The circulation of dreams

If seeing and hearing in sleep is a universal fact common to certain living beings, dreams are also universally declined as a cultural and social human phenomenon, subject to all kinds of variations according to times and places... Taking note of this double universality, biological and anthropological, leads us not to consider as secondary or additional the way in which, in different societies and in different periods, dreams are represented, lived, told and shared. These are, by right, therefore, the domain of the human sciences, understood in the broad sense.
Their study involves the views of philosophers, sociologists, psychoanalysts, psychologists, historians, anthropologists, literary scholars, linguists, not to mention those of the dreamers that we are. This enumeration does not refer to a hierarchy of values, but rather to the consideration of a diversity of perspectives. The identification of anthropological, psychoanalytical, psychological or sociological invariants is subject to debate. Should we choose to look for these invariants, or rather for differences? This collection pragmatically assumes the choice of an eclectic mix of approaches.

This issue explores the inter-individual, social and collective aspects of dreams. From specific files supported by case studies, surveys and examples, it describes and analyzes a flow of narratives, images, collections, beliefs and discourses with scientific aims. How are dreams exchanged? Though they are very often open to interpretation, they can allow us to communicate with the dead or the living, and also convert, reassure, heal, frighten, stupefy, transmit and bring alive a prediction, a testimony, a legacy, a pleasure or a promise, confirm a theory, or even... cause us to dream, and elicit other, answering or shared dreams.