Dreaming up Futures. Dream Omens and Magic in Bishkek

Abstract

In Kyrgyzstan, dreams are of great significance as sources of omens and divine revelations. This article will explore the meanings of dream omens, focusing more particularly on the complex relationship between belief in fate and belief in the free will as expressed in Kyrgyz practices of dream interpretation and sharing and, thus, on the complexity of the imprints of dreaming in Kyrgyz society.

Dream omens embody peoples’ fears about, and hopes for, how their lives may develop. Recognizing dream images, feelings, sounds and smells as potential omens, people enter a virtual realm, a subjunctive state, where they can imagine and orient themselves toward various potential future scenarios and test the social and moral resonance of these scenarios; last, but not least: where they can reflect on the question of what they are able to control and change, and what has to be left to chance or fate: one of the existential aporias which might characterize human life as such, but seems to be most urgently felt in contexts and situations where radical social change has challenged previous ideas about which aspects of life are matters of interest, choice and skills, and which aspects people have no control of; where new ideas about accountability and about what it takes to be a good or virtuous human being have challenged old ones. One such context is that of post‐Soviet Kyrgyzstan.

Keywords:

• Dreams
• Omens
• Kyrgyzstan
• Islam
• Magic

Notes

[1] This article is based on around eight months of fieldwork conducted in Kyrgyzstan—and mainly Bishkek—in the period 2006–2008.

[2] I use the term ‘shame’ as an approximate translation of the Kyrgyz term uyat.

[3] The practice of kiz ala kachuu may also be consensual: it can be a way for a young couple whose parents are against their relationship to marry against the parents’ wish, and it can be a way of avoiding, or postponing, the payment of kalym, bride price.

[4] Boorsok are usually fried in honour and memory of the ancestors.

[5] On the concept of Kyrgyzchylyk, see Aitpaeva 2008.

[6] In 1995, the 1000th anniversary of Manas was celebrated in Kyrgyzstan.

[7] Widespread among the Kyrgyz is the belief that certain people are chosen for a life mission such as healing, reciting epics, guarding sacred sites, mediating in different ways between this world and the otherworld, and that their health and well‐being are directly affected by their acceptance or rejection of this spiritual mission (Aitpaeva 2008).

[8] See, for example, Ashymov 2003 and Garrone 2000.

[9] Religion being seen in Marxist terms, as a form of false consciousness which inhibited people from acting on the real material world and realizing their true humanity, the secularism that prevailed in the Soviet Union was of an aggressive kind which involved the dismantling of religious institutions and placing those which remained under strict control. The struggle against religion took many forms, ranging from outright destruction of religious institutions and the liquidation or arrest of religious authorities to anti‐religious propaganda and the more subtle mimicking of ‘religious’ forms in the creation of ‘secular’ rituals that were to substitute for religious ones (cf. Anderson 1994; Binns 1979, 1980; Ramet 1987).

[10] See, for example, Malinowski 1948 and Sartre 2001