{"id":3725,"date":"2011-12-06T08:47:16","date_gmt":"2011-12-06T13:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/?p=3725"},"modified":"2011-12-06T08:47:16","modified_gmt":"2011-12-06T13:47:16","slug":"hawaiian-dreaming-wild-goatfish-or-straight-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/12\/hawaiian-dreaming-wild-goatfish-or-straight-up.html","title":{"rendered":"Hawaiian dreaming: wild goatfish or straight up"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Caren Lobel-Fried, "Tree of Life" woodcut<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How much a culture understands of the practice <\/em>of dreaming is reflected in the variety and specificity of the terms it uses for different types of dream experience. The Hawaiian language contains a rich vocabulary for dreaming that makes a delightful study.<\/p>\n

A general word for dreams in Hawaiian is moe\u2019uhane<\/em>, generally translated as \u201csoul sleep\u201d but better understood as \u201cnight experiences of the soul\u201d, since for traditional Hawaiians, dreaming is very much about traveling. <\/em>The soul makes excursions during sleep. It slips out of the regular body, often through the tear duct, described as the \u201csoul pit\u201d and travels in a \u201cbody of wind\u201d. During sleep the dreamer also receives visitations from gods (akua<\/em>) and ancestral guardian spirits (aumakua<\/em>) who may take the form of a bird or a fish or a plant.<\/p>\n

Like all practical dreamers, the Hawaiians recognize that there are big dreams and little dreams. You don\u2019t want to pay too much attention to a \u201cwild goatfish dream\u201d(moe weke pahulu<\/em>), which is caused by something you ate or how fast you ate it. The colorful term is derived from popular belief that eating the heads of goatfish \u2013 at other times a delicacy \u2013 in the wrong season, when bad winds are blowing, causes sickness and troubling but meaningless dreams. On the other hand, you want to recognize that a dream may contain the memory of a trip into the future that can give you information of the highest practical importance. Especially helpful is the \u201cstraight-up\u201d dream (moe pi\u2019i pololei<\/em>) <\/em>that is clear and requires no interpretation.<\/p>\n

There are \u201cwishing\u201d dreams (moemoea<\/em>) that show you something you are pining for, which may or may not be attainable in ordinary reality. There are \u201crevelations of the night\u201d (ho\u2019ike na ka po) <\/em>that carry the power of prophecy.<\/p>\n

A most interesting category of Hawaiian dreams are those \u2013 believed to be gifts of the guardian ancestral spirits \u2013 that are given to promote the healing of relations within a family or community. Dreams are also given by the aumakua <\/em>to promote personal healing.<\/p>\n

The ancestral spirits also deliver \u201cnight names\u201d (inoa po<\/em>) for babies that are on the way, and cautionary tales are told of misfortune that comes when the parents ignore a baby name delivered in a dream.<\/p>\n

The Hawaiians pay special attention to visions that come on the cusp between sleep and waking (hihi\u2019o<\/em>) believing that these are especially likely to contain clear communication from the spirits and \u201cstraight up\u201d glimpses of things that will unfold.<\/p>\n

In our dream travels, we may be united with a \u201cdream husband\u201d (kane o ka po<\/em>)or a \u201cdream wife\u201d (wahine o ka po<\/em>). This can be pleasurable and even compelling, but Hawaiian lore teaches caution. Spend too much time outside your regular body in your \u201cbody of wind\u201d and the physical organism may start to weaken and languish. You also want to be alert to deceivers who may take on the form of alluring sexual partners but are actually something else, like tricky mo\u2019o<\/em>, a kind of water imp.<\/p>\n

We want to bring energy from our juiciest dreams into embodied life and not leave it out there. A favorite Hawaiian legend tells how a goddess accomplished this. Pele, on her volcanic island, was stirred by rhythmic drumming from far off. She left her body in her lava bed, charging her attendants not to rouse her for three days on any account. She traveled far in her \u201cbody of wind\u201d and finally found the source of the magical drumming is a luau <\/em>being held by a handsome prince. The goddess and the prince fell for each other and spent three days making love before Pele returned to the body she had left in her lava bed. Being a goddess, she was then able to arrange for her prince to be transported to the BigIsland to live with her as her consort. Humans may find this kind of transfer harder to effect, but it\u2019s always worth a try!<\/p>\n

Good sources on Hawaiian dreaming are Martha Beckwith\u2019s classic and indispensable Hawaiian Mythology <\/em>and\u00a0a wonderfully accessible book by Caren Loebel-Fried, Hawaiian Legends of Dreams<\/em>. Illustrated with the author\u2019s own lively woodcuts and drawing on excellent research among the Beckwith and E.S. Craighill Handy papers in the Bishop Museum, this book takes us deeply and effortlessly into the language and lore of Hawaiian dreaming and is suitable for readers from middle school to sagehood..<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

I am leading a 5-day adventure in Hawaii, with plenty of magical drumming, from March 3-8, the Big Island Way of the Dreamer<\/a>. There are still a few spaces available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How much a culture understands of the practice of dreaming is reflected in the variety and specificity of the terms it uses for different types of dream experience. The Hawaiian language contains a rich vocabulary for dreaming that makes a delightful study. A general word for dreams in Hawaiian is moe\u2019uhane, generally translated as \u201csoul…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,78,10,2,19,20,7,30],"tags":[821,824,818,819,820,823,822],"class_list":["post-3725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-active-dreaming","category-ancestral-traditions","category-conscious-dreaming","category-dreamwork","category-healing-dreams","category-history-of-dreaming","category-lucid-dreaming","category-precognition","tag-aumakua","tag-caren-lobel-fried","tag-hawaii","tag-hawaiian-dreaming","tag-moeuhane","tag-pele","tag-wild-goatfish-dream"],"yoast_head":"\nHawaiian dreaming: wild goatfish or straight up - Dream Gates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/12\/hawaiian-dreaming-wild-goatfish-or-straight-up.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hawaiian dreaming: wild goatfish or straight up - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How much a culture understands of the practice of dreaming is reflected in the variety and specificity of the terms it uses for different types of dream experience. The Hawaiian language contains a rich vocabulary for dreaming that makes a delightful study. A general word for dreams in Hawaiian is moe\u2019uhane, generally translated as \u201csoul…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/12\/hawaiian-dreaming-wild-goatfish-or-straight-up.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-12-06T13:47:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/files\/2011\/12\/caren-loebel-fried.2008.tree-of-life.ed_-300x199.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Robert Moss\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Hawaiian dreaming: wild goatfish or straight up - Dream Gates","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/12\/hawaiian-dreaming-wild-goatfish-or-straight-up.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Hawaiian dreaming: wild goatfish or straight up - Dream Gates","og_description":"How much a culture understands of the practice of dreaming is reflected in the variety and specificity of the terms it uses for different types of dream experience. The Hawaiian language contains a rich vocabulary for dreaming that makes a delightful study. A general word for dreams in Hawaiian is moe\u2019uhane, generally translated as \u201csoul…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/12\/hawaiian-dreaming-wild-goatfish-or-straight-up.html","og_site_name":"Dream Gates","article_published_time":"2011-12-06T13:47:16+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/files\/2011\/12\/caren-loebel-fried.2008.tree-of-life.ed_-300x199.jpg"}],"author":"Robert Moss","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/12\/hawaiian-dreaming-wild-goatfish-or-straight-up.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/12\/hawaiian-dreaming-wild-goatfish-or-straight-up.html","name":"Hawaiian dreaming: wild goatfish or straight up - Dream Gates","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/12\/hawaiian-dreaming-wild-goatfish-or-straight-up.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/12\/hawaiian-dreaming-wild-goatfish-or-straight-up.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/files\/2011\/12\/caren-loebel-fried.2008.tree-of-life.ed_-300x199.jpg","datePublished":"2011-12-06T13:47:16+00:00","dateModified":"2011-12-06T13:47:16+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/#\/schema\/person\/941740e4115cce34706832d06aa76b6b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/12\/hawaiian-dreaming-wild-goatfish-or-straight-up.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/12\/hawaiian-dreaming-wild-goatfish-or-straight-up.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/12\/hawaiian-dreaming-wild-goatfish-or-straight-up.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/files\/2011\/12\/caren-loebel-fried.2008.tree-of-life.ed_-300x199.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/files\/2011\/12\/caren-loebel-fried.2008.tree-of-life.ed_-300x199.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/12\/hawaiian-dreaming-wild-goatfish-or-straight-up.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hawaiian dreaming: wild goatfish or straight up"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/","name":"Dream Gates","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Robert Moss","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/#\/schema\/person\/941740e4115cce34706832d06aa76b6b","name":"Robert Moss","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/777\/7770e3a2cde4458084d9a31237336b92x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/777\/7770e3a2cde4458084d9a31237336b92x96.jpg","caption":"Robert Moss"},"description":"Robert Moss describes himself as a dream teacher, on a path for which there has been no career track in our culture. He is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism. Born in Australia, he survived three near-death experiences in childhood. He leads popular seminars all over the world, including a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a best-selling novelist, journalist and independent scholar. His nine books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Dreamer's Book of the Dead, The Three \"\"Only\"\" Things, The Secret History of Dreaming, Dreamgates, Active Dreaming and Dreaming the Soul Back Home: Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole. His most recent book is The Boy Who Died and Came Back: Adventures of a Dream Archaeologist in the Multiverse. Over the past 20 years, he has led seminars at the Esalen Institute, Kripalu, the Omega Institute, the New York Open Center, Bastyr University, John F. Kennedy University, Meriter Hospital, and many other centers and institutions. He has taught depth workshops in Active Dreaming in the UK, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Brazil and Austria and leads a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. He hosts the \"\"Way of the Dreamer\"\" radio show at www.healthylife.net. He has appeared on many TV and radio shows, ranging from Charlie Rose and the Today show to Coast to Coast and the Diane Rehm show on NPR. His articles on dreaming have been published in media ranging from Parade to Shaman's Drum.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.mossdreams.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/author\/rmoss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3725"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3731,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3725\/revisions\/3731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}