Abstract
AbstractIn an article aimed at complementing Boyer and Sperber's (relatively structural) views of counter-intuitive concepts and their robustness in the religious domain, Franks (2003) has recently drawn attention to the fact that the tolerance of such conflict or contradiction appears to be less domain-specific in some cultures, such as those found in East Asia. This paper follows up on this important point by highlighting the similarities and differences of the tolerance for contradictions evident in East Asian 'naïve dialecticism' and nonnatural religious representations. It is argued that, despite their dissimilarity with respect to the content represented, both types of tolerances may be structurally similar. Both could also be anchored in intuition, albeit in qualitatively different ways. Given the general tolerance of psychological contradiction among persons of East Asian cultures and the potential role of religion, the question whether there is a place for the study of 'tolerance of contradiction' in cross-cultural psychology and cognitive anthropology is raised.
Highlights
The research literature from anthropology and religious studies demonstrates how dreaming and dreams have served a range of significant functions in traditional societies and in practically every religious tradition throughout history
About whether the informant has communicated a dream to a dream expert, we found no significant correlation between reporting an Minimal Counterintuitiveness (MCI) dream and the likelihood of saying that you had communicated a dream to an expert, rs = .4, p = n.s
Because MCI items occur in almost all dreams reported in the interviews, that would mean that MCI items occur in almost all dreams
Summary
The research literature from anthropology and religious studies demonstrates how dreaming and dreams have served a range of significant functions in traditional societies and in practically every religious tradition throughout history. Dreams seem to provide anchors for belief by presenting direct perceptual and experiential evidence of various religious entities and spirit realms (Bulkeley, 2008a) Such convictions relate to intensely emotional dream experiences, a sense of “realness” about dream imagery, and often involuntary and ambiguous encounter with supernatural entities, as evidenced by nightmares, apparitions and “big dreams” (encounters with SAs of significance in the culture) and “visitation dreams” (encounters with the dead, relatives, loved ones and ancestors) that combine an intense sense of reality with a strongly frightening or non-frightening experience. The assumption that dreaming has causal “primacy” for religion is Journal of Cognition and CuDlowtnuloradeed2fr1om(2B0ril2l.c1o)m3102/193–/230321001:31:13PM
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