ECSTASIES OF RITUAL, DISRUPTIONS OF MODERNITY: DREAMS AS LIMINAL AGENTS OF RE-ORDER

This thesis seeks to connect dreams and rituals through their analogous pscyho-cultural functions as agents of (re)order during both epochal and daily liminal phases of life. Further, it attempts to describe dreaming as psychologically vital for mediating experience through the cognitive process of schematization while making the claim that Western postmodernity’s rejection of dream ideology and the resultant societal rejection of belief in their metaphysical significance has withered their psychological benefits. This connection will be made through the qualities of liminal experience and rites of passage at the macro and microcosmic scale, the process of schema formation through ritualistic belief and practice, and an ethnography of a postmodern, urban population of young adults and their process of documenting and discussing their dream ideations.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Anthropology

Grantor

University of Houston

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• New, Christian James

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Rasmussen, Susan J.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Gordon, Andrew J.
• Hannus, L. Adrien

• Dreams
• ritual
• schema
• liminality
• ethnography
• rites of passage

Statement dc:rights

• The author of this work is the copyright owner. UH Libraries and the Texas Digital Library have their permission to store and provide access to this work. Further transmission, reproduction, or presentation of this work is prohibited except with permission of the author(s).

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10657/16155

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uh-ir.tdl.org:10657/16155