Abstract

In the Summer of 1994 I had the opportunity to participate in Northwestern University's ethnographic field school. I decided to begin a project on the Navajo approach to dreams. For the Navajo (Diné1), the recounting of dreams is taken very seriously. The interviews of the three reports I collected reflect that their beliefs surrounding dreams are personal and they do not speak about them readily. Indeed, within a three month period I was fortunate to collect these interviews. Likewise, this report is preliminary and anticipates further study. What follows are the highlights of these interviews with three Diné women. In short, a summary of these interviews supports much of the previous research to date. Likewise, this report addresses the value of dreams, the distinctions between good and bad dreams, the role of the diagnostician in dream interpretation (the Navajo appear to have specialists for different types of dream interpretation), and some possible areas of future research. Keywords: Dine, Navajo, dreams, women.