Comforting dreamscapes : exploring the agency of the dead through dreams among spiritual people in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Ivnik, Tina (author)

The article examines how spiritual people in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina experience the agency of dead significant others through dreams. Many anthropologists have shown that dreams of the dead are understood as communication between the divine and human worlds, or between the dead and the living, and are thus perceived as particularly important. This study examines how ideas about the afterlife among spiritual people in Sarajevo shape the understanding of those dreams and how, in turn, dreams can also influence the individual’s understanding of the afterlife. It shows that while spiritual interpretative frameworks dominate in the understanding of these dreams, Islamic and psychoanalytic perspectives are also occasionally applied. Accounts from interlocutors reveal that the appearance and emotional state of the people in these dreams, as well as the messages they convey, can play a significant role in their influence on the living. Furthermore, the paper shows that due to the generally positive view of the afterlife characteristic of alternative spirituality, the dead appearing in dreams of spiritual people in Sarajevo predominantly have a comforting agency, providing reassurance, a sense of support, gratitude and a feeling of continuing bonds with their deceased loved ones.

• Language: English
• Keywords: ethnology, folklore, afterlife, dreams, the dead, alternative spirituality, continuing bonds, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 01.01.2025
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: Str. 139-166
• Numbering: Vol. 96
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-171789
• UDC: 2-187:39(497.6Sarajevo)
• ISSN on article: 1406-0957
• DOI: 10.7592/FEJF2025.96.ivnik
• COBISS.SI-ID: 246373379
• Publication date in RUL: 02.09.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Folklore
• Shortened title: Folklore
• Publisher: Folk Belief and Media Group of the Estonian Literary Museum, Estonian Institute of Folklore
• ISSN: 1406-0957
• COBISS.SI-ID: 24169005

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: etnologija, folkloristika, posmrtno življenje, sanje, mrtvi, sodobna duhovna gibanja, spiritualizem, odnosi z mrtvimi, Bosna in Hercegovina

Projects

• Funder: EC - European Commission
• Project number: 101095729
• Name: The roles of the agency of the dead in the lives of individuals in contemporary society
• Acronym: DEAGENCY

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P6-0187-2022
• Name: Etnološke raziskave kulturnih znanj, praks in oblik socialnosti