As a member of a scientific expedition
traveling through the unexplored equatorial rain forest of the Central
Range of the Malay Peninsula in 1935, I was introduced to an isolated
tribe of jungle folk, who employed methods of psychology and inter-perso
nal relations so astonishing that they might have come from another
planet. These people, the Senoi, lived in long community houses, skillfully
constructed of Bamboo, rattan, and thatch, and held away from the
ground on poles. They maintained themselves b y practicing dry-land,
shifting agriculture, and by hunting and fishing. Their language,
partly Indonesian and partly Non-Kamian, relates them to the peoples
of Indonesia to the south and west, and to the Highlanders of Indo-China
and Burma, as do their p hysical characteristics. Study of their political
and social organization indicates that the political authority in
their communities was originally in the hands of the oldest members
of patrilineal clans, somewhat as in the social structure of China
and other parts of the world. But the: major authority in all their
communities is now held by their primitive psychologists whom they
call halaks. The only honorary title in the society is that
of Tohat, which is equivalent to a doctor who is b oth a healer
and an educator, in our terms.
The Senoi claim there has not been a
violent crime or an intercommunal conflict for a space of two or three
hundred years because of the insight and inventiveness of the Tohats
of their various communities. The foothill tribes which surround
th e Central Mountain Range have such a firm belief in the magical
powers of this Highland group that they give the territory a wide
berth. From all we could learn, their psychological knowledge of strangers
in their territory, the Senoi said they could very easily devise means
of scaring them off. They did not practice black magic, but allowed
the nomadic hillfolk surrounding them to think that they did if strangers
invaded their territory.
This fear of Senoi magic accounts for
the fact that they have not, over a long period, had to fight with
outsiders. But the absence of violent crime, armed conflict, and mental
and physical diseases in their own society can only be explained on
the ba sis of institutions which produce a high state of psychological
integration and emotional maturity, along with social skills and attitudes
which promote creative, rather than destructive, interpersonal relations.
They are, perhaps, the most democratic gro up reported in anthropological
literature. In the realms of family, economics, and politics, their
society operates smoothly on the principle of contract, agreement,
and democratic consensus, with no need of police force, jail, psychiatric
hospital to rei nforce the agreements or to confine those who are
not willing or able to reach consensus. Study of their society seems
to indicate that they have arrived at this high state of social and
physical cooperation and integration through the system of psycholog
y which they discovered, invented, and developed, and that the principles
of this system of psychology are understandable in terms of Western
scientific thinking.
It was the late H. D. Noone,
the Government, Ethnologist of the Federated Malay States, who introduced
me to this astonishing group. He agreed with me that they have built
a system of inter-personal relations which, in the field of psychology,
i s perhaps on a level with our attainments in such areas as television
and nuclear physics. From a year's experience with these people working
as a research psychologist, and another year with Noone in England
integrating his seven years of anthropological research with my own
findings, I am able to make the following formulations of the principles
of Senoi psychology.
Being a pre-literate group, the principles
of their psychology are simple and easy to learn, understand, and
even employ. Fifteen years of experimentation with these Senoi principles
have convinced me that all men, regardless of their actual cultura
l development, might profit by studying them. Emphasis Added
Senoi psychology falls into two categories.
The first deals with dream interpretation the second with dream expression
in the agreement trance or cooperative reverie. The cooperative reverie
is not participated in until adolescence and serves to initia te the
child into the states of adulthood: After adolescence, if he spends
a great deal of time in the trance state, a Senoi is considered a
specialist in healing or in the use of extrasensory powers.
Dream interpretations, however, is a
feature of child education and is the common knowledge of all Senoi
adults. The average Senoi layman practices the psychotherapy of dream
interpretation of his family and associates as a regular feature of
education and daily social intercourse. Breakfast in the Senoi house
is like a dream clinic, with the father and older brothers listening
to and analyzing the dreams of all the children. At the end of the
family clinic the male population gathers in the council, a t which
the dreams of the older children and all the men in the community
are reported, discussed, and analyzed.
While the Senoi do not, of course, employ
our system of terminology, their psychology of dream interpretation
might be summed up as follows: man creates features or images of the
outside world in his own mind as part of the adaptive process. Some
of th ese features are in conflict with him and with each other. Once
internalized, these hostile images turn man against himself and against
his fellows. In dreams man has the power to see these facts of his
psyche, which have been disguised in external forms, associated with
his own fearful emotions, and turned against him and the internal
images of other people. If the individual does not receive social
aid through education and therapy, these hostile images, built up
by man's normal receptiveness to the out side world, get tied together
and associated with one another in a way which makes him physically,
socially, and psychologically abnormal.
Unaided, these dream beings, which man
creates to reproduce inside himself the external socio-physical environment,
end to remain against him the way the environment was against him,
to become disassociated from his major personality and tied up in
was teful psychic, organic, and muscular tensions. With the help of
dream interpretations, these psychological replicas of the socio-physical
environment can be redirected and reorganized and again become useful
to the major personality.
The Senoi believes that any human being,
with the aid of his fellows, can outface, master, and actually utilize
all beings and forces in the dream universe. His experience leads
him to believe that, if you cooperate with your fellows or oppose
them wit h good will in the day time, their images will help you in
your dreams, and that every person should be the supreme ruler
and master of his own dream or spiritual universe, and can demand
and receive the help and cooperation of all the forces the re.
In order to evaluate these principles
of dream interpretation and social action, I made a collection of
the dreams of younger and older Senoi children, adolescents, and adults,
and compared them with similar collections made in other societies
where t hey had different social attitudes towards the dream and different
methods of dream interpretation. I found through this larger study
that the dream process evolved differently in the various societies,
and that the evolution of the dream process seemed t o be related
to the adaptability and individual creative output of the various
societies. It may be of interest to the reader to examine in detail
the methods of Senoi dream interpretation:
The simplest anxiety or terror dream
I found among the Senoi was the falling dream. When the Senoi child
reports a falling dream, the adult answers with enthusiasm, "That
is a wonderful dream, one of the best dreams a man can have. Where
did you fall to, and what did you discover" He makes the same comment
when the child reports a climbing, traveling, flying, or soaring dream.
The child at first answers, as he would in our society, that it did
not seem so wonderful, and that he was so frightened that he awoke
before he had fallen anywhere.
"That was a mistake," answers the adult-authority.
"Everything you I do in a dream has a purpose, beyond your understanding
while you are asleep. You must relax and enjoy yourself when you fall
in a dream. Falling is the quickest way to get in contact with the
powers of the spirit world, the powers laid open to you through your
dreams. Soon, I when you have a falling dream, you will remember what
I am saying, and as you do, you will feel that you are traveling to
the source of the power which has caus ed you to fall.
"The falling spirits love you. They
are attracting you to their land, and you have but to relax and remain
asleep in order to come to grips with them. When you meet them, you
may be frightened of their terrific power, but go on. When you think
you are dying in a dream, you are only receiving the powers of the
other world, your own spiritual power which has been turned against
you, and which now wishes to become one with you if you will accept
it."
The astonishing thing is that over a
period of time, with this type of social interaction, praise, or criticism,
imperatives, and advice, the dream which starts out with fear of falling
changes into the joy of flying. This happens to everyone in the Se
noi society. That which was an indwelling fear or anxiety, becomes
an indwelling joy or act of will; that which was ill esteem toward
the forces which caused the child to fall in his dream, becomes good
will towards the denizens of the dream world, becaus e he relaxes
in his dream and finds pleasurable adventures, rather than waking
up with a clammy skin and a crawling scalp.
The Senoi believe and teach that the
dreamer - the "I" of the dream - should always advance and attack
in the teeth of danger, calling on the dream images of his fellows
if necessary, but fighting by himself until they arrive. In bad dreams
the Senoi b elieve real friends will never attack the dreamer or refuse
help. If any dream character who looks like a friend is hostile or
uncooperative in a dream, he is only wearing the mask of a friend.
If the dreamer attacks and kills the
hostile dream character, the spirit or essence of this dream character
will always emerge as a servant or ally. Dream characters are bad
only as long as one is afraid and retreating from them, and will continue
to s eem bad and fearful as long as one refuses to come to grips with
them.
According to the Senoi, pleasurable
dreams, such as of flying or sexual love, should be continued until
they arrive at a resolution which, on awakening, leaves one with something
of beauty or use to the group. For example, one should arrive somewhere
w hen he flies, meet the beings there, hear their music, see their
designs, their dances, and learn their useful knowledge.
Dreams of sexual love should always
move through orgasm, and the dreamer should then demand from his dream
lover the poem, the song, the dance, the useful knowledge which will
express the beauty of his spiritual lover to a group. If this is done,
no dream man or woman can take the love which belongs to human beings.
If the dream character demanding love looks like a brother or sister,
with whom love would be abnormal or incestuous in reality, one need
have no fear of expressing love in the dream, sinc e these dream beings
are not, in fact, brother or sister, but have only chosen these taboo
images as a disguise. Such dream beings are only facets of one's own
spiritual or psychic makeup, disguised as brother or sister, and useless
until they are reclaimed or possessed through the free expression
of love in the dream universe.
If the dreamer demands and receives
from his love partners a contribution which he can express to the
group on awakening, he cannot express or receive too much love in
dreams. A rich love life in dreams indicates the favor of the beings
of the spiritua l or emotional universe. If the dreamer injures the
dream images of his fellows or refuses to cooperate with them in dreams,
he should go out of his way to express friendship and cooperation
on awakening, since hostile dream characters can only use the im age
of people for whom his good will is running low. If the image of a
friend hurts him in a dream, the friend should be advised of the fact,
so he can repair his damaged or negative dream image in social intercourse.
Let us examine some of the processes
involved in this type of dream interpretation.
First, the child receives social recognition
and esteem for discovering and relating what might be called an anxiety
motivated psychic reaction. This is the first step among the Senoi
toward convincing the child that he is acceptable to authority even
when he reveals how he is inside.
Second, it describes the working of
his mind as rational, even when he is asleep. To the Senoi it is just
as reasonable for the child to adjust his inner tension states for
himself as it is for a Western child to do his homework for the teacher.
Third, the interpretation characterizes
the force which the child feels in the dream as a power which he can
control through a process of relaxation and mental set, a force which
is his as soon as he can reclaim it and learn to direct it.
Fourth, the Senoi education indicates
that anxiety is not only important in itself, but that it blocks the
free play of imaginative and creative activity to which dreams could
otherwise give rise.
Fifth, it establishes the principle
that the child should make decisions and arrive at resolutions in
his night-time thinking as well as in that of the day, and should
assume a responsible attitude toward all his psychic reactions and
forces.
Sixth, it acquaints the child with the
fact that he can better control, his psychic reactions by expressing
them and taking thought upon them than by concealing and repressing
them.
Seventh, it initiates the Senoi child
into a way of thinking which will be strengthened and developed throughout
the rest of his life, and which assumes that a human being who retains
good will for his fellows and communicates his psychic reactions to
them for approval and criticism, is the supreme ruler of all the individual
forces of the spirit -subjective-world whatsoever.
Man discovers his deepest self and reveals
his greatest creative power at times when his psychic processes are
most free from immediate involvement with the environment and most
under the control of his indwelling balancing or homeostatic power.
The freest type of psychic play occurs in sleep, and the social acceptance
of the dream would, therefore, constitute the deepest possible acceptance
of the individual.
Among the Senoi one accumulates good
will for people because they encourage on every hand the free exercise
and expression of that which is most basically himself, either directly
or indirectly, through the acceptance of the dream process. At the
same time, the child is told that he must refuse to settle with the
denizens of the dream world unless they make some contribution which
is socially meaningful and constructive as determined by social consensus
on awakening. Thus his dream reorganization is gu ided in a way which
makes his adult aggressive action socially constructive. Among the
Senoi where the authority tells the child that every dream force and
character is real and important, and in essence permanent, that it
can and must be outfaced, subdue d, and forced to make a socially
meaningful contribution, the wisdom of the body operating in sleep,
seems in fact to reorganize the accumulating experience of the child
in such a way that the natural tendency of the higher nervous system
to perpetuate un pleasant experiences is first neutralized and then
reversed.
We could call this simple type of interpretation
dream analysis. It says to the child that there is a manifest content
of the dream, the root he stubbed his toe on, or the fire that burned
him, or the composite individual that disciplined him. But th ere
is also a latent content of the dream, a force which is potentially
useful, but which will plague him until he outfaces the manifest content
in a future dream, and either persuades or forces it to make a contribution
which will be judged useful or beautiful by the group, after he awakes.
We could call this type of interpretation
suggestion. The tendency to perpetuate in sleep the negative
image of a personified evil, is neutralized in the dream by a similar
tendency to perpetuate the positive image of a sympathetic social
author ity. Thus accumulating social experience supports the organizing
wisdom of the body in the dream, making the dreamer first unafraid
of the negative image and its accompanying painful tension states,
and later enabling him to break up that tension state an d transmute
the accumulated energy from anxiety into a poem, a song, a dance,
a new type of trap, or some other creative product, to which an individual
or the whole group will react with approval (or criticize) the following
day.
The following further example from the
Senoi will show how this process operates:
A child dreams that he is attacked by
a fiend and, on awakening, is advised by his father to inform his
friend of this fact. The friend's father tells his child that it is
possible that he has defended the dreamer without wishing to do so,
and allowed a malignant character to use his image as a disguise in
the dream. Therefore, he should give a present to go out of his way
to be friendly toward him, to prevent the dreamer and such an occurrence
in the future.
The aggression building up around the
image of the friend in the dreamer's mind thereby becomes the basis
of a friendly exchange. The dreamer is also told to fight back in
the future dreams, and to conquer any dream character using the friend's
image a s a disguise.
Another example of what is probably
a less direct tension state in the dreamer toward another person is
dealt with in an equally skillful manner. The dreamer reports seeing
a tiger attack another boy of the long house. Again, he is advised
to tell the boy about the dream, to describe the place where the attack
occurred and, if possible, to show it to him so that he can be on
his guard, and in future dreams kill the tiger before it has a chance
to attack him. The parents of the boy in the dream again te ll the
child to give the dreamer a present, and to consider him a special
friend.
Even a tendency toward unproductive
fantasy is effectively dealt with in the Senoi dream education. If
the child reports floating dreams, or a dream of finding food, he
is told that he must float somewhere in his next dream and find something
of value to his fellows, or that he must share the food he is eating;
and if he has a dream of attacking someone he must apologize to them,
share a delicacy with them, or make them some sort of toy. Thus, before
aggression, selfishness, and jealousy can influence social behavior,
the tensions expressed in the permissive dream state become the hub
of social action in which they are discharged without being destructive.
My data on the dream life of the various
Senoi age groups would indicate that dreaming can and does become
the deepest type of creative thought. Observing the lives of the Senoi
it occurred to me that modern civilization may be sick because people
have sloughed off, or failed to develop, half their power to think.
Perhaps the most important half. Certainly, the Senoi suffer little
by intellectual comparison with ourselves. They have equal power for
logical thinking while awake, considering their enviro nmental data,
whereas our capacity to solve problems in dreams is inferior compared
to theirs.
In the adult Senoi a dream may start
with a waking problem which has failed solution, with an accident,
or a social debacle. A young man brings in some wild gourd seeds and
shares them with his group. They have a purgative effect and give
everyone diar rhea. The young man feels guilty and ashamed and suspects
that they are poisonous. That night he has a dream, and the spirit
of the gourd seeds appears, makes him vomit up the seeds, and explains
that they have value only as a medicine, when a person is i ll. Then
the gourd spirit gives him a song and teaches him a dance which he
can show his group on awakening, thereby gaining recognition and winning
back his self-esteem.
Or, a falling tree which wounds a man
appears in his dreams to take away the pain, and explains that it
wishes to make friends with him. Then the tree spirit gives him a
new and unknown rhythm which he can play on his drums. Or, the jilted
lover is vis ited in his dreams by the woman who rejected him, who
explains that she is sick when she is awake and not good enough for
him. As a token of her true feeling, she gives him a poem.
The Senoi does not exhaust the power
to think while asleep with these simple social and environmental situations.
The bearers who carried out our equipment under very trying conditions
became dissatisfied and were ready to desert. Their leader, a Senoi
shaman, had a dream in which he was visited by the spirit of the empty
boxes. The song and music this dream character gave him so inspired
the bearers, and the dance he directed so relaxed and rested them,
that they claimed the boxes had lost their weigh t and finished the
expedition in the best of spirits. Even this solution of a difficult
social situation, involving people who were not all members of the
dreamer's group, is trivial compared with the dream solutions which
occur now that the Senoi territory has been opened up to alien culture
contacts.
Datu Bintung at Jelong had a dream which
succeeded in breaking down the major social barriers in clothing and
food habits between his group and the surrounding Chinese and Mohammedan
colonies. This was accomplished chiefly through a dance which his
dream prescribed. Only those who did his dance were required to change
their food habits and wear the new clothing, but the dance was so
good that nearly all the Senoi along the border chose to do it. In
this way, the dream created social change in a democratic manner.
Another feature of Datu Bintung's dream
involved the ceremonial status of women, making them more nearly the
equals of men, although equality is not a feature of either Chinese
or Mohammedan societies. So far as could be determined this was a
pure creative action which introduced greater equality in the culture,
just as reflective thought has produced more equality in our society.
In the West the thinking we do while asleep usually remains on a muddled,
childish, or psychotic level because we do not respond to dreams as
socially important and include dreaming in the educative process.
This social neglect of the side of man's reflective thinking, when
the creative process is most free, seems poor education.
