extended spiritual perspective. In a cosmos where knowledge is both indicative and generative of a spiritual flow, and where its retention on the part of mediumshas physical consequences, salient images and  information received through dreams act as catalysts for the development of spirit mediumship, signaling the inherent porosity of the body as well as the  potential mobility of an individual’s spirit. I also propose that dream knowledge be conceptualized ontologically; specifically, as possessing the agency to  produce certain effects once it is formulated into language. This perspective undercuts purely representationalist views of language, as well as placing the  communicative act in an essential cosmological light.

Keywords: dreams, Afro-Cuban religion, spirit mediumship, knowledge, agency, ontological effects, communication