Book Explores Kosovo Albanian Tradition of Dream Interpretation

These are just some of the dream meanings as traditionally understood by Kosovo Albanians, and now collected in a book published in Pristina.

For months, two young anthropologists, Iliriana Blakaj and Bjeshka Guri, have been travelling all over Kosovo, collecting memories of the way people interpret their night-time thoughts in sleep.

Over the generations, Kosovo Albanians have created an informal index of interpretations of dreams.

Guri did not find it hard to delve into this relatively unexplored field of study.

"We all lived with our grandparents who in the morning, immediately after waking up, would say: 'May God turn things for good because I had a dream and don't know what it means,'" the book's co-author told BIRN.

"Once my grandmother wakes up in the morning, she starts re-telling her dreams of the previous night. I got inspired from there," she adds.

A discussion usually kept private

Iliriana Blakaj, co-author of Dream Catalogue. Photo: Courtesy of CHwB Kosova/ Majlinda Hoxha

The two authors' Dream Catalogue, published in both Albanian and English, presents the traditional models by which Kosovo Albanians have  interpreted dreams, and offers an elaboration of ethnographic, anthropological and psychoanalytic theories about their interpretation.

"This is the first initiative to write an anthropology of dreams, which in itself tells you about people's approach here to dreams," Blakaj says.

"In Albanian society, speaking about dreams has been restricted to the private sphere. People speake about them, but with a bit of anxiety because they [the dreams] have usually warned them about sorrow and bitterness to come, so people are cautious," Blakaj notes.

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