THE STUDY
The subject of the Korean pig dream has yet to be the topic of rigorous scientific analysis. This may be due to many factors. Mainly, I propose, it is because this cultural phenomenon falls within the domain of folklore. That is to say, that the existence and perpetration of animal dreams are transmitted orally from generation to generation. Consequently, there is to date no written body of literature on the topic which might attract social scientists. (Shin 2004:18).

By the mid-1900s, psychological anthropologists began recording and analyzing dreams since they are a projection of personality and a reflection of culture. (Eggan 1961: 552). While there have been limited anthropological studies since then, the problem with dream research is that: 1) it is not “mainstream,” thus limiting comparative data and 2) it is very difficult to gather data on the topic for various reasons, e.g. difficulty recalling dream contents. Also, the sexual nature of certain dreams makes them a “taboo” topic. 3). Individual and cultural perceptual frameworks are different. Crapanzano (1975) notes, of Moroccan dreams, that in a culture where spirits are not “projection,” in the Western psychoanalytic sense of the word, spirits do not represent emotions and desires displaced from within the individual psyche. Rather, their existence and emotions are external to the individual. “Such formulations afford the Moroccan a means of mitigating the horror of private fantasies and visions-hallucinations?and individual compulsions and obsessions that haunt the Westerner entrapped within an ideology, an idiom of extreme individualism.” (ibid: 158).
However, dream data and analysis is limited in folklore, which should be at least one legitimate domain of study. Tristram Coffin’s and Hennig Cohen’s (1966) synthesis of the first years of The Journal of American Folklore contains two brief mentions. Since 1966, nothing has been published in JAF. Likewise, Dorson’s (1975) Folktales Told Around the World includes dreams of animals and dragons, but no mention of pigs or pig dreams.
Dream interpretation is known to be used by shamans in many cultures (Torrey 1972), and Korean shamans are consulted for dream interpretation (Kendall 1984). (Technically, the label of shamans is too often inappropriately applied (cf. Whitley and James 2003), but that controversy does not directly impact our project.)

Earlier studies of Korean folklore focus on shamans, but not on dream analysis (cf. Janelli 1986). In Korea, documented evidence of dream interpretation extends back to the Three Kingdoms, 50 B.C. Kendall (1984) in an intriguing analysis of Korean dream interpretation, presented both a Western and Korean perspective of the same dream. She notes that the art of Korean dream interpretation is highly refined.

Dream interpretation is one of the many professional attributes of a Korean shaman. Sometimes a client will bring a particularly disturbing dream to a mansin, and the mansin’s interpretation becomes the core of a divination session. Sometimes the mansin elicits dream material as she conjures her own visions during the divination session: “Haven’t you had a conception dream? Of a tiger? A dragon? Some fruit or seeds?” “You had a nightmare (sikkuroun kkumjari), didn’t you?” The nightmare, literally a “noisy dream,” usually indicates the supernatural source of the client’s affliction, a restless ghost or ancestor, or an angry god, and once this source is known, mansin can suggest an appropriate curing strategy?a minor exorcism (p’uddakkori) for a restless ghost or a major ritual (kut) to placate angry gods and ancestors. (Kendall 1984:516-517).

Yet the most commonly known and talked about Korean dream, the pig dream, has never been the topic of extended research. Virtually every Korean knows that having a pig dream is an auspicious sign, usually connected with money. (The only Koreans who do not know about pig dreams are those born with mental handicaps.) From 1997 to 2000 Stocker (2002) collected about 250 pig dreams. One description follows and we have left it in its original state (Stocker 2002:16-17.)

My strange dream
Oneday, I was in the playground
I waited my turn.
Maybe I was about to running
Finally, I started running.
At that time somewhere appeared many, many pigs running togather me.
I was so surprised, but I was ran hard.
I was gole in second after a black pig.
After dreaming, I was very happy.
Because in Korea, we believe, pig dream in bring good luck.
But there was nothing happen, so I was depressed. [sic]