Dreaming Cultural Heritage

Although defended within the field of ethnology, Silja Heikkilä’s doctoral thesis can above all be described as a continuation of folkloristic dream research in Finland. Professors Leea Virtanen and Annikki Kaivola-Bregenhøj especially have, through their numerous publications, brought forward various aspects of dream traditions, e.g. the contents of dreams, their individual and collective interpretations and meanings, as well as the social transmission of dreams as oral narratives. Heikkilä explicitly identifies herself as continuing in this socio-culturally oriented research tradition. However, her purpose is to examine and define her research subject within a wider framework of intangible cultural heritage, thus emphasising the contemporary relevance and cultural value of the subject. She is not primarily interested in specific dream contents but focuses instead on people’s thoughts about the meaning of dreaming and transmitting dreams in present-day society. These ideas, memories, beliefs, interpretations and evaluations, most often verbally transmitted, are the main focus of the study.