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Chiral

Aboriginal dreamtime....

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Is there anyone here who knows if the aboriginal term "dreamtime" is or has anything to do with DMT...I've been wanting to raise this question for years. I know a lot of elders are very tight lipped about a lot of things which is understandable, but has anyone here spent any quality time with some elders and gotten any info regarding the meaning of "dreamtime" and if there is any correlation between it and DMT or any other tryptamines or sacred natural medicines that are possibly found in OZ.

I've read a lot of stuff about the indigenous peoples of this land but a common theme in a lot of the readings is that they are, or were,.. "not big on vision quests" involving making up aya style brews, or snorting tryptamines from acacia seed at corroboree' or tribal ceremonies and gatherings, rather they contacted the spirit world through sound, resonance, chanting, dancing and group dynamic energy connections...so either that's true,.. or, like other indigenous communities around the world they did use plants or combinations of plants or seeds, animal skins, saps, oils, venoms whatever to induce the visions of the spirits.

I just find the word dreamtime and how DMT and the other hallucinogenic compounds found in native flora and fauna connect with people and put you in "that state of dreaming", for instance smoking it and laying down and tripping (dreaming), then there is the pineal gland controversy and how it maybe naturally produced in small amounts when we sleep...do you see what I'm trying to get at...or am I just bringing up something that has been discussed a hundred times before and someone will post a hundred links to other threads regarding this topic.

any info muchly appreciated fellow dudes and dolls.

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well i don't know much but i think the short answer is no. dreamtime is held to be a fairly bad translation but it has stuck.

i hope i'm not making any erroneous comments but the dreamtime is kind of like a set of creation myths, however it's also fair to compare it to say, hinduism, where there is a spiritual world (dreamtime) and then ordinary daily life (which the hindus call maya and say it is false).

not many people have deep insights into aboriginal spirituality and i'm no exception, but i think it's pretty trippy. it could be fair to say that shaman-types who taught others about the dreamtime learned via hallucinogens, but don't you reckon it's also possible that the mythology just grew and evolved during the fifty odd thousand years they had been living on this continent?

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although mulga trees were used as medicine the dreamtime does not directly link to dmt or any substance as far as i know

its more related to our soul and how the soul has selected its ego to provide for it from what iv heard

any land i walk on or stay on for a significant time i pay my respects to the elders and ask to be there where people have walked for thousands of years

try going to a significant place like maybe a nice creek or "dreaming creek" and asking the elders for help/wisdom in some of my most dire straights iv channeled the elders and their support has got me through

however iv felt theres also significant places where people arent ment to be aswell as a sighn of respect one of these was a beach on the ottways where i was quite clearly asked/guided to leave

as far as vision quests some of these peolple seem to have a direct contact with their ancestors (i think relating to higher levels of conciuosness responsible for the creation of matter) passed down so theres no need for re-cognition from plants/psycoactive substance

the dreamtime storys are real not myths but not comprehended by us

this is just what iv picked up from people and by no means direct teachings from an indigenous elder no disrespect intended here

respect.

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Some interesting discussion on an entheogenic plant inspired Dreamtime HERE

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I'm also intersted in this topic but it's hard to find any good info on it but if you've ever seen some of the traditional rock paintings in the Kimberley's of the Wanjina's it really makes you wonder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wondjina

Edited by Birdwing

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problem with wandjina is that a lot of people print these images without proper permissions, i see them in schools all over the place, and really they dont belong there, gotta remember there are certain protocols to go about this subject that a lot of europeans dont follow or care to learn about. same goes with dreaming stuff. an art teacher wanted to teach kids aboriginal art so they did the mess of dots and called it aboriginal art, another teacher at the school went through right way protocols and spoke with elders and community and organised artists to visit the school to share with the children culture, best to have culture come from the source rather than some fanciful idea of dots on a page, the guest artist saw all the dots everywhere and said she was offended as that is not how they do art here in this place, it is a desert thing and even then those example would offend. another story is about how wandjina is pasted about everywhere but the traditional owners and custodians of that image are not in compliance to its reproductions especially some of them.

remember there are over 500 different language groups in australia each having their own part of creation story. a statement like dreamtime and dmt cant possibly go over all language groups. just look at pituri and how it had its part in some parts of australia but not all, or how different parts of story go with the landscape like the murray river, that creation story can last for days when told to the right ears, and that story goes through a number of mobs.

i think it is too simple to think dreamtime is associated with dmt, maybe in some part of australia plants that contain dmt are used in ritual context but that is not soley dreamtime as it were.

my understanding is that dreamtime is partly about creation story and how one can connect back through storylines and ritual to those creation times and beings. singing up spirit and place, a connection to land, community and history. respect for the old ones and how the future is shaped, there are quite a few good books on some things but i am sick at the moment and dont have the energy to go out and find the titles of them.

stitched up your right how some places are open for you to walk there whilst others are like fuck off not for you, ever been to hangin rock, no fucking way, that place has story, for both white and aboriginal about not being a place for children, not a place to take kids, yet thousands of kids go there in a year, a perfect example of how europeans are not interested in these esoteric sides of indigenous australia. i will get of my soap box.

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The word dreamtime is a western construct that is desperately trying to describe a huge collection of interellating points of reference that have some sort of ultimate significance for pre-Colonial Aboriginal life.

To offer one beginning point of ambiguity, dreamtime often refers to mythology and story but also to the transforming nature of reality akin moral systems.

Dreamtime is past, present, and future. It is, to borrow W.E.H Stanner's term, 'everywhen'. So your idea that DMT puts you in a Dreamtime state, although I know what you mean, displays the limits of western dualism.

Western episteme (ways ok knowing) and ontology (ways of being) tend to be really different to indigenous Australia's achievements. When we (as western cultural loading) learn things about Aboriginal australian spirituality they make sense within 'our' particular transforming, but coherent, model of reality; the western world view.

In many other cultures DMT has been, and/or is being, used as a tool, a technology for a number of standard social activities. Dance, song, story. stones and the rest are also tools.

No doubt were the lands, people and spirits of Aus resonating and interacting within a rich spiritual ecology. And the acacia's, well that's pretty obvious if you ask me.

One interesting clue, the Aboriginal method for curing kangaroo skin/fur for the elder/wizards of Vic and Tassy, involves using the brain of the roo and crushed-up acacia bark. The utility of this method, as shamanic attire, obviously extends into spirituality, or as Chiral names, "the" dreamtime.

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another thing i wanted to comment on is that chiral wrote

I've been wanting to raise this question for years. I know a lot of elders are very tight lipped about a lot of things which is understandable, but has anyone here spent any quality time with some elders and gotten any info regarding the meaning of "dreamtime" and if there is any correlation between it and DMT or any other tryptamines or sacred natural medicines that are possibly found in OZ.

there would be good reason why elders might be perceived as tight lipped, would you think it right protocol to then share with the whole world on an internet forum information that would have been passed to you, when information is passed to you certain responsibilities are required along with that info, would that be right or what that be considered using elders for information for ones own needs, i know the information that has come to me is not for me to share with the whole world, its not about ego.

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ever been to hangin rock,

 

Do you have references discussing indigenous significance of hanging rock, besides the slaughters? I would really appreciate it. I grew up near there, that is, in Kamilaroi country.

:)

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hanging rock is in victoria, not Kamilaroi country, belongs to woiwurrung mob - wurundjeri, from the kulin nation. near mt macedon, the only stories i have is personal communication with Taungurong elder.

isnt kamilaroi county NSW? is there another hanging rock out there? my best mate was doing some work on language for Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay a while back now.

Edited by VelvetSiren

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No. It doesn't. Dream is a time is a not too efficient way to express the time when things were as yet not firmly decided, or formed. "creationist flux stage" is a mouthful but perhaps closer to the "reality".

Note also that the word "Dreaming" whilst related to "Dreamtime" stories is not the same thing. A person's Dreaming combines facets from prehistory, and last week.

Country is hard to define. My place is in Jinibara country. But plenty would say it's just Gubbi-gubbi. The Gubbi Gubbi would agree.

That plenty does not include the Jinibara themselves. Unfortunately the bulk were exterminated as being an inconvenience by Mackenzie and friends. Poisoned flour, anyone?

Of course, history has no tidy lines of "then" and "now". So if a local inhabitant develops an interest in such things, be it spice or anything else, and it becomes a part of their own dreaming, it has little to do with anyone else's understanding of how "legitimate" that really is. More or less forever is quite a long time.

Many cultural practices in the Top End for example are courtesy of Macassan traders - but noone would at this late stage try to claim that scoop nets are not "traditional" kit for folks up that way.

I doubt DMT was a big deal here, ever, until now because of the lack of boiling processes until latter day times. Does not rule out a super-source from natural leaf material perhaps. Some chance that an individual wise-bum stumbled across the secret one day, but what is being missed here I think is that without a modern world, and it's modern distractions, very few people would need agents like that to reconnect.

As for this or that place, there are no lines in history but it must have it's threads. No individual is any more "entitled" to any area than any other.That does not stop ego wars, or using modern law to enforce ancient belief. Common sense never hurts either. Of course, if you choose to ignore a severe case of the "time to get moving" or the "ok, that's our welcome about used up" and end up as a few toe bones found in the scrub...that's your choice to make. I would not harvest soil from Auschwitz, either. Not would I move rocks around in geo-art sites.

Someone who can cheapen ancient artworks by photographic reproduction for profit may just find that the things they hold dear, come to seem less dear over time. But it really is not for any person to say person X is allowed in site Y, or not. Especially given that many mobs are not actually "native" to their country but have in fact emigrated to it like any other person. GubiGubi may own region X now... but who knows who they bonked on the head for picking rights 50 or 500 years before the whitebread turned up. Many "sacred sites" are actually communal sites, same way that we now regard churches and libraries, and are found in common turf, no mans land along waterways etc. As a general rule, the further up a mountain you get, the more "private" a site is likely to be. But if your walk leads you to it someday, much as it led someone else a thousand years before... don't ignore what you find, or feel. Then again once you take successive waves of migration in to account, the chances of any one mob having been in sole "possession" of a site for the last hundred thousand years are probably slim, to none. Sad but true.

I stop photo seqeuences at rock shelter entrances and in many cases do not take even that. Remaking artworks as Velvet_Siren said is just a bad idea. But flogging someone with white man law for not getting blackfella law is a bit defeatist in my mind. Forgotten places may be better left as that. The Earth will always know they are there, and and truly alive person can find them again in a heartbeat. Nothing gained, but nothing lost either.

As for kids... certain active sites are not for kids, if you believe such things.I don't beleive modern shopping centres, pubs, Centrelink or freeways are for kids either, but there you go. Chances are any site not for kids at all is not for whitebread at all either. But if you have adequately introduced a kid to the world around it, and vice versa, noone will get hurt. Really, noone will. As evidenced by thousands of kids going to places like "hanging rock" and coming out fine at the end of the day. The real harm to Aborginal culture can lay in calling it out on it's claims, much as white men raping black women and then failing to be consumed by illness weakened the position of the gadaicha teachings around the time of colonisation. Proving a superstition wrong can be at times more harmful than just playing along with it as if it were real.

I have been harassed by so called professional paleo-anthros for daring to photograph a completely forgotten and abused site on my own property,quite likely an ancient observatory and definitely a critical point along the trail to the annual Bunya festivals strictly for reporting purposes so that someone could step in and let the "rightful" owners know. Explaining that I am indigenous myself made them simply crankier, apparently I am meant to believe in the "line drawn through history by people wanting to make a few quid" myth as much as Jenny and Johnny Nav-Man are meant to.

Old time, new time, before time... it's all just now for some people.

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another thing i wanted to comment on is that chiral wrote

there would be good reason why elders might be perceived as tight lipped, would you think it right protocol to then share with the whole world on an internet forum information that would have been passed to you, when information is passed to you certain responsibilities are required along with that info, would that be right or what that be considered using elders for information for ones own needs, i know the information that has come to me is not for me to share with the whole world, its not about ego.

 

Hey VS, look I was so hoping you see this thread and perhaps clear up some stuff, firstly I mean no disrespect what so ever, and secondly you may have misinterpreted my words about elders being tight lipped and me wanting post info on line....all I want to know...and seriously this is all I'm trying to do, is understand what "dreamtime" actually is...look I don't have to know, but I'm just genuinely interested, it's part of being interested in ethno's that this subject is bound to come up, so like prolly many others are looking to learn and appreciate, let's say possibly preserve in some way any little bit's of knowledge.

I for one would love to hear mob stories and learn as much as possible as I fear there are parts of indigenous history that may or may not be being preserved and passed on, but from day one the term "dreamtime" has always captured my imagination and wanted to know if possible what it meant.

edit....nice post whispering leaves, thanks.

Edited by Chiral

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no its good to talk about things, and honestly i am no ways an expert in anything, i think as has been stated already is that the term dreamtime was added on to something Europeans tried to label or find a translation for back in the day.

im sick currently so i dont have a very clear head but, basically this is what i know dreamtime to be, the past the present the future, its all related what is above is below, fuck i wish i could think of this book you would find it interesting its about the stars according to an elder form up north somewhere. its a great read and very interesting.

we all have our own dreaming, our own stories and relationships to country. its interesting up north QLD now pig has his own dreaming stories, and hes ferel ay. we all are weaving our stories as we go.

but really its too complicated for my little brain right now, need to sit down with someone who really can show you draw it in the ground talk to you about it around the fire.

maybe when i feel better i will come in a talk some more here, but i got severe tonsillitis and am dosed right up on painkillers.

i think what whispering leaves rights is very interesting

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maybe when i feel better i will come in a talk some more here, but i got severe tonsillitis and am dosed right up on painkillers.

 

Get healthy and get back here :)

I'd love to read this book you speak of -- as above so below, aboriginal cosmology.

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fuck i wish i could think of this book you would find it interesting its about the stars according to an elder form up north somewhere. its a great read and very interesting.

 

I'd also like to check this book out....Hopefully you can remember it's title once your fighting fit again :)

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Besides my own musing over the term and its meaning, the best explanation of the dreamtime I ever came across was Robert Lawler's book "voices of the first day: awakening in the aboriginal dreamtime". I cannot recommend this book highly enough, it's a wild literary masterpiece.

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dark sparklers is the book its a real interesting read i reckon

website

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I like "dreamtime"..... for me it says it all it's complete as it is. Depends on the person interpeting it I guess.... hehehe....

dreamtime/dmt correlation..... I dont know about "the locals and dmt" but I think that 60.000 years and repetitive beat music (dancing clapsticks and didges) will have altered perception considerably and sufficient times to gain insight in the world of the dreaming. and remember,.. they have ritual lifestyles to keep the sacred (& to outsiders secret) knowledge alive.

these guys had sooo much peace & quiet for all that time that they tuned in very finely into their surroundings.

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The way one bloke explained things to me was there was no actual word in english to describe it

He said it was Basicly everything (History, Law,religion,education , fairy-tales, evolution) the list gos on all rolled into one.

His nan used to tell him & his siblings stories mainly when they did wrong or scare them out of or into doing something :lol:

Some stories that were told also also concentrated on a individuals (their own dreaming) or their community's dreaming.

family, clan, or tribe spiritual totem so stories told & used by one mobs elders may be changed or just not be used by other mobs etc..

This Quote explains it better

What is the Dreaming?

"The Dreaming means our identity as people. The cultural teaching and everything, that's part of our lives here, you know?... it's the understanding of what we have around us."

Merv Penrith, Elder, Wallaga Lake, 1996

Elders tend to be tight lipped about initiation rituals not stories about The Dreaming

Edited by mac

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