Continuity, conscious dreaming and dying: implications of dream-travel to the afterlife

Abstract

The continuity hypothesis poses the waking state as hegemonic to that of dreaming with hardly any reference to the relationship between dreaming and dying. In the revival of shamanic dreaming as conscious dreaming, the traditional shamanic journey to the afterlife is repackaged as dream-travel for the discovery of otherworldly realms beyond death. Conscious dreamers are guided to construct personal geographies of the afterlife. If this form of dream discovery comes to make a difference in people’s waking lives, it would also lead to a reappraisal of the continuity hypothesis for including the meaning of dying in the nexus between waking and dreaming.