INTRODUCTION
This project grew serendipitously, and as it did, maybe the most valuable lesson for us, the three authors, was the realization of the complexities of the world we live in. The study began in 1994, when Stocker moved to Korea to work in ESL for three years. In discussing dreams he learned of the pig dream and its fortune factor. Later when he decided to write a book on Korean social change, the dreams were included as a minor cultural trait. Korea is a very homogenous society, physically and culturally. While such a fact is easy enough to accept on the surface; it was not until meeting Shin that the reality came to have a deep-level meaning. Shin speaks English at virtually native level, and in their first meeting, Stocker and Gallerno thought he was raised in the U.S. This perception has never diminished. Thus when he talks about pig dreams as though they are real, a surrealistic dimension slips into Stocker and Gallerno’s minds. They cannot perceive it as real, even when it is being explained in perfect English. Gallerno’s background is psychology and his interest are in how pig’s are perceived in Korean rituals. Even Shin cannot understand how older generation Korean’s perceive of pigs as anything more than a pig in a ritual. For him, there is no symbolic extension. So, when he returns to his rural town and we talk to the older generation about the use of pigs in rituals, he then feels as we do about his dreams, which do include a pig dream.
In this study we took a folkloristic approach since the verbal aspect of learning about pig dreams was the most fascinating, and easiest to research. Yet, what the scientific community must take from this study is that dream content can be culturally dictated. While this seems a simplistic statement, we can only conjure ideas of how dream content could have been manipulated in the past by the elite to control and reinforce certain ideas, not just of the masses, but the elite also as a reinforcing factor of self-fulfillment. Having studied such a phenomenon as Korea’s pig dreams, we wonder if in Korea’s past if everyone did not have pig dreams, and multiple pig dreams (likewise China and Japan). We did not control for such a factor, but the older people we talked to the higher the frequency of pig dreams reported, likewise, older people talked of multiple pig dreams. Certainly, for the three of us, in discussions beyond this paper, we now have a deeper appreciation for the concepts, and potential realities, of incubus and succubus.
A final note: Our backgrounds became something of a novelty in this research. Shin is a Korea who went to America to study, and he represents Korea’s ongoing globalized youth. Shin’s mother, a university professor, is one step removed from the countryside, knowing more about pig dreams than her son, but less than her mother. Gallerno, a non-practicing Catholic Canadian, married a Chinese English professor who has never been out of China. She was raised communist and has prominent ranking in the party in her area of China. (One might imagine how Gallerno’s family felt about that at first, as we all laughed. His mother used to tell him: Watch out and do not get into trouble over there! Good advice anywhere.) Thus while Richard’s wife had no religious indoctrination, she is still an example of folk beliefs which permeate East Asia, especially during the Lunar New Year. She was an important sounding board for our ongoing perceptions of the dream world. (Even Chinese
communists dream and of pigs!) Stocker has been conducing anthropological research since 1965. He was well aware that dream content can be culturally specific from previous work in Mexico. Yet, even Mexico has no parallel to the pig dream as a pervasive cultural dictate. This research demonstrated one ongoing fundamental aspect of the never-ending complexities of trying to understand another culture (if that is really possible); one can never ask about something that one does not know about. When buying and selling dreams crept into the picture, Stocker and Gallerno were absolutely stunned. Shin could not understand their problem. Didn’t everyone know that? On more than one occasion we all had our turn to sit gaped-mouthed looking at the others. But we all agreed with the Korean saying: haemongi kkumboda nahta (The interpretation is better than the dream itself.)