Hi Robert!
About 2 years ago you did a small video-talk with a consciousness and dreaming class I was in at the Evergreen State College. I had asked about dream mapping and you had mentioned some eastern eurasian Shamans/ tribes that had practiced the activity, but I don’t recall or have any notes mentioning an exact name or region from your answer. I was curious if you had any more information on these Shamans and possibly their tribes because I am now in a class covering Russian/Siberian history and culture. And this topic sounded like a perfect fit for my final project if those Shamans happened to belong to Siberia’s wilderness. Thank you for taking the time to read my question!
Hi,
Yes, dream mapping seems one approach that shamans have used in the former Soviet republic, across Eastern Europe to Siberia. I first heard about this from a Ukrainian who came to an International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) conference. I mention the person and his presentation in Chapter 6 of Lucid Dreaming – Plain and Simple (and the endnote about the presentation is #65).
He explained that in the shamanic tradition there, they felt there was an Upper World, a Middle World and a Lower World (each with its own characteristics). He said the shamans felt that a person could use ‘dream mapping’ to explore these worlds successfully, and learn secrets, gain power, deal with issues, etc.
The person explained that he got hexagonal graph paper (small hexagons, connect all across it) — and in the center was HOME. Then in each of his dreams, he marked where they occurred, relative to (his felt sense of the direction to) HOME. After a few months, he began to have an outline of what happened in all the directions, and precisely where.
Then he said, he began to get lucid, by realizing, “Have I seen this space before?” — and remembering that he had in a previous dream, which reminds him that he must be dreaming now.
Also, that gave him the capacity to ‘remember’ portals that seemed to exist to the other worlds (Upper and Lower) — and so he could find them, and move dimensionally.
I believe if you do some considerable research, you will find some anthropologists who can flesh out the idea of Worlds — and on rare occasion, those who can discuss it in terms of shamanic journeying and lucid dreaming.
One issue with some of this — certain teachings are only taught to initiates or tribal members. So you may discover that you need assistance with firsthand sources, if you can find them.