Uluru and the Dreamtime

[Robot_Butler]

Who is our local expert on the Indigenous Australian people and the Dreamtime? Last night, I became lucid in a dream where I was confronted with tall rocky cliffs. At first, I thought I was in Hawaii, and that I was looking at the Pali Cliffs. I flew to the top, and realized that I was not in Hawaii, but on a huge rock formation that was surrounded by a flat sea of desert. I was joined by two young dark skinned boys. We talked about lucid dreaming, and they showed me a game similar to basketball, but with a crude heavy leather ball. I had a hard time playing because the ground was very uneven. I wanted to show the kids something fun, so I held the leather ball, turned it into a football, and then threw it off the side of the cliff. I spun it end over end, like a really bad throw. It flew out in a wide horizontal arc, and returned like a boomerang. I then unraveled it into a flat piece of leather, and folded it into an origami dog. I brought the dog to life for the kids to play with. It looked like Dachshund puppy, and it only lived for a few seconds before dying and turning back into a folded piece of leather. I did not make any Australian connections at the time, but looking back at the dream, I believe I was on top of Ayer's Rock / Uluru. It looked slightly differently than it does now. It was spotted with snow, and slightly taller. The football boomerang thing, the landscape (except for the snow?), and the dingo creation thing all make me think of Australia. I think the two boys were indigenous Australian, not Hawaiian as I originally assumed. The two boys knew I was lucid, and we had a conversation about dreaming. They seemed to be experts, and I felt like they were testing what I could do. I was showing them some tricks, and they were showing me a few things. I don't know much about the dreamtime / Altjeringa, but this dream makes me want to learn more. Can anyone recommend some good books about the subject that are not too biased by new-age philosophy? I remember a lecture from an old art class in college where they showed us some Dream Maps. I would love to learn how to read these and maybe draw some of my own.

[Ethanescence]

Hey, I'm new to the forums and I live in Australia. I've read quite a bit about Australian Aboriginals. I've never been to Uluru though. One of the things that always remind me of lucid dreaming is the Australian Aboriginals. I've read a couple of books and poems by Australia authors and dreaming is tied up so strongly in the native Australian culture that it's unbelievable. They were experts in dreaming. Their spiritual beliefs consist of the popularised "Dreamtime" which is often mentioned as the creation period of their belief systems. Also, the Aboriginals are though to be the oldest culture on earth - fossil records indicate they inhabited Australia over 40,000 years ago. Also, some groups used to highly regard dreams - they were very spiritual and prophetic in terms that they used dreams for guidance. Sometimes (or often) dreams were considered more important than waking life. I remember reading a short story by an Aboriginal author about how one of the young boys in the clan broke the code of the tribe. The boy was sentenced to death as he touched something sacred and his father purposefully had a incubated dream (could be interpreted as a lucid dream) and he analysed his personal dream sign (native animal) and sought guidance for what to do. So, if I had to say anything - I would say that the Australia Aboriginals, on average, embraced lucid dreaming unlike any other culture on earth. In some repsects they are very similar to some form of native American beliefs. Though, all the tribes were different - with common elements - and since some were nomadic their clans and tribes often interacted and passed down oral "Dreamtime" stories from generation to generation. They had no need to write anything down. That was up until the past 200 hundred years though, when the Europeans "claimed" Australia. Since then, common diseases which they were not resistant to, acts massacres and genocide wiped out whole tribes and clans to extinction. Tasmanian (the small island south below the mainland continent) Aboriginals are thought to be completely wiped out. Those few that did survive and had children with the European settlers had their children taken away from them in a government policy. Later called the "stolen generation" these families never reunited and were put in camps to integrate them into society, as the government thought the native parents could not properly look after them. This happened until the late 1970's. Due to this separation of families, thousands of half-Aboriginal people forgot their culture, suffered depression and mental illnesses, never saw their parents, brothers or sisters again and are unsupported and often times stereotyped as a race. So, coming back to the fact that they didn't write anything down and a whole generation's past was destroyed by clashing of ideals and cultures, their stories and teachings of the Aboriginal people is almost non-existant. There are hardly any books - or people for that matter - who truly remember the teachings of their elders or the stories that were passed down. To put it into perspective - we know more about ancient Egyptian culture than we do of Australia Aboriginal culture. I think we lost a lot of knowledge, concerning dreaming - and probably lucid dreaming - because of that. I searched on the internet and looked in my library, but there's hardly any notable books or websites. The only books surrounding that topic are those that describe the stolen generation and the European colonies settling Australia. The books that I've mentioned above I can't remember the title or when or where I read them. The stories stuck in my mind though. Sorry I could not help more, however, I hope this helps explain a little.

[Robot_Butler]

Thanks for the info, Ethanescence. You've confirmed my fears that the depth of information I'm looking for has probably been lost. That explains why I've been able to find only general information about this subject. I'm especially fascinated by the dream map painters that became popular for a hot minute in the 1970s. I know they were originally painted on people's bodies, and were coded maps of the tribe's physical and cultural history. They not only recorded landmarks like hunting trails and water holes, but also elements of the tribe's mythology, geneology and history. I get the feeling that these maps are the closest thing to written language they left behind. I find it amazing the way they overlapped the physical and psychic landscape. The dream and waking landscape. Such a unique and alien view of the world. I don't know how to begin to approach understanding it. Its a shame that this fascinating culture has been so thoroughly destroyed. I know this is an extremely volatile political topic in Australia, so its hard to find information that is not politicized in some way. Can you recommend any good books on Aboriginal mythology? Especially something written by an author with an 'inside point of view'. Its that point of view, that unique view of the world that I'm trying to figure out.