WEBVTT - Dreamfall into the Dark, Part 4 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:15.320 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:15.960 is Robert. 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:18.680 Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:22.599 And we're jumping right into our fourth and final episode 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:26.480 in the dream Fall into the Dark series here about 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:31.120 the mystique of dreaming, particular times and places where dream 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:35.320 culture was especially pronounced. This, of course, won't be our 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:38.159 final episode on dreaming, will inevitably come back to dreaming. 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:41.839 Dreaming is always something that's going to come up one 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:44.000 way or another in the topics we cover on Stuff 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:44.720 to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:48.720 But now, Rob, didn't we begin this whole investigation because 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:53.240 you got interested in a dream related monster from Japanese folklore. 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:56.400 That's right, a particular monster that we will be covering 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:58.520 in this episode, but it kind of served as the 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:02.880 white Rabbit that we pursued and ended up doing three 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:06.840 additional episodes, not directly related to it or even its 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:10.680 direct dream culture. It is the creature we're going to 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:16.319 be talking about, a largely a creature of Japanese dream culture, 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:19.280 and so you know, I think it was necessary to 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:21.240 talk about much of what we talked about in the 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:24.400 previous three episodes to fully appreciate it. But we are 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:28.000 going to have to also discuss Japanese dream culture itself 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:30.160 before discussing this curious creature. 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:33.640 Right. So, as background, I was looking for a paper 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:37.520 on how dreams have been viewed in Japanese culture across history, 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:40.520 and I came across one published in the Journal of 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:45.240 Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences in nineteen ninety five by Shoozo 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:50.320 Koyama called Japanese Dreams, Culture and Cosmology. So this is 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:53.440 a short article by a researcher named Shooso Koyama, who 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:57.080 at the time of the publication worked at the Japanese 0:01:57.200 --> 0:02:01.440 National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka. Now, of course, the 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:05.640 way dreams are perceived in Japan across times seems in 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:09.440 broad regard to mirror patterns we've seen in other cultures, 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:12.880 where there are some people sometimes who regard them more 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:17.240 as private internal phenomena with no informational relevance to the 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:20.640 external world or no special power. It's not like a 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:23.880 place you go, whereas others see them as having a 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:28.120 kind of magic or predictive power, or involving genuine interactions 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:31.640 with spiritual beings. Both good and bad. But what this 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:35.200 paper does is look at a series of historical periods 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:39.120 in Japan and try to make a few generalizations about 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:42.000 trends in how dreams were perceived and written about in 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:45.400 those periods relative to the other periods. So the author 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:48.120 begins by looking at the Joman period, which is about 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:52.200 ten thousand BCE until about five hundred BCE. This is 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:55.120 a time when Japan was occupied by hunter gatherers who 0:02:55.200 --> 0:03:00.359 lived in small societies. We've talked about the German culture before, 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:04.560 especially with regards to their fabrication of clay pots. I 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:06.960 think we talked about this in our episode on the Cauldron, 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:12.760 and some evidence in early German culture of transitioning from 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:15.840 a hunter gatherer lifestyle to a more settled lifestyle, staying 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:19.200 in one place. More so, in this period, there are 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:21.919 no written records, so it is difficult to have much 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:25.680 certainty about the beliefs and psychology of people at the time. However, 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:29.520 we can make some guesses based on iconography preserved in 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:33.720 artifacts of this culture. So the German people did make 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:37.320 figurines out of clay and stone, representing both human and 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:41.600 animal forms. The human forms are very often female, often 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:46.080 depicted with exaggerated breasts, stomachs, and buttocks, with their faces 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:50.000 hidden behind masks. These are sometimes interpreted as goddesses or 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:54.120 figures of fertility, or as substitute human beings who are 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:57.000 given up as offerings to the gods, and you'll find 0:03:57.000 --> 0:03:59.520 them in different kinds of archaeological settings, may be left 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:02.720 alone in an abandoned dwelling or deposited in a hole 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:05.680 in the ground. As for animal forms, one of the 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:09.720 most common is apparently the snake. Snake designs are found 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:13.560 on many German vessels, and early snake motifs seem to 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:18.240 transition into more abstract forms like spirals or waves in 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:23.800 later designs. Late German figurines also depict bears and wild boars, 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:28.240 but humans and snakes are especially common. This, according to 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:31.880 the author, connects to the role of snakes in Japanese mythology. 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:35.200 There is a very prominent story where a prince kills 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:39.359 or subdues a snake spirit and this act leads to 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:43.200 the creation of Japan, and there are also folk tales 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:47.400 of snakes that transform into or appear as people. For example, 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:50.760 a snake that transforms into a man in order to 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:53.880 father children with a human woman, or a man that 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:56.839 visits a beautiful woman only to discover that she is 0:04:56.920 --> 0:04:59.720 actually a snake in disguise, or has a snake spirit 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:04.359 revealed and he runs away in terror. Now, to be 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:06.599 very clear, there is no proof that any of this 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:10.520 imagery comes from dreams, but in this period, because there 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:12.960 are no written records of dreams, all you can really 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:15.040 do is look at the imagery to try to get 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:18.960 a best guess about what kinds of non realistic subject 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:24.200 matter preoccupied the early inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago now Koyaman. 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:27.960 This article uses the stories of humans with underlying snake 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:33.720 spirits to argue that early Japanese culture is infused with animism. 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:37.320 Though here I think the author defines animism maybe a 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:39.520 little bit differently than I'm used to or than I've 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:43.480 seen in some other scholarships. So in this paper, animism 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:46.880 is defined as the belief that living beings are composed 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:51.760 of two substances, spirit and body, that spirit is intangible 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:55.560 and eternal, and that body is visible and tangible but temporal. 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:59.320 And of course I'm no expert on the study of religions, 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:02.000 but I think think usually or at least more often 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:05.640 animism is taken to me in a belief system that 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:08.240 you find all around the world, which assumes that not 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:12.560 only people, but potentially all things have a sort of 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:16.760 soul or spirit or agency. And this can include animals, 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:21.520 of course, but also plants, geological features like mountains and rivers, 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:27.000 just generally places, weather patterns, even human artifacts or abstract concepts, 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:30.400 and in a sense these all can have a spirit, 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:33.640 a soul, or a life force with agency, desires, and 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:37.159 other qualities of mind. One particular thing that's different here 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:40.600 is that I understand animism to notably make little or 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:45.120 no distinction between spiritual causes and material causes, whereas this 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:48.640 definition of animism, I think, would emphasize exactly that difference. 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:50.839 But I don't want to get two sidetracked here. Koyama 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:54.120 basically is asserting that that ancient Japanese art and stories 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:58.000 point toward a belief dividing the world into a material 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:01.560 reality and a spiritual reality that are separate. Now here 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:04.960 you go to phase two. This period begins five hundred 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:08.719 BCE and goes until roughly the fifth century CE. The 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:12.239 historical context is that Koyama says this is when Paddy 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:17.240 Ricefield cultivation begins in Japan, probably introduced from practices in 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:21.920 China through Korea. Some Chinese documents from this time imply 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:25.920 that Japan was probably a large and complex enough society 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:29.360 that there were different tribal territories. This is indicated by 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:33.320 references to conflicts between them, and during this time there 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:36.800 was an influx of new peoples moving in from outside Japan, 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:40.640 introducing new cultural elements. There was still plenty of figurative 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:44.800 art from this period. Some German conventions continued, and you 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:48.280 had depictions of human figures and daily activities. You would 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:52.720 find figures depicted hunting, harvesting crops, or seafaring. A lot 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:57.240 of animal representations as well, including figurines of birds and dragons, 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:00.800 which are not really present in Phase one. Koyama says, 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:03.320 it's notable that both of these creatures that show up 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:06.720 here can fly, and then writes quote. This coincides with 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:09.760 the fact that newcomers believed they were the descendants of 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:14.160 celestial gods, while indigenous groups were called offspring of gods 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:17.840 of the land in mythology. As a symbol of the sun, 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:22.120 mirrors were used by newcomers. A quantity of Chinese bronze 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:25.920 mirrors have been excavated from large scale tombs, apparently very 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:29.679 important artifacts. Decoration on the backs of some mirrors depict 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:33.360 a Taoist cosmology, and it's in this period that we 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:36.640 have the first references to dreaming in Japanese culture in 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:41.240 written records. There's a collection of Chinese historical texts known 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:46.120 as the Way Dynasty Chronicle, which these texts claim that 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:50.040 the Queen of Japan, in Coyama's words quote, governed her 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:53.520 nation by shamanism, though I'm not quite sure what that means. 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:58.200 So there is a collection of Chinese historical texts known 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:02.760 as the Way Dynasty chron and these texts make reference 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:06.240 to the Queen of Japan, and Koyama says that they 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:10.160 claimed that she governed her nation by shamanism. During this time, 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:13.360 there was use of oracle bones to tell the future 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:17.120 in Japan. Excavated artifacts demonstrate this, so there was a 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:21.320 form of There were forms of divination in practice, and dreams, 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.680 as we know, are very often in basically all cultures, 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:27.600 at some points used for divination to try to get 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:32.360 access to future information or secret information. There is an 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:36.920 eighth century Japanese text tradition known as the Kojiki, which 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:40.839 contains a bunch of myths, legends, and alleged historical accounts 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:44.600 of Japan up to the seventh century, and it claims 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:48.400 that during this period, dreaming was used to decide important 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:50.839 matters of state. And so I'm going to read a 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:53.400 quote from Koyami here, but it makes reference to an 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:58.720 emperor Sujin. Sujin was a Japanese emperor, often known as 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:01.360 one of these so called legends and dairy emperors. Though 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:04.640 I've read that some think he maybe or probably did 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:08.280 exist in history, maybe reigning during the first century BCE 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:11.720 or sometime around then. But what we know about him 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:14.000 is enmeshed in a lot of legends, so I think 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:16.600 it's hard to say a lot for certain if he 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:21.160 did exist. But anyway, the chronicle says Emperor Seugen quote 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:24.320 had a sacred bed made so that he could dream 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:27.760 in order to make a decision in a crisis, for example, 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:30.960 to stamp out epidemics or to nominate the heir to 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:33.520 the throne. He often listened to the dreams of his 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:37.280 subjects in order to make national policy. It is clear 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:40.080 that during this phase people still believed in the supernatural 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:43.720 world and dreaming was considered a domain where qualified persons 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:48.559 communicated with powerful spirits. So this mimics beliefs about dreams. 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:52.319 We've seen from elsewhere that dreams could be used for divination, 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:54.920 that they could help you predict the future, or they 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:57.679 could give you advice. Maybe you would be getting advice 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:02.439 directly from some kind of spiritual entities who had privileged knowledge, 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:06.240 and that in some cases there were specially qualified people 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.120 who could communicate with these entities in dreams. 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:13.120 I love this detail that the emperor had a sacred 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:18.120 dreaming bed. That's that's that's wonderful. This idea that a 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:22.440 night's sleep needs to be special. Tonight's sleep is just 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:25.360 about a vital dream that will help lead the way. 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:30.120 I think you could consider this a form of intentional 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:33.400 dream incubation. That you know that we see this in 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:36.360 other cultures, like in ancient Greco Roman culture, there would 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:40.080 be temples where you could go and sleep in the 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:42.800 temple in like a special place in order to receive 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:46.000 a dream from the god. I guess after you made 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:48.800 an offering to the god because you slept in the temple, 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:51.160 the dream would be from that God giving you advice 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:54.040 about what to do in order to solve your problem. 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:54.800 Yeah. 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:59.120 After this, Koyama goes to Phase three, which is beginning 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:02.080 in the fifth century and going into the ninth. This 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:05.040 was a time when Japan was established as a state 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:09.280 and interacted politically with other states in East Asia koamas As. 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:12.120 There were strong Chinese influences in Japan at this time, 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:15.440 including Chinese law codes, as well as the spread of 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:19.400 philosophies and religions that were either Chinese in origin or 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:25.160 popular in China already, such as Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. Now, 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:27.760 as we've discussed before, I think this came up in 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:32.480 talking about that book by Lynn Struve. Confucianism sometimes is 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:38.080 taken to militate against supernatural or so called irrational interpretations 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:41.760 of dreams. I've read elsewhere. I think that that Confucian 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:44.960 thinkers were sort of often not on board with the 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:48.480 idea of dream divination, while Taoism, on the other hand, 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:51.280 does sort of allow for fortune telling and omens. 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:57.959 Yeah, that's my understanding that sort of three different schools 0:12:57.960 --> 0:12:59.360 here are in play, but those are sort of the 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:03.800 the major like push and pull between Confusism and Dallism 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:04.800 concerning dreams. 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:08.360 From this period, Koyama mentions a Buddhist temple coming back 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:11.960 to the special dream bed, mentions a Buddhist temple called 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:15.760 the Horyuji, which was built in the early seventh century 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:19.920 by a prince named Shotoku, and allegedly the prince would 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:23.040 lock himself inside this temple for days at a time 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:27.080 to receive inspiration, and one of the names of this 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:32.160 building translates to dream hall. However, Koyama says that during 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:34.880 this period, the primary thing about dreams is that they 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:38.320 seem mostly kept private, maybe whether one believed in dreams 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:39.280 as divination or not. 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:43.240 Okay, so there wasn't as much in the way of 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:45.280 dream literature at the time. 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:48.480 But then we reach phase four, and it's when we 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:51.760 realize we are all just the dream of a giant 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:56.240 ant mound no sorry movie reference. Beginning in the ninth 0:13:56.240 --> 0:14:00.520 century going on until the thirteenth there is this period 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:05.120 Koyama characterizes as the maturation of the political and economic 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:09.280 structure of Japan and the establishment of a court culture 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:14.440 that includes literature and other elite products. During this period, 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:17.680 there is a resurgence of interest in dreams as a 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:20.960 tool for seeing into the future. During this period, there 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:24.120 is a resurgence of interest in dreams as a tool 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:27.760 for seeing into the future. This comes in concert with 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:30.560 what seems to be a general resurgence of belief in, 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:36.880 or at least interest in supernatural beings and mechanisms like ghosts, demons, wraiths, omens, 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:41.760 and curses. And during this period Japanese Buddhism Koamas has 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:45.640 incorporated some Shinto elements, Shinto being sort of the native 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:49.320 belief system of Japan. Again to the special dream facilities 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:52.880 and dream beds, Quoyama writes, quote, some temples and shrines 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:57.200 had special compounds for dreaming. People rushed to such places 0:14:57.320 --> 0:14:59.800 en mass and stayed until they had a good dream. 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:05.360 There were professional dream interpreters and dreamers by profession. Nightmares 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:09.240 and sleep disorders were commonplace during this period. However, it's 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.800 important to consider none of these generalizations totalizing, because there 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:17.320 are some counterexamples, like Koyama mentions a tenth century poetic 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:21.400 diary known as the Kageroniki, sometimes called The Gossamer Years 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:24.800 in English, in which the author at one point gets 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:29.240 a supernatural interpretation of a dream from a priest, and 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:32.920 she calls the priest's interpretation of the dream a stupid lie, 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:36.880 but the priest did try to give her the interpretation, 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:40.640 so it seems maybe that's normal for this period, but 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:44.720 the author's reaction suggests diversity of opinion on the power 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:48.520 of dreams among the elite. But overall, if Koyama is correct, 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:51.720 this is a period where belief in the power of 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:57.480 dreams flowers. Then there's phase five beginning in the thirteenth century, 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:00.440 the rise of the samurai class, and it's a sonociated 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:04.360 power system. Koyama describes them as, for the most part, 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:09.560 realistic and practical entrepreneurs coyamas as literature of this time 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:13.320 period shows on average a sort of turning away from 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:17.960 belief in the power of dreams as supernatural portents or realities, 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:19.800 at least certainly not as much as there was in 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:23.640 the phase before. And one example Koyama gives is a 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:27.200 Japanese epic known as the tai Haiki, or the Chronicle 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:29.920 of Great Peace. This is written sometime in the late 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:33.560 fourteenth century, and in part of this text there is 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:38.080 a warrior named Ayoto who quote refused to receive an 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:40.880 award after being told that his lord wanted to give 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:46.000 it because he dreamt of Aoto's distinguished service. He said, 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:49.440 I can't receive such an irrational award. I did nothing. 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:53.160 What will happen if he dreams another way? And then 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:56.120 Coyamas as quote for such people, the difference between dream 0:16:56.160 --> 0:17:00.920 and reality was clearly distinct. And then finally Phase six 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:04.359 coam this is the nineteenth century onward. One of the 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:09.320 main changes is the influence of Euro American culture, and 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:13.560 Coyama says that on one hand, modern Japanese culture has 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:18.240 a predominantly rationalist and materialist view of nature, which relegates 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:22.520 streams to natural psychological phenomena with no predictive power or 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:25.960 reality of their own. On the other hand, he says, 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:29.399 millions still visit Shinto shrines and keep good luck charms 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:32.119 in their cars and so forth, and so in some ways, 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:35.520 elements of what the author refers to as animistic thinking, 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:38.760 which again seems to mean in this paper, the belief 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:42.280 in a spiritual dimension of reality that operates outside of 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:46.400 strict physical causality, can still be found peaking out through 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.840 the top layer of rationalism. Maybe people kind of shift 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:52.160 back and forth between these ways of seeing the world 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:54.960 depending on how they feel, though I would say I 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:57.000 don't think this would be at all unique to Japan. 0:17:57.080 --> 0:17:58.600 It just seems to me this is sort of what 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:00.800 most people in all societies do. 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:03.320 Oh absolutely, I feel like this comes up time and 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:07.440 time again, whether we're talking about say, you know, varying 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:11.679 at times contradictory beliefs about the afterlife and how you know, 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:14.200 you may think one way in the morning, one way 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:17.160 in the afternoon, or kind of two ways at once 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:20.520 without really putting a fine line on it. Likewise, I 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:24.720 remember when we looked at some research concerning belief in 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:29.160 modern China in the power of the zodiac concerning when 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:33.560 a child is born, and you know, as I remember, 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:36.280 part of that was it was not that you had 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:41.080 a large number of contemporary people who were super invested 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:45.680 in this, like the zodiac system and that belief system, 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:48.359 but they were just a little bit aware of it. 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:52.840 It's kind of like background superstitious belief that you may 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:56.040 dip into at times when it seems useful. 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:58.639 When it feels right, suddenly you'll play on that board. 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:01.399 But right maybe most the time you're not looking at it, 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:02.360 yeah yeah. 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:04.359 Or you have a decision to make and you know, 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:06.240 you don't have any other factors to go on but 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:09.720 you do have this bit of you know, traditional lore 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:12.280 that is a steeped in superstition. You might turn to 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:15.240 that in those circumstances. And I think this also extends 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:18.280 to the use of amulets and you know, good luck 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:21.560 tokens and so forth, you know, because it's like, you 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:23.680 may not believe it completely, but hey, it doesn't take 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:26.359 a much room in the pocket or on the dash 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:28.520 of the car or what have you. 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:30.919 A person might say, I don't really believe it, but 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:33.560 it's kind of fun. But then once you have it, 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:35.840 you can kind of, I don't know, find yourself in 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:48.400 moments clutching at it. Yes, But you know, an interesting 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:50.399 thing that I think came up in part three of 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:54.720 the series is that whether you have a totally rationalistic 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:57.919 approach to dreams, you don't really, you know, give them 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:00.359 any any special power. You don't think they were reflect 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:04.280 a secret reality of spiritual entities interacting or giving you 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:08.320 information about the future how to live your life. Even then, 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:11.000 you still don't want to have nightmares. So people are 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:14.040 looking for ways to have good dreams, whether they think 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:16.560 dreams are supernatural experiences or not. 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:19.280 Yeah, it's kind of like, all right, I wasn't listening 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:21.439 when you were talking about what this dream and what 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:24.320 this dream meant. But but you said something about stopping nightmares. 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:28.200 So let's get back to that, and that's ultimately where 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:31.119 we come to in discussing the monster. At long last, 0:20:31.160 --> 0:20:35.000 we're going to be talking about the Baku. Now. I 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:38.880 encourage everyone to look up some illustrations of the Baku, 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:42.159 certainly the historical illustrations, but I also ran across a 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:46.640 number of like contemporary, you know, fan illustrations and so forth, 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:50.399 online illustrations, and many of those are also very impressive. 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:53.840 I found two major trends in the way that this 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:58.000 creature is depicted. One is kind of like the frightening 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:01.560 Avenger of Nightmares version of the Baku, and the other 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:03.679 is kind of like the I guess, the awe buddy 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:06.560 version of the Baku, where he just looks looks snugly. 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:10.280 The funny thing about the I totally agree, yeah you 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:13.720 have the scary Baku or the snugly Baku, is that 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:17.120 they both look very huggable, and somehow the scary Baku 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:18.760 is even more huggable than. 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:23.240 The two one. Yeah, yeah, I agree, yeah, I mean, 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:26.280 and yeah, no matter what, there may be some some 0:21:26.320 --> 0:21:30.400 snuggling involved at the end of it. So the Baku, 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:33.040 I guess just a good place to start is with 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:38.600 sort of like general descriptions. I always go to Carol 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:43.919 Roses encyclopedias of monsters and fairies and so forth is 0:21:43.920 --> 0:21:46.439 a good like sort of starting place. And in that 0:21:46.520 --> 0:21:50.240 Rose describes the Baku as a benevolent, semi supernatural monster 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:54.880 with an appearance that is basically that of a giant taper, 0:21:55.160 --> 0:21:57.199 but a creature that is also described as having the 0:21:57.200 --> 0:21:59.320 body of a horse, the head of a lion, and 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:02.120 the legs and of a tiger. Note if you haven't 0:22:02.119 --> 0:22:04.280 seen an actual taper, a taper is of course a 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:08.200 natural world organism. It does not look quite like this, 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:11.560 though it does look very unique. It is a notable creature. 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:15.159 I find that when I see one in a movie 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:19.520 or at a zoo or illustrations online, I can't help 0:22:19.560 --> 0:22:23.480 but feel elated from having seen it. 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:26.600 To me, a taper or tapier, however, you say it 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:31.760 is the three way cross between a pig, a panda, bear, 0:22:31.840 --> 0:22:32.639 and an elephant. 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:36.560 Yeah, I guess it depends where your starting point is, 0:22:36.600 --> 0:22:41.119 but yeah, taper definitely feels more pig like, yeah, pig 0:22:41.200 --> 0:22:44.840 and rhino based than anything more in the taper here 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:47.399 in a bit, but the baccu. The idea is that 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:50.400 humans may call on it in the early morning hours 0:22:50.440 --> 0:22:53.880 to devour a bad dream or nightmare that has plagued 0:22:53.920 --> 0:22:57.159 their dream space, allowing them to forget and carry on 0:22:57.359 --> 0:23:00.919 their day in peace, which is a worthy duty. And 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:02.760 I also find it interesting that, you know, this kind 0:23:02.760 --> 0:23:06.639 of lines up with the way that that dreams and 0:23:06.720 --> 0:23:08.600 especially bad dreams and nightmares kind of hit it. So 0:23:08.600 --> 0:23:11.560 there's kind of like that period where we can easily 0:23:11.600 --> 0:23:14.560 forget or easily remember. Like part of the principle of 0:23:14.640 --> 0:23:16.680 dream journaling is, oh, you've got to write it down 0:23:16.680 --> 0:23:20.320 before you forget it, And with nightmare sometimes that the 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:22.959 challenge is reversed. You've got to you've got to not 0:23:23.000 --> 0:23:25.560 think about it before you remember it. You've got to 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:27.840 forget it before it sticks with you too long. 0:23:28.080 --> 0:23:30.560 That's a good point. Yes, if it was really scary, 0:23:30.640 --> 0:23:33.560 you'll be thinking about it continuously after you wake up, 0:23:33.560 --> 0:23:35.600 which actually cements it in memory. 0:23:35.920 --> 0:23:38.760 Yeah, and then there's something about writing it down or 0:23:38.800 --> 0:23:42.760 telling somebody about the dream that certainly brings out the details. 0:23:42.760 --> 0:23:45.000 Sometimes those details that aren't sticking with you, and then 0:23:45.040 --> 0:23:47.439 you start telling someone about the dream or nightmare and 0:23:47.560 --> 0:23:50.840