STABILITY AND VARIABILITY OF UDMURT DREAM NARRATIVES: A CASE STUDY OF SAME OF THE SAME FOLKLORE TEXTS RECORDED AT DIFFERENT TIME

Abstract

The article presents the results of a comparative analysis of chronologically different narratives about dreams and examines their stability and variability. The objects of the research are five same dream stories recorded in 2018 and 2020 from the same informant in the rural locality ( selo ) of Zavialovo, the Udmurt Republic. The narratives under consideration belong to one classification group - otherworldly dreams, the plot-forming motif of which is communication with deceased close relatives. While analyzing the stability and variability of the folklore texts, I take into account their composition and suggest new terms "dream-text" ( снотекст ) to denote the part that comprises the dream itself and "dream-comments" ( снокомментарии ) to denote narrator's explanations and remarks on the reported dream. The dream-comments are divided into three groups: introductory / pre-text, in-text and final / post-text comments. It has been revealed that dream-comments undergo the greatest changes - they can either extend or reduce, contain non-repeating data and interpretations, thus playing a key role in text compression. Conversely, the dream-texts do not alter dramatically, demonstrating remarkable stability: slight variability can be found only at the structural level (internal permutations of structural elements in the dream-text) and lexical level (the use of synonymous words and expressions that do not change the content of the described dream). It can be explained by the informant’s inclination to convey the dream content as accurately as possible and preserve its significant details. The stability of the dream texts is observed at the grammatical level, namely the verb tense usage, and at the syntactical level, namely the usage of the mixture of direct and indirect speech. The prevalence of present tense verb forms in narration aims to blur time boundaries, create the illusion of the reality, so the dream is not just remembered, but presented hit et nunc to listeners. All considered dream narratives perfectly fit into the Udmurt traditional religious and mythological system, reflecting and reinforcing existing beliefs (the need to remember the dead, beliefs about posthumous existence), thereby emphasizing that retold dreams are culturally constituted and encouraged.