Dream In Yoruba Worldview

By Dr. Kayode Fanilola

Among the Yoruba people, dream is generally regarded as a sign or symbol for something else. It may be interpreted
either as a good or bad sign. In spite of the spiritual, metaphysical and emotional importance the Yoruba attach to
dream, dreaming is widely believed to be a foolish exercise. This view is borne out of the popular saying among the
Yoruba: Ala go (dream is foolish). This position rests on the belief that a dream is only a partial message that cannot
mean anything by itself until it is supplemented by additional information that only the dreamer or the interpreter
can provide.

The Yoruba also believe that one’s past experience can also manifest resurface in a dream. One of the most popular
Yoruba proverbs attests to this view:

Eni ti o mu gaari sun

Ti o lalaa pe o n luewee lodo
Ati ale ana lo ti n luwee bo

Someone who has a dinner of gaari soaked in water

And dreams of swimming in the river
must have been swimming right from the previous night

Literally, the proverb above is to show that somebody who had a dinner of gaari soaked in water must have taken a
lot of water more than when he had taken something else for dinner. In other words, there is a connection between
the most recent reality of the dreamer and his or her dream. It is a situation of reality re-presenting itself within the
compass of the unconscious.

Another element in Yoruba perspective on dream relates to the need not to divulge one’s dreams to other people,
especially those people that may not be one’s supporters. It is believed that telling a good dream to enemies can
change that dream into a bad reality or that telling a bad dream to a spiritually wicked person may make that dream
come to fruition.

DREAM TYPOLOGY

There are basically two types of dreams and the singular criterion used in this typology is the interpretation ascribed
to the dream. However, the interpretation is determined by a number of factors. A dream is good if the events and
actions in the dream are interpreted as good. On the other hand, a dream is considered bad if the events and actions
in the dream are interpreted as bad . Often, the episodes in a dream are determined or interpreted on the basis of the
socio-cultural situation of the dreamer. For instance, a village farmer who has never seen an aircraft is not expected
to readily dream of getting involved in an air crash while a boy living in the urban environment will hardly get
involved in a rural situation. When either of this happens, the dream is considered so unusual that it deserves special
consideration.
Some of the dream events common among the Yoruba are the following: eating, beings chased or pursued by
masquerades or wild animals, counting money, being bitten by a snake or scorpion, swimming in a river, bathing in
the bathroom or by the river bank, climbing a hill or a tree, falling from a high place like a tree or mountain top,
working in a farm, walking through a farm, sexual intercourse, miscarriage, giving birth to a baby, getting sick,
weeping, attending a joyous party, hunting or being hunted, flying in space, riding on a horse, sighting a snail, etc.

DREAM INTERPRETATION

Among the Yoruba, dreams are interpreted from three perspectives. The first is shen direct meaning is ascribed to
the events or actions in the dream, like when someone dreams that an individual has died and the person later dies.
There are a lot of people who make this type of literal or direct connection between dream event and real event. In
this case the dreamer is functioning as a clairvoyant person who is given a special gift to see what is expected to
happen in the community.

The second perspective is when the reverse or opposite meaning is ascribed to the events and actions in the dream.
For instance, when somebody dreams of counting money, this may be interpreted as a manifestation of
foreshadowing of poverty. People whose dreams manifest the opposite of what is to happen can sometimes interpret
their dreams without going to experts after experiencing the coming to pass of the opposite of what their dreams
indicated.

Thirdly, symbolic meaning is ascribed to the events of a dream. This is the most sophisticated and complex of dream
interpretations. For instance, a person who dreams of plucking or gathering fruits is told to expect some blessings on
the job or in his or her social life. This interpretation rests on metaphorical connection between the sign and its
referent. Fruits are considered as signs of good things that are slated to happen to the dreamer, because fruits are
sources of life and bringers of good taste.

The meaning has nothing or very little to do with physical plucking or gathering of fruits. The interpretation is
determined by a number of factors such as mythic-religious belief, taboos, superstitions, and psychological attitudes
to images that are life-advancing or life-negating. The interpretation of dreams in the following section is based on
these factors: Dream Event (in bold) and Interpretation among the Yoruba (in italics).

Eating: This is interpreted to be a bad omen, because it may mean that the food one likes to eat may be poisoned by
someone else.

Being chased: This is interpreted usually as a bad sign. The masquerade or the by animals or animal is a
manifestation of evil forces. In practical terms, one’s masquerades enemies are planning evil against the person
involved.

Counting money: This is often interpreted as a foreshadowing of poverty. The dreamer may be having a vicarious
experience of wealth and mistake this for reality by relaxing, or it could mean the possibility of a sudden wealth that
has no basis in the dreamer’s efforts and can also lead back to poverty if the dreamer does not embark on
productive activities.

Swimming in river: This is interpreted as a struggle to survive or surmount a problem. Swimming through the river
before the end of the dream may signal potential success while failing to do this may suggest serious problems
ahead for the dreamer.

Bathing in the house: This is interpreted as washing away ill luck or failure. Bathing in one’s house suggests some
element of control by the person .

Seeing a snail: This is often suggested to mean that one’s progress will be slowed

or picking snail down. It can also mean contracting a sudden death

Sexual intercourse: This suggests that one’s progress may be negated or the possibilityof spiritual weakness.

Hunting : If the dreamer kills the game, it is interpreted as acquiring some success. If otherwise, this means the
beginning of failure in the dreamer’s efforts.

Getting married: This may mean that the person is married already in the Spirit world and may remain unmarried
for ever in the physical world. For the already married person, this could mean a gradual transition to the ancestral
world where reunion is a form of marriage.

Being soaked by rain: This is often interpreted as a sign of blessing to the dreamer

Interpreting dreams is generally regarded as a spiritual gift and only those gifted are versed in the art of dream
interpretation. Some highly talented Ifa priests sometimes do dream interpretation. The interpretation highlighted
above is simply an aggregated one, as the historical or social context or background of the dreamer may provide an
additional insight. Serious attention is paid to dream interpretation by the Yoruba people to the extent that people
consult spiritualists, herbalists, and diviners for interpretations of their dreams. In many ways, dream interpretation,
like divination, requires collaborative decoding by both the dreamer and the interpreter: the former provides
additional contexts for his dream while the latter provides paradigms for establishing correlation between a fantastic
image and reality, between the world of real signs and the world of metaphors.

The unpredictable nature of dreams and almost lack of control over events in the dream renders for now any
scientific mode of dream interpretation unprofitable. Attempts by natural and medical sciences to explain off the
dream process as an "incomprehensible or perverse product of an inefficient, poorly oxygenated brain" as Brebbia
and Altshuler have once said does not help to account for the puzzling process of dreaming and the manifestation of
dream events in the physical world. Therefore, the movement of events and actions from the dream world to the
physical world may still have to be explained from the standpoint of cosmic and metaphysical perception of a people
or culture. It is the combination of these that account for the Yoruba worldview of dream and dream interpretation.

References

Berger, R.J. (1963) "Experimental Modification of Dream Content by Meaningful Verbal Stimuli in British Journal
of Psychology vol 109: 722-740.

Brebbia, D.R. & K. Altshuler. (1965) "Oxygen Consumption Rate and Electroencephalographic Stage of Sleep" in
Science Vol 17: 1621.

Ogunremi, O.O. (1983) "Sleep, Dreams and Drug Research: Contributions to Medical Sciences." University of Ilorin
Inaugural Lecture Series. University of Ilorin Press

Dr. Kayode Fanilola is currently on leave of absence from the University of Ilorin in Nigeria where he teaches
Yoruba language, culture, and literature.