A group of researchers and writers in the 30-50s of the XX century discovered the isolated people of Hay in the highlands of Malaysia. Senoi has a special system of working with dreams, which is considered the key to maintaining peace and tranquility in society.
Due to conflicting reports from various researchers, it remained an open question, what exactly is the essence of this system, and whether the hay society was really peaceful throughout history. However, scientists agreed that the Senoi overcome many of their real problems in dreams, they are emotionally mature and reserved people, have great self-control and are not prone to conflicts.
In 1934, Kilton Stewart (1902-1965) first encountered the hay. According to J. William Domhoff, the author of many books on the topic, she lived in their community for two months. In the 70s, psychologist Patricia Garfield also studied hay, she, like Stewart, reported on the unique attitude of hay to dreams. In addition, she discovered that mental illness and violence did not exist in their society, although this was considered a bold statement at the time.
She wrote: “The Senoi people do not have neuroses and psychosis … Western therapists find it hard to believe, but research that spent a long time in the hay confirms this. Senoi has an amazing emotional stability."
According to Stewart and Garfield, every morning the hay talks to their children about their dreams. They teach children to make friends in dreams and even try to make friends with hostile forces. If this does not work out, then friends in a dream help them defeat. The Senoi technique also focuses on sleep flights and lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is when a person realizes that he is in a dream.
Even in a dream, it is customary to give and receive auspicious symbols: paintings, figurines made of wood or songs.
In 1985, Domhoff described in his book Sleep Mystics the research of three anthropologists who refuted some of the statements by Stewart and Garfield and offered their own interesting explanation of dreams in the culture of the hay. These anthropologists were Robert Dentan, who graduated from Yale University, Jeffrey Benjamin, who studied at Cambridge and now teaches at the National University of Singapore, and Clayton Robarchek, who graduated from the University of California and teaches at the University of California at Chico.
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They say that the Senoi do not actually talk to their children about dreams in the morning. They also do not give gifts in dreams, as Stewart and Garfield realized. However, Senoi takes friends and foes in dreams seriously. They try to befriend their enemies. An enemy can express a desire to become a friend by "calling his name and gifting a song," writes Domhoff in Haye Theory of Dreams: Myth, Science, and Dream Work.
If a person dreamed that he had a conflict with someone from the community, he must make peace with him in reality. He should approach this person, tell what happened and offer compensation if he inflicted an insult in a dream.
Senoi believe that there is more than one soul in the body. The main soul is inside the forehead, the second soul is in the pupil and can leave the body during sleep and trance. It is this soul that acts in dreams.
Dream people draw on the principles articulated by Stewart and Garfield. Domhoff believes that these principles misinterpret the beliefs of hay, but notes some practical benefits. He writes: "When people tell each other about their dreams, it can be beneficial, just like openly sharing any personal experience." In the 1990s, some therapists developed a technique for patients suffering from recurring nightmares. They had to present a new, happy ending in their dreams and reinforce it, constantly imagining it in reality, describing it or even drawing it.
These days, the Haymarket denies that they have the method of working with dreams as outlined by Stewart and Garfield. All anthropologists agree that the Senoi are very careful and not inclined to share their secrets with foreigners. Some believe that Stewart and Garfield correctly described their dream system, but due to the conflict in the region, the hay has become more secretive and detached.
Finally, here's a quote from the American psychiatrist and dream researcher J. Allan Hobson of Harvard Medical School. In The Sleeping Brain, he writes: “The field of dream research is surrounded by controversy even after 30 years of intense scientific research. Psychologists and psychiatrists accuse each other of either an oversimplified approach, or dualistic and mystical views."