This book presents new directions in contemporary anthropological dream research, surveying recent theorizations of dreaming that are developing both in and outside of anthropology.

Jeannette Mageo is a professor of anthropology at Washington State University, USA.

Robin E. Sheriff is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of New Hampshire, USA.

Part I: Introduction 1. Defining new directions in the anthropology of dreaming 2. The anthropology of dreaming in historical perspective Part II: New theoretical approaches to dreaming: implications for culture and identity 3. Metaphors we dream by: on the nature of dream cognition 4. Identity and memory in Germany: the defensive role of dreams 5. Dreaming bloody murder: women's dreams of mortal threat, true crime culture, and metonyms of gendered vulnerability 6. Dream sharing, play, and cultural creativity Part III. Dream cultures: theoretical and ontological perspectives 7. Out-of-body on the happy hunting road: dialogues between dreaming and culture in Papua New Guinea 8. Taking dreams seriously: an ontological-phenomenological approach to Tzotzil Maya dream culture 9. Godly dreams: Muslim encounters with the Divine 10. Life is but a dream: culture and science in the study of Tibetan dream yoga and lucid dreaming Afterword: on the varieties and particularities of dreaming